Meetings > Meeting Notes > April, 2007
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April, 2007
Our Portland IONS group is in transition. Just as IONS underwent a shift a number of years back, so is our local group going through a shift, and we invite all who have an interest in the continuation of our local IONS community to contribute your thoughts to the discussion of the future of our local IONS group.
We have been blessed to have Mary and Dorothy, and more recently Harriet, and Dave, hold the space for the group for the past ten years of community gathering, to share the noetic paradigm, books, conferences, personal experiences, and presentations related to noetics. Over the past year, however, our numbers have dwindled and the focus of many of our participants has shifted. With this awareness, we spent our last meeting discussing our internal, local shift, and reviewing the 2007 Shift report from the national IONS group (an inspiring and thoughtful report that I'd highly recommend we all read, at least in part).
Numerous questions came up during our meeting that we will be working to answer over the next few months. What purpose does attending the IONS meetings serve in our lives? What is the value of IONS to each of us? What is our commitment to the group? What have we received by participating in the local IONS community? What do we have to give to this community? What kind of mission of the local IONS group would sustain our interest in continuing to participate as a group? What changes in our organizational structure would meet the collective goals of our group, as well as the needs of us as individuals? How con the local IONS group best serve the Portland community?
Preliminary thoughts around these questions included: the opportunity for fellowship; a community that values and shares transformational practices and experiences; and offers support for transformational experiences; support for integration of noetic themes into our work in the world; information sharing of resources for personal practice and work.
A cursory review of the 2007 Shift report (portions of which we are hoping to email to the group), revealed three elements common to all successful practices of transformation: intention, attention, and repetition. These elements are foundational to not only our personal transformation, but to the ongoing development of our local IONS group. To this end, we will continue to put some of our regular attention on deciding our collective intention. And we will work to develop the repetition, the commitment, that is necessary for the full realization of all transformation.
We concluded by recommending that in our next meetings, half the time be spent continuing to develop a consensus vision for the future of our local group, and half the time to be spent in usual sharing activities. We will also be developing a short survey for our local IONS members to complete, which will guide the direction of our shift.
Although this wasn't our usual kind of meeting, much energy and passion was built up as we began this process. To further the goals of our local group, Andrea has graciously volunteered to help us develop a web site to better meet the communication needs of our community.
Thanks to all who have contributed there time, energy and presence over the years, to help sustain our efforts to shift: individually, locally, and globally!
Respectfully submitted,
Harriet Cooke