We enjoyed another fruitful harvest at this month’s Abundance League meeting, with guest presenter Lawrence Phipps of Apogaea. We met at a new spot this month, Denver’s own St. Mark’s/Thin Man in their downstairs salon. Through sharing our passions, projects, needs, and gifts, many connections were made. Among the connections made (and gifts shared) at this month’s Abundance League were the following:
-Chelsea gave Lawrence a resource on how to get a “reprieve from the tic-toc man” through polyphasic sleep techniques
-Lawrence brainstormed with Susan location options for her Laundromat Project as well as potential for approximating to her vision of a creative arts center/public space through smaller, more realistic steps.
-Margarita approached Susan about a possible retreat facilitation for one of her boards
-Bagus and Andrew shared their passion for jazz music
-Margarita offered her event planning expertise to the group (possibly for a future tAL gathering?…)
-Susan will engage with Chelsea’s business planning expertise (and her ability to inspire people to take risks) to guide the Laundromat project
-Lawrence found potential “fresh blood” for Apogaea with tAL members for future projects
-Taj expressed a need to clarify his focus and personal core, and through a retreat planning consultation with Susan was able to obtain a customized retreat plan (free of charge to tAL members).
Lawrence presented an overview of Apogaea, Colorado’s annual version of ‘Burning Man’, where people come to explore their inner superheroes through creating, participating, and sharing at an experimental arts/music forum. There is no selling at Apogaea; rather, it’s a gift economy. Gifts come in many forms: art, performance, installations, food, drink, and anything else under the sun and beyond. One of the main highlights noted by Lawrence was that Apogaea has been inspired by Burning Man’s new paradigm of community service (Hurricane Katrina rebuild, new technology, and inventions to name a few), and seeks to plant seeds in Colorado to germinate this paradigm locally.
Passions/Projects, Needs, and Gifts
Susan
P/P: community building, group dynamics, Laundromat Project (place for creativity and community)
Needs: board members, financial planning, a project partner
Gifts: group dynamics, process thinking, retreat planning (individual & groups)
Bagus
P/P: helping people publish their content on internet, project management, publishing platform intended to promote green, conscious consumption; music (keyboard) from New Orleans
Needs: music group that matches his skill and ambition, music network
Gifts: Organizational platform, Tibet connections, wildlife research connections
Margarita
P/P: networking, meeting people in unusual ways, environmental sustainability (works at Excel), Denver Center for Performing Arts volunteer
Needs: clarifying her next step
Gifts: event planning, community development, marketing, promotion, bilingual, networking
Lawrence
P/P: DJing, creation of a giant dream machine, collaborative dissonance
Needs: Time
Gifts: Personal network
Taj
P/P: social networks, academic extroversion, marketing, tAL, ColfaxLove.com, Photo Safaris
Needs: clarity of focus, defining personal core, reign in feeling of being spread thin, retreat
Gifts: marketing, social networking
Chelsea
P/P: “creative lubricant” activities, faciliated learning experiences, conscious life co-creation, self-learning
Needs: next step career planning (in 12-18 months), Apogaea sites with 50+ acres of land
Gifts: structuring things, counseling people, coaching people to take risks, flexible, adaptive, creative problem solving
