May 1-6, 2012
4pm Tuesday to 12pm Sunday
Cost: $2000
Includes Room, Board and Supplies
Sharing the Harvest
Experiential Program for Group Leaders
Based on a new Gender-Inclusive, Female Identified Group Dynamics Theory
This program is our first level response to many requests from women and men for a course in which we share the theoretical and practical results of our long-term study of the irreducible content of “women’s group process”. Over the decades we have worked with many long-term women’s collaboratives in India and the United States and have developed and tested an experience-based group dynamics theory, its corresponding leadership practices, group activities and intervention skills. This female-identified theory base is gender inclusive, sides with a healthy interactive process and strengthens the capacity to lead towards peaceful and sustainable community and work life for all.
Pay $200 Non-Refundable Deposit |
Early Registration Balance Pay 8-$200 Monthly Payments for Registrations by Dec. 31, 2011 |
Balance Pay 9-$200 Monthly Payments for Registrations After Jan. 1, 2012 |
Pay $1600 Balance Payment for Registrations by Dec. 31, 2011 |
Pay $1800 Balance Payment for those who Registrations After Jan. 1, 2012 |
Pay $2000 Full Payment for Registrations after Jan. 1, 2012 |
We are especially interested in sharing this work with younger women and men practitioners. We hope to be able to have a strong representation of people with diverse backgrounds and experience between the ages of 25 and 45 years, although all ages are welcome.
Goals:
To introduce participants to an experience-based female-identified group dynamics theory, its corresponding leadership practices, group activities, intervention and design skills while encouraging participants to test the viability of the application of their enriched understandings to prior learning and current life and work experiences.
To share perspectives, practices and reflection on leadership theory, embodiment, politics, and social change practices that supports participants in building the set of propositions that sustain collaboration, honoring diversity, exercising personal authority/autonomy and strengthen participant’s capacity to lead towards a peaceful and sustainable community and work life.
Overall Objectives:
By the end of the program participants will:
*Archetypal Metaphors:
Attaching to a Matrix
The image of Matrix, whose greek root is ‘metra’ and means in English ‘womb’ , is defined as a ‘a place of enveloping elements within which something originates, takes form or develops”. It is ‘the natural material in which any material is embedded”. This matrix is the imaginal web that holds our thinking about working with the infinite diversity represented in groups. Imagining group work as a web of becoming allows the spaciousness and generosity of spirit which feeds a peaceful and harmonious way of being with each other in interdependence.
Engaging the Moon
Our constant desire has been to learn to see ourselves through the eyes of the nearly forgotten lunation cycle which governs our biological and psycho-spiritual rhythms. To that end, we have looked at the life-cycle of the group through a template grounded in the laws and processes of female reproductive biology, the moon’s influence on process and the one experience all humans have to experience in order to grow a human body; the process of incarnation- growing a body.
Sharing the Harvest
“Anything that is not given away, is lost forever” says the Rig Veda. This we believe. What we have learned is as applicable and useful to men as to women. Woven together, these principles, perspectives and practices offer an immediate connection between this small life and that huge and miraculous fate and destiny that seems assigned to us by a cosmic intelligence. Between the beautifully ample cosmological metaphors and the empirically defined specific human growth pattern, a way of seeing, holding and leading group process toward peaceful coexistence has emerged. It is this way of seeing and holding that we will share.
Methodology:
While this program is based on a world view, our approach is fluid allowing for an “emergent” design contingent on the needs and shifting necessities of the group. The program is experientially based and engages participants in active learning activities and modalities. These may include small and large group work, collaborative learning groups, short lectures and theory presentations, story-telling, art, movement and the use of journals.
Assessment and Evaluation:
Assessment will be an integral part at each step of this program. A self-assessment at the beginning of the program will provide a bridge to daily self-evaluation by participants, as well as, a daily evaluation of the program. Participants’ will also have the opportunity to receive feedback from other participants and “teachers”.
Faculty:
Alexandra Merrill
Over the past 5 decades, and through her work in India, Indonesia, Western Europe, and the United States, Alexandra Merrill has worked in collaboration with countless diverse groups of women and men to develop, test and teach her own female- identified group dynamics theory. Corresponding leadership practices, group activities and intervention skills seek to strengthen women’s capacity to lead towards peaceful and sustainable community life and,at the same time, to enhance the awareness of political and archetypal female dynamics in men as well.
Alexandra is the president of Merrill Associates, a teaching, training and consulting business . With her colleagues , she has developed many projects that focus on women’s individuation, rights, development, and political activism. Those efforts include founding and establishing the following programs:
Womens Way, a personal and leadership development program that has been in existence for 35 years;
The Women’s Leadership Collaboration(WLC) with Joyce Weir, a 5 year training which has produced many offspring in the USA as well as in India ( mayyam.org);
Dragon Farm (DragonFarm.org), a nonprofit organization that has served as an incubator for many innovative community solutions;
Patterns of Fate, a program combining astrology and feminist thinking, for men and women, which she leads in partnership with Arifa Boehler. (Arifa Boehler.com)
Avani, a five year Womens Leadership Collaborative in South India in collaboration with Bhanumathy Vasudevan (Mayyam.org) and Philomena Vincent (Aikya.org)
In addition, Alexandra has spent 30 years teaching, consulting and counseling in the public and private educational sectors. Her theory and practice of “Female Authority” builds on the Self-Differentiation work of her long-term colleagues, Joyce and John Weir, whose ‘percept language’ has helped thousands of men and women to increase awareness and consciousness.(merrill-weir.com) When teaching, Alexandra weaves a deep understanding of individual development, women’s group process, gender structures, organizational growth, and systems thinking with the ultimate goal of engendering hope and agency for social justice, interdependency, and power equity between all humans and the natural world. A feminist, she works on teams as an activist ally, across visible and invisible differences in the service of social justice. Alexandra is currently completing a theory and process teaching manual , The Embodiment of Female Authority, this work includes mythological and archetypal approaches to diversity work and several case studies.
Over the years, Alexandra has held professional memberships in the National Training Laboratories Institute and The Indian Society for Applied Behavioral Sciences (ISABS). She has served as the chair of the board of directors of Hope Springs Institute (Hope SpringsInsititute.org.), and is a recipient of the Maine Women’s Fund Award, given annually to women who have made significant contributions to the lives of other women. Living and teaching in Maine, she has degrees from Smith College, and Yale University.
Daisy Rios
Daisy Ríos’ life’s work has centered on creating more equitable relations and systems in work places and communities. Her work experience is grounded in her core belief system of social justice, power equity and human relations. Her practice is grounded in her ability to support individuals and groups to access their creativity, intuition and intrinsic gifts.
Daisy has extensive experience as an advocate, coach, counselor, diversity practitioner, facilitator/trainer, and organization development (OD) specialist. In her business, Atabey Consulting, she provides services to individuals and groups interested in achieving high levels of personal and professional excellence; guides clients in deep-level work that engages their mind, heart and spirit; supports small and large groups in team building processes that stimulate their creativity and lead to collective learning and commitment to action while managing conflict and engaging across all differences.
Daisy is a highly experienced facilitator and trainer. She creates safe learning environments where individuals can experience the magic of working collaboratively in community while exploring values, finding individual and collective voice, defining and articulating leadership skills, addressing power, and understanding the imperative of the “use of self” as an instrument of change. Examples of “training” programs include:
Daisy is a committed mother, grandmother, wife, daughter, and friend. Currently she is interested in creating opportunities for Veterans to engage in healing work. She is also attending to her spiritual and creative yearnings and examining the meaning of “work” in one’s life path. Daisy is deeply interested in honoring her elders and family roots and is writing a memoir that captures her mother’s experience as a Puerto Rican migrant.
Daisy’s prior professional experiences have included working independently and in collaboration with OD firms to design and deliver strategies and interventions for both profit and non-profit companies*. She has also served as an external OD specialist, providing consultation to firms interested in becoming model companies by highlighting diversity as a key strategic component in their culture change processes.
Daisy served as a Vice President and Director of Professional Development at Elsie Y. Cross Associates (EYCA) where she was responsible for business development and managed the professional development process for a cadre of high-performing OD and diversity consultants and trainers.
Daisy has also provided advising and counseling services to college students on an individual and group basis and created programs to assure student success and reduce attrition, with a special focus on multicultural students, at Stockton State College and Temple University.
Daisy is a member of the Institute for Applied Behavioral Sciences (NTL) and has provided consultation and training to its clients. She has volunteered in a variety of organizations and is currently a member of the board of Hope Springs Institute.
Daisy’s earned a Ph.D. in Education at Temple University with an emphasis on Psychoeducational Processes & Organization Development and an M.S. in Psychological Services in Education from the University of Pennsylvania. These have provided the theoretical underpinnings, experiences and research that guide her work. Committed to continuous learning, she has participated in the following leadership and personal development programs.
* Sample Client List:
Aspira, AstraMerck Pharmaceutica, Booz-Allen, Cigna, CoreStates Financial Services, Ford Motor Company, First Union Bank, Johnson and Johnson Companies, LeviStrauss (Project Change), Michigan Education Association (MEA), Ohio Education Association OEA), Philadelphia-Camden Informal Science Education, Shell Oil Company, Synovus-Tsys, Verizon, Wachovia Bank, York Schools.
Bhanumathy Vasudevan
Bhanu lives in south of India in a rural location adjacent to Bangalore. Bhanu’s work profile has evolved from several roles such as teacher, mentor, personal development consultant, researcher, Organization Development (OD) and Diversity consultant to organizations and individuals for over 30years. She is a graduate in social sciences with masters diploma in Personnel Management and accreditation in Applied Behavioral Sciences from Indian Society of Applied Behavioral Science (ISABS). She staffs Group Relations Conferences – GRC (Known as Tavistock Model) in India that primarily works with unconscious dynamics in individuals, systems and organisations since 1984.
She facilitates, large and small system development, life skills for youth OD and diversity based leadership interventions in client systems. Designing and facilitating OD processes in ‘not for profit’organizations through organisation assessment, review and evaluation with diversity lenses to diagnose and recommend issues of capacity building, sustainability and relevance has been her special area of expertise. She is one of the founder members of an OD consultancy group called - Group for Institution Development (GRID) based in Bangalore, India -an organisation that pioneered OD in South India. She also led the group as president, vice president, secretary and board member from 1988 to 2002.
Bhanumathy’s passion for diversity, women’s empowerment and leadership has roots in her research experiences with women from villages of India, diverse urban women groups, interventions with women in bureaucracy, police, women workers in un-organised sector, and international women’s groups .
In 1991, she co-founded ‘Chamundi’- a bi-national, women’s organisation along with Alexandra Merrill and Katarina Weslein. Chamundi worked with women from multi cultural backgrounds in India and U.S. and the work included:
She extensively worked on issues of Diversity and Natural Resource management and co-authored a book conceptualising her decade long work–‘Reconstructing Gender Towards Collaboration’ which has been published and translated into six Indian languages by Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), Bangalore. Also published channeled teaching to women of this century – “Psychic Moon’ in 2009.
In partnership with Alexandra Merrill and Philomena Vincent she initiated, designed, and pioneered a five-year (2002 –2006 May) Collaborative Leadership Action Research program for twenty women from multicultural backgrounds of class, caste, language, region, ethnicity, and religion, from all regions of India. It consisted of 5 modules of 35 days of residential experiential learning, inter-phase assignments, etc. The program also focused on building the following eight skills among the participants as per their individual choice:
Presently the women are working on publishing a book on Women’s Leadership based on their experiential learning. Collaboratively the leaders and the group have put forth a conceptual model of ‘Living Leadership’ and the practices based on the five year action research program.
Bhanu has redesigned her work from 2011 to include OD in organizations, leadership retreats for women and men and consulting to individuals on personal development and conscious living.
Website: Mayyam.org
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