[Dialogue] {Spam?} Re: Response to Corlyn Antenen

[kayfulkerson]

Thank you David for this truth articulation.
I too experienced pain when the ICA staff in Phoenix were told to leave, and
now the building is sold.  I sure would like to know how this $1.5 plus
million dollars will be put to use.
Kay Fulkerson
www.Kay.DiscoverMangosteen.com
602-943-2822


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Walters" <walters at alaweb.com>
To: "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 1:01 PM
Subject: [Dialogue] Response to Corlyn Antenen


> Carolyn Antenen  wrote:
>
> (David's response in orange)
>
> Thanks for your witness. It was interesting to understand more about your
> perspective.
>
>
>
> Obviously each person experiences reality differently. Reading a witness
> about how one person
>
> experiences a situation does not necessarily tell how things are, only how
> that person
>
> experiences it.
>
>
>
> I think it is important to respect Marge and Margaret's witnesses for the
> telling of their own perspective.
>
> I have never tried to anything other than to honor both of them. I speak
out
> of gratitude for the impact that have had on my life.
>
>
>
> It is inappropriate to publicly dispute or contradict such a thing. After
> all, each person's perspective becomes their story. I have not sought to
> "dispute or contradict" anything that they said in their witnesses. Maybe
> what you are saying is that you do in fact "dispute or contradict" what
they
> have borne witness to.
>
>
>
> The Board of Directors has tried to respect the privacy of former staff
> members and to discuss changes
>
> only in a structural manner, avoiding details on problems in operations
that
> could be construed as individual  criticism.
>
> What is the point of causing embarrassment to colleagues that we respect
and
> wish to treat in a dignified manner? I and some of my other colleagues
> around the country would be interested in how you and the board have
former
> staff with "diginity". The manner in which they were fired resembled the
HR
> practices of a multinational corporation rather than a nonprofit concerned
> about the human factor in development.
>
>
>
> Much of your discourse sounds so personal in nature, that I am unable to
> appropriately comment. I reacting to the pain of colleagues in personal,
> then so be it! I am one of TWC.
>
>
>
> I certainly appreciate that the changes at ICA USA may be painful and
> confusing to many of our long time supporters.
>
> "Confused" does not begin to described my response to the actions of your
> board.
> As with anything in Life, many others would see the same situation from
not
> only a different viewpoint, but all together
>
> differently.
>
>
>
> As to your statement "Then to sit and watch as a small but otherwise
trusted
> group of colleagues making some awfully inane
>
> decisions about the future in order deal with an imbalanced balance
sheet."
> I can strongly say that the balance sheet
>
> was not why the ICA USA Board made the decisions it made in October. If
the
> deficit in the balance was not the reason for the firings, then please
tell
> us what was the rationale.
>
>
>
> Perhaps you have not stayed fully aware or  have significant gaps in
> knowledge of ICA USA's structure in 2006-7
>
> from the pre 1984 era?  You may not know that the staff has been fully
> salaried with benefits, hired to meet the mission of a nonprofit
> organization? I have read all of the 990 returns for ICA and EI for the
five
> years preceding the firings. It is interesting that the 2206 returns are
not
> available on the web. My analysis of the data in these returns causes my
to
> believe that the board has not been completely transparent to the rest of
us
> with its actions.
>
>
>
> Thus accountability would be connected to performance and outcomes. ICA
USA
> answers to its program recipients, donors, the IRS, and various
> constituents.
>
>
>
> We honor our legacy but strive for modern best practices on all levels of
> our organization.  Please explain these best practices and how you are
> implementing them.
>
>
>
> By chance have you followed the communications that the Board has sent out
> since October?  We are working hard to help colleagues understand not only
> the need
>
> to change our staffing model, but new directions and ways to participate.
I
> would be interested to understand where we've mis communicated with you,
so
> that we can
>
> do a better job. I certainly have read everything on your website and all
of
> the emails posted to the ICA and OE lists. It is not so much what you and
> other boards members have communicated
>
> but rather what you have not communicated.
>
> I was unsuccessful at reaching you at the phone number 334-222-7062 that
is
> listed under your name. My new number is 344 370 0173, Perhaps you would
be
> interested in sharing how you've used EI/ICA methods
>
> at the Living Legacy event in October?  It appears that you and the staff
> and present staff have decided to use the "Living Legacy event" as a
> lets-all-get-together-and-feel-good-soiree to provide cover for the inane
> and insane actions of your board. I will not be attending..
>
>
>
>
>
> David Walters
>
>
>
> PS I don't know if you ever took RS1, but you might ask Jay about the use
of
> the term "floating". It certainly describes you and the board.
>
>
>
> The following is my witness on the earthrise list to which she was
resonding
> to :
> Thirty-seven years I boarded a night owl flight from Atlanta to Chicago.
> Someone picked me up at O'Hare and drove me to a strange place in the
middle
> of the westside ghetto. I woke the next morning to sound of a gong and
some
> idiot screaming, "Praise the Lord! Christ is Risen. With only a few hours
> sleep it was all I could do to make the appropriate response, "He is Risen
> indeed!" I felt like a stranger in a strange land. Thus began a long
journey
> that I am still own.
>
>
>
> After breakfast, I was assigned to a team charged with converting a sad
> looking, dirty, grimy space that had once been a gymnasium into a meeting
to
> seat five hundred souls that would come together a week later for the
summer
> research assembly. We were supposed to do this with little to no budget.
All
> went well until the last day when Joe Mathews walked in and told us that
we
> needed something on the north wall. He said wouldn't it be great if we had
a
> big set of triangles to symbolize the three parts of the Local Church
Model.
> It was to late to go out at that time of night (Lowe's and Home Depot had
> not yet been invented). So we scoured the basements and attics of several
> buildings and came up with enough to build a huge mobile suspended against
> the wall. This next morning Joe was pleased.
>
>
>
> That week taught me what can happen when a group of committed human beings
> can accomplish when they decide to take what have been given to carry a
> specific task. Over the next twelve years as an order member and movement
> colleague, I got to participate in making the same kind of miracles happen
> over and over again. This my first lesson in team work
>
>
>
> About half way through the summer program I was standing out in the
> courtyard one evening with two or three other people when Joe walked and
> joined the conversation. Someone began to tell him about the trouble
> everyone was having getting the little canteen. It seems that the
colleague
> assigned to run it would not show up at the appointed time to open up.
About
> the time that Joe was explaining the he had assigned this fellow to run it
> and not much else for the summer, up he walks. Joe turned around and
became
> his former army persona and addressed this guy down with is colorful
> language and by saying: "If you want to be a son-of-a-bitch - go somewhere
> else and be one. But you don't get to
>
> Be one around me." He then stooped over and began chatting with a young
girl
> that had been tugging on his pants leg trying to get his attention. This
was
> first real lesson existential style and radical integrity.
>
>
>
> Marge Philbrook witness several months ago was painful for me to read.
Here
> was some who cared for me all those years ago when I trying to figure out
> where was and what this new way living was all about. What was so painful
> was not so much the way she had been treated along with all her other
> colleagues who had been so shamefully fired, but rather the decision who
> some very old colleagues had decided not to care for her and other
dismissed
> staff members. She talked about how people would come to conferences in
the
> Kemper building and express appreciation over the gracious hospitality.
She
> bemoan the fact that was now gone. This is the place where some many
learned
> about what means to human being engaged it creating the future.
>
>
>
> Then a couple weeks ago I got an email from Margaret Aiseayew. She too
wrote
> about the pain she felt relative to what has happened in the Kemper
building
> over the last nine months. Here is another colleague who had invested so
> many years not only carrying the tasks she had been assigned but caring so
> deeply for all around her. Then to sit and watch as a small but otherwise
> trusted group of colleagues making some awfully inane decisions about the
> future in order deal with an imbalanced balance sheet.
>
>
>
> I have thought about Marge and Margaret a lot the past few days. I thought
> about the bumbling colleague that Joe had chewed out. About the board that
> had refused to act out of the common wisdom and methodological prowess we
> had all learned together. About a president who refuses to change course,
> about a college student who kills thirty something people and then himself
> last spring. What underlies all this it seems to me is what happens when
> people refuse to deal with life?
>
>
>
> Kirkegard taught us that what we despair over is not the situation we find
> our selves in, but the relation ship we take to our given situation. Jesus
> expressed the same thing when he told the man to pick up his bed and walk.
> We can all live our lives or let our lives consume us. The word about is
we
> can decide to live our lives -  or we can even decide to  REALLY REALLY
LIVE
> OUR LIVES.
>
>
>
> Marge and Margaret have both decided in the midst of their pain to go
ahead
> and live their lives and we can too!
>
>
>
> I am David Walters. I took a PLC course and RS-I in the spring of 1970 and
> worked in the summer program on the Local Church.  I attended the Academy
> that fall. . I worked on the Social Processes the next summer. I helped
> finish up with town Meeting in the spring of 1978 and went to help start
> thee Gibson HDP. I stayed until it ended in 1980. Since then I have been
> living in Andalusia, AL and continue to use what I learned with EI and the
> ICA in community projects and my local church
>
>
>
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