Greetings everyone-
With a week and a half to go until our second session, I wanted to check in
and ask you to begin thinking in your learning teams about how you want to
share the information you have been gathering with the larger group.

On Friday, Nov 2, each team will be allocated 30 minutes to report on what
you have learned, followed by 15 minutes of plenary Q&A/discussion. I
encourage each team to be as creative as possible in your report-outs. Keep
in mind that most adults learn best experientially versus through straight
information download. Thus, if you can find a way to invite the larger group
to sample the learning experience that you had, these sessions will be all
the more effective AND enjoyable. As an example, you could select two or
three key moments -- from a meeting, interview or learning journey -- and
re-enact them for the group. Or bring in any physical "artifacts" you might
have gathered on your learning experiences. As I mentioned in our first
session, the diversity learning team last year presented the play "Let's
Talk" as their report-out. It was very effective as it allowed all members
of the group to experience for just a few minutes the impact of
discrimination and prejudice and moved us much very quickly to shared
understanding of why this issue is so important on both a community and
personal level, and why they wanted to do something about it.

In these report-outs you don't need to cover every piece of information your
team gathered. Focus on the things you believe will help the whole group in
its decision making around what ACTION(S) you want to take to move Houston
forward. In general, a good guide is to focus on the things you learned that
surprised you and perhaps challenged your pre-existing assumptions.

Remember that you have your chat rooms that Marilou organized as a great way
to communicate. I am available to help in any way I can, so please don't
hesitate to call if you have questions: 978/281-0744.

We'll be sending out shortly a follow-up email with directions to the
Tremont Hotel in Galveston and the agenda.

I look forward to being with you all again very soon!
Margaret

Margaret C. Vaughan
Generon Consulting
900 Cummings Center
Suite 312U
Beverly, MA 01915 USA
978/232-3500, ext. 37