Wisdom Council

“Real knowledge begins by treasuring the wisdom of the past to create meaning and understanding today.
…wisdom is a loving concern for the continuity of the world”

Ref: Mike Zeidler, UK Coworking Assembly

“The purpose of the Wisdom Council is to access the wisdom and insights within the association’s members to inform decisions and developments on future actions, direction and purpose of ASP.

The Wisdom Council offers every member a way to contribute, and an opportunity for their voice to be heard, on any topic that concerns them”

The Wisdom Council is by design inter-generational and enables the different perspectives, wisdom, insights and concerns of all present to be heard.

 

Who sits in Council?

Permanent Seats

All current and recent Directors and our operations team members are permanent council members.  In this way everything discussed at council will be heard by them and can thus influence the decisions they take in their roles.

Guest participants

All other places on the council will be open for any Member to take as “guests” to actively participate as equals.  All guests will be invited to nominate a perspective that they will speak from although this will not be mandatory.

 

Sitting in council

Participants are invited in turn to speak from both their heart and a particular perspective and listen to all the contributions.  In this way the wealth of wisdom frm all the participants can influence and inform all our decisions, actions and future direction.

The topics can range from any directly affecting ASP, to global and personal concerns.

We aim to:

  • use the concept of the “Children’s Fire by Mac MaCartney” to ensure that no decisions or actions arising from the council will be taken if it is likely that such action would harm the children’s futures up to seven generations out. By children we mean all unborn lifeforms
  • work with consensus and may use silence and draw on the wisdom of other groups/faith communities which use these approaches
  • together consider, agree and establish, in time, our values, our future direction and actions
  • develop an intergenerational learning culture, calling upon the strengths of participatory inquiry methods, transformative learning and action research
  • freely share our knowledge, skills and experience with each other.

“The work of council is determined by what ails and prevails people at a given time.”

Video length:  27:30

“…to safely talk. And so I think the fact that council is encouraging us into that space, again, to not only hold a place where we can bring our stuff but to be heard and to encourage us to most of the time when in counsel to listen to others.

“I mean that’s the thing for most of the time to listen to others and listen generously in a way which means that perhaps when I’m in counsel or an equivalent, I know I’m not worrying about what I’m going to say.”

Keywords:

reflection; active listening; right action; we all have a voice; bring what’s true for us; equal space; silence; allows us just to be together, children’s fire; encourage us to bring ourselves; to safely talk;

Wisdom Councils