The Abundance League blog

What a great meeting! I am always impressed with fruitful even a small gathering proves to be. This month’s meeting of the Abundance League took place last Wednesday at Leela European Café and focused on personal connections as we each discussed our passions & projects. Meeting notes follow…

Our next meeting is Tuesday, October 14th. Yes, Tuesday! We’re changing it up for October. Mark your calendars. We haven’t settled on a featured speaker, artist, or activity yet. Got an idea? Just reply and let us know.

I want to point out that abundance doesn’t just happen once a month when we get together. It’s something we practice every day through the connections we make and the extraordinary generosity we practice with each other. A lot of us continue the conversations between meetings and have real impact on each other’s lives. Let’s bring some of those stories back next month!

Taj (+Susan)

MEMBER ANNOUNCEMENTS

Taj
Passion: social networking. Working on the tAL website with Neal in San Francisco to create a richer environment that fosters community between meetings.
Gifts: marketing & social networking brainstorming, recent knowledge of messenger bags (if you’re in the market for one)

Leah
Passion: Project Greenleaf … learning + teaching about alternatives to industrial food economy & agriculture. Creating social change through urban agriculture w/ youth … wants to launch in two years. Buying a house soon, where she can pilot the agriculture practices in the back yard. Also starting a 2 yr master’s in sustainable business at Goddard.
Needs: consulting/advice to learn about the existing org landscape in Denver related to project … help creating an advisory board as well as members for the board (youth & adults). Urban homesteading knowledge. Also needs a power drill.
[Susan gave Leah some excellent contacts during the mingling … abundance in action!]
Gifts: knowledge and help making farmer’s cheese and preserves; community organizing help … helping people identify their strengths and use them; also can help stretch a canvas

Susan
Passion: Facilitating group dynamics/community building; the Living Laundromat project—bring people together in a public space … cultural events, meetings, holistic health, performances, café. Also passionate about organizing & facilitating retreats as a private practice … urban retreats that are more accessible in terms of time and travel … vacation retreats outside the country. Also loves gardening & dance.
Needs: to work smaller projects that approximate the Living Laundromat. Needs co-conspirators for retreats … board members for Living Laundromat, and experienced people to help plan logistics … and a space for the Laundromat.
Gifts: facilitating retreats (individual & group). Celery & collard greens from the garden. Introductory instruction in contact improvisation (dance).

Raul
Passion: to create a space for organizers to go to create leaders. Also, wants to create a film out of a trip to north Africa, the Middle East, the Silk Road, documenting the travels as well as “vision workshops” he holds with locals along the way.
Needs: good place/teachers to learn Arabic & Farsi; money for film project … fellowship, sponsors; to know more NGOs in the geographical areas of focus; three cameras for film … one a super 8.
Gifts: can teach Spanish; organization knowledge & experience to share; film editing; vision workshops

Leah & Raul
Have a joint vision for making a zombie movie! (It sounds profound, actually, so ask them about it.) They need to find people for makeup, costuming, set building, and miniature building.

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

Although we had no speaker scheduled for this month, a lively discussion and meaningful connections made this tAL one to remember. Jerry and Donna Talbert joined us this month on their trip from the Baltimore area in Maryland.

Here’s a recap of Passions/Projects, Needs, and Gifts for the group. Even if you did not attend, this is an opportunity for you to connect with others through their highlights, and even network with one another toward fulfillment of ourselves and others in our community! See a member you’d like to connect with? Send them a note, ask them for help, offer your gifts!

Upcoming tAL meetings are scheduled for August 13 and September 17 (both Wednesdays). Keep up to date here:
http://denver.abundanceleague.org

We have room in the schedule for speakers in the next six months. If you know someone you think should be a speaker at the Abundance League, please reply to this message so we can get started.

Susan + Taj

SUSAN

Passions/Projects: Clarity of intention, dance, Laundromat Project

Needs: Website development, board of directors, financial planning, people interested in laundry, arts, dance, retreat work, organic/local food, and holistic health (and any combination of these, even better!)

Gifts: Retreat facilitation, working with group dynamics, gardening/cooking, life/work coaching

JERRY

Passions/Projects: History, US, Civil War, environmental work, economically viable solutions to environmental challenges

Needs: More business for environmental consultants

Gifts: Storytelling about civil war, dream interpretation

DONNA

Passions/Projects: Making jewelry, cooking creatively for special occasions, nesting and making the house nice, bargain hunting, energy work

Needs: Courses and seed money to do more with jewelry, metalsmith classes, a good small group like her old meditation group, learn energy work

Gifts: Jewelry making, a great place to stay for a visit in historic Relay, Maryland!

TAJ

Passions/Projects: Social networking and creative community building.

Needs: in process of figuring out how various projects fit together under one concept … to find core. Getting management consulting help from tAL member Elizabeth on identifying core.

Gifts: marketing perspective and strategy ideas on your projects