[Oe List ...] {Disarmed} Repository Update--One Year On

Wed Jul 4 20:23:49 EDT 2007

Thank you Gordon.  Wow!  I haven't visited the Repository yet - and will do so within a day or so.  What great work you all have been doing.  You know Abe would be right with you, helping.  I don't have the same skills, but you technical brilliants have apparently made it easy for the rest of us.  Thanks so much for this invaluable contribution to our connections.

Janice Ulangca
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: gharper1 at mindspring.com 
  To: oe at wedgeblade.net 
  Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2007 7:58 PM
  Subject: [Oe List ...] {Disarmed} Repository Update--One Year On

  Colleagues --

  This is for those of you interested in the OE/EI/ICA Repository project--a report on progress so far and a glance down the road ahead.  

  It's the Fourth of July, and I'm sitting here at my sister's cottage on Gull Lake, near Brainard, MN, watching an ungodly collection of all younger members of my extended family splash around.

  A brief historical note: we unveiled the Repository just a year and three weeks ago.  It was at the largest gathering for many years of colleagues old and new in the Northwest.  The event was hosted at the Songaia Community Center (formerly the Residential Learning Center) by the ICA US Board President.  The occasion was the welcoming and honoring of ICA's recently hired (and first) US Executive, Betsy Houde, upon her initial visit to Seattle.  Len Hockley and I demonstrated and explained the Repository on the big screen (it was a bit too far for our third co-conspirator, Tim Wegner, to come up from Texas).  A general introduction and invitation to participate in it then went out to everyone on our community listservs immediately after this.

  What a difference a year can makes.  Everyone left that meeting a year ago talking about the rather breathtaking and hope-filled new vision for the organization that Betsy had laid out.  Within the space of less than three weeks, however, we were learning of the sequence of events that would lead in rapid succession to her departure from the ICA, the US Board's hiring of a consultant organization, its dismissal of the program staff, changes in the Board membership and leadership, its hiring of new staff and its closing of the Phoenix office.  The Repository appears to be one of the few things introduced at that meeting that has survived the year that followed.  

  Len, Tim and I had been clear as we worked on developing the Repository during the previous year that this was to be an independent and voluntary venture.  It was not in any way an ICA project or connected with any ICA current programmatic direction.  We wanted it to be free from any form of organizational direction or oversight, as well as to safeguard ICA from any potential liability for what might appear here.  We were also convinced that it should be not simply a US activity but one for Order colleagues around the world.  Hence the first words (disclaimers, if you will) that appeared and still appear on the Repository's opening page.  

  During the past year, well over one hundred of you have not only visited the Repository but also taken the trouble to register on it.  (We have no way of knowing how many of you may have visited and not registered.)  Of those of you registered (required for posting materials), something like half have made contributions to it.  There are now several hundred items in the collection, to use library terminology.  We're very grateful that it has received this kind of response.

  If you've not had occasion to visit the Repository lately, let me mention few of the recent additions you'll find there and some of the new arenas into which it has ventured.

    a.. Stories abounding, as you've shared experiences from 5th City then and now, Kenya, the consults, witnesses, Azpitia, India and so on.

    b.. Historical accounts of such things as the move from Austin to Chicago, the selection of the Congolese Cross as the Order symbol, the choice of ICA as the first object of study by the Appreciative Inquiry team, how we got famous people to help us make those videos and the origins of the wedgeblade symbol.

    c.. Documents and graphics from our past, like the NRM and Other World charts, NSV and Social Process materials and the pack-it-all-into-one-page RS-I Construct for pedagogues.

    d.. Completions--a new category we've added to the original four entry points or doorways into the Repository materials.  This is our place to honor and celebrate those who die on the march.  We began with Brian Stanfield and Vance Engleman and more recently have added David Reese, Sir James Lindsay and Larry Henschen.  This has now become one of our major side categories.

    e.. Photos you've found in your personal archives and posted: e.g., JWM shortly after the move to the West Side and Slicker in Kenya, meeting with his replication team.

    f.. More country maps and introductory pages on our work in those countries from our annual reports on what was happening around the world.

    g.. In our Reflective Writings area, more postings of songs and poetry, along with longer thoughtful pieces sparked by the recent events in the ICA US operations.

    h.. Future oriented materials from the recent Order Springboard Gathering in Denver on how we might begin to harvest our learnings from the past and empower a new generation of Those Who Care.

    i.. The Portal--a wormhole, single entry point to Order materials and websites.

    j.. And, miscellaneous, some of Joe's handwritten notes and charts and a description (from 1978) of what we anticipated the world would look like twenty years into the future.

  Where do we think this is going??  God knows, Charlie Brown!  We want you to continue to make available to all of us these personally chosen treasures from our past and contributions toward our future.  We look forward to posting audio clips of classic lectures and songs as we're able to find and digitize them.  We'll make links on the Portal page to other Order sites, listservs, publications and resources as we become aware of them.  We're still searching for how to make our classic videos accessible to all of us--Oprah's 5th City, Those Who Care, The World of Human Development, etc.  If you have some savvy about streaming video, we'd love to hear from you.  

  We intend the Repository to support efforts toward both identifying what we've learned as individuals and as a community and making that wisdom available to current and future members of the League.  We'll be using it to share what happens at the upcoming Order gathering in Canada (more on this in a later posting) and welcome your sharing any such forward thinking efforts.  We're delighted at David Dunn's participation in our venture and the moving of the Springboard Gathering materials to the site.  We'd be most greatful for others to join our informal team who can see ways or bring new skills to make this enterprise more user friendly, better organized, practially useful and supportive of our ongoing mission.

  If you['ve stayed with this report thus far, thanks so much for listening and for being part of this.  Remember, all you have to type in your browser is wedgeblade.net, and baby, you are there!

  Gordon Harper
  for the Repository Team

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