Onwards to 2016!!
Last year we had the privilege of some fantastic company on the blogosphere. Thank you for all of your time spent reading; your comments and stretching questions. We enter 2016 thinking differently because of these interactions.
Here are some quotes from the top five most viewed blogs, working back from five to one.
– Remembering Judith Snow, a phenomenal woman
Judith Snow ©http://on.fb.me/1EZwH1c
“Everyone is gifted.
This realization is partly masked from us because we usually think of gifts as being extraordinary qualities. We think that only a few people have them. But giftedness is actually a common human trait, one that is fundamental to our capacity and need to be creatures of community.
Gifts are our capacities to create opportunities for ourselves and others to interact and do things together, things that have mutual meaning.”
Judith Snow.
⇒ Read more.
– Question the Questionable Questions: Worklessness or Community abundance?
©Graham Ogilvie
Recently someone asked me this question: “how can you use Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) in communities to address a culture of worklessness?”
That question on worklessness emerges from this kind of deficit based view of the world, hence before we can question the question, we have to question the nest (worldview) from which this question and others like it are hatched.
What would this look like in reality? Let’s take a scenario and play it out in two ways. The first asks and answer the question of worklessness from a scarcity perspective, the second from the perspective of abundance.
⇒ Read more.
– Looking Back to Look Forward: the intellectual heritage of Asset-Based Community Development
‘Looking Back to Look Forward‘ seeks to explore the intellectual heritage of Asset-Based Community Development.
In direct interview with John McKnight I explore how -between the late 1950s to date- ten radical thinkers have helped to shape this hyper local, citizen led perspective.
How to get a copy of the book ‘Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD): Looking Back to Look Forward’
⇒ Read more.
– 5 Ways to Organisational Wellbeing/Asset-Based Community Development Readiness
©HSC Voices
Being ready to use your organisational resources to build community involves making visible at least five commitments:
1. Exclusively focus on development not relief. If the development is done well and from inside out, enduring and proportionate relief will follow.
2. Be values heavy and issues light inside and outside your organisation. Start by valuing the gifts of your employees and they’ll value the gifts of the people they serve.
3. Organise your systems the way people organise their lives; don’t expect people to organise their lives the way you organise your systems.
⇒ Read more.
– Asset-Based Community Development: Focusing on what matters
John McKnight, Jody Kretzmann and Cormac Russell. ©Coady Institute
ABCD is often misinterpreted as being against a focus on people’s needs, and being anti-institutions. It is neither.
The primary questions that ABCD posits are:
- What is it that citizens are best placed to do together on their own terms?
- What are citizens best placed to do, but with help from outside agencies?
- What are institutional systems including the state and not-for profits best placed to do?
⇒ Read more.
As we look ahead to the next twelve months, we’re hopeful you’ll join us for some more public discourse on community building.
As a team we start the New Year particularly mindful of these sobering words from Saul Alinsky:
“One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as ‘that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you’re right.’ If you don’t have that, if you think you’ve got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide.”
Saul D. Alinsky
We plan on being clearer about that ‘ever-gnawing inner doubt’ and reaching out to build deeper collaborations with other social explorers who are in discovery mode. Foremost of which will be our connection with Community Organisers around the country.
Finally, a little gift to start the New Year compliments of our friends in Aberdeen.
Checkout this wonderful 2016 calendar, please feel free to share with everyone.
Happy New Year!
Nurture Development team