On December 17, we held our second "real" open board meeting and the last of 2018. The McGee Chamber Choir opened our evening with two carols and a song about mental health and suicide. I don't think there were many dry eyes after that performance. The trustees had the opportunity to address two emergent issues during the meeting. Both are related to the safety. The first was around the safety of elementary school students, which was where Trustee Cho asked for a review of safety procedures in our schools. It was passed unanimously and the staff will be reporting on the topic in February, preliminarily, and more fully by April. The second was regarding a student at one of our secondary schools creating and
non-violent communication
A -post collectionCollaboration: what it means to me and to the Greens
Nearly all the candidates in this election are describing themselves as "collaborative." I'm one of them. I want to write a bit about what it means to me, and what it would look like in reality.
Partisan politics, with less partisan
I want to see less party politics, and more collaboration from all points of view to make the world better. At one point I got asked this bombshell: "Do you think it's possible?"
Swearing at Mr Fishtron, a postmortem
In correct chronology, this story begins with me swearing at Mr Fishtron, but to make sense of it, I'm going to jump ahead to this most recent Easter. On the Thursday before Easter, I receive this text from Mr Fishtron's mum: "I'm very worried that you are hoping for work time. Please don't bring work this holiday. It is only a few days. We would like to visit with you, share tasks, celebrate Easter together. Please let me know you get this." My reaction was defensive. We were planning the trip and had started packing. I ended up politely but bluntly saying, sorry, my work goes where I go. I ended up staying home with the dog and got some much-needed chores done while
Meet Despair with Hope, Anger with Forgiveness, and Feed Both with Gratitude
Last month I went to Activate, conference-retreat and, as was the case last time at Hollyhock, I underwent a transformative experience. Last time the setting was different—it was a conflict skills workshop, where hours and hours of internal work was expected. This time, although I was there to network and improve digital skills, the grounds and people still gave me space to grow, which was amazing. I picked up more than a few nuggets of gold that I can here and now refine into a guide post of sorts. Speak to the emotion Mo Dhaliwal's lecture was about using branding to speak to the audience's emotional brain, rather than the rational brain. Tyler Michaels briefly touched on using scripted chat boxes to reach audiences at