[Commpsych] FW: AR at Cafe and SPIRAL Action Research network -- upcoming meeting, events and information

Wed Sep 12 20:33:28 WST 2012

The two-day course listed in this bulletin could be very useful to community psychologists keen to brush up on community development skills - I like the title anyway!

* 2-day course on Community Development -- Help! I've got CD in my PD, Thursday 18 and Monday 22 October 2012.  Further details available at: http://cd.borderlands.org.au/?page_id=128

________________________________
From: yoland.wadsworth at gmail.com [yoland.wadsworth at gmail.com] on behalf of aria.inc at gmail.com [aria.inc at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 11 September 2012 3:36 PM
To: ARIA, SPIRAL, AR at Cafe and ALARA members
Subject: AR at Cafe and SPIRAL Action Research network -- upcoming meeting, events and information

Dear all interested in action research, systems thinking and related approaches in Victoria,

There has been a bit of a hiatus in our newsletters and meetings since your newsletter editor went away overseas last year to launch a new book (see below) -- and since our two stalwart AR at Cafe organiser/inspirers Jill Sanguinetti and Bill Genat both turned their attention to other pursuits early this year.

But we had a bit of a chat and last week a further burst of energy came from the national ALARA Conference in Sydney, when those of us there from Melbourne gathered and wanted to meet again.

So below is news of the first of what may hopefully be more meetings to come.

Action research and all its related methodologies -- social innovation & cultural change, Appreciative Inquiry, Action Learning, soft systems and new systems thinking, co-operative and collaborative inquiry, Participatory Rural Appraisal, and so on -- continue to take off in popularity even while seemingly perpetually continuing to not always be embraced (but perhaps just as we might expect of all change methodologies in a world seized with turbulence that both calls forth such a responsive methodology and makes many of us grip on more tightly to known forms unless we can help determine the directions).

It is worth taking a moment to reflect on how, for thirty years, action research has quietly been honing its approach in both practice and theory and is now ready and waiting for the times that are upon us.
So it seems its time has come as the world seeks a methodology that can handle both positive self-directed change and inquiry relationships involving multiple stakeholders with a range of viewpoints. For example, the Commonwealth government has just this year invested $400,000 in action research to redesign the department's interactions/approach with its clients.

We hope you can come to the dinner meeting.
Please RSVP by return email by Monday 24 September, thanks.

Best wishes,

Yoland Wadsworth, Jeannette Kavanagh & Ross Colliver
For the local SPIRAL network -- Action Research Issues Association (ARIA) -- AR at Cafe and (inter) national Action Learning Action Research Association (ALARA)

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Meeting of AR at Cafe
All welcome

6.30-9.00pm
Wednesday 26 September 2012

Cafe Italia
56-66 University Street, Carlton
just off Lygon between Faraday and Grattan
map:
http://www.cafeitalia.com.au/map
tel +61 3 9347 0638<tel:%2B61%203%209347%200638>

After a delicious meal we propose a quick round robin and hear what we are all working on and thinking about -- and also ask ourselves the question 'Where do we think action research is headed at present, trendwise?'
We will also invite a speaker from the recently-funded Commonwealth government 3-year action research project.

Looking forward to seeing everyone!
Please RSVP by return email by Monday 24 September, thanks

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STOP PRESS!!!

Fabulous news. Long time action research in environmental education and international development and the Philippines, and friend and member of SPIRAL and ARIA, Robbie (Jose Roberto) Guevara, has just been awarded a place in the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame. The ceremony will take place in the USA in October.

This could not be more deserved and we send our congratulations to you Robbie You have had an immense impact on innumerable people's work and lives through your work.

This is what they say:
The freedom to learn lies at the heart of all great civilizations. It is a prerequisite to our other freedoms of speech, assembly, and worship. Indeed, education is the shield that arms our citizens against political tyranny and economic impoverishment. While learning is an instinct, it is one that must be nourished and cultivated, and it is in this garden of the mind that the inductees of the International Adult and Continuing Hall of Fame have labored.

This International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame has been created not only to honor leaders in the fields of continuing education and adult learning but to serve as a record and inspiration for the next generation of continuing education leaders. Election to the Hall of Fame acknowledges that these men and women have made distinguished contributions to the field of adult and continuing education. Each has provided a crucial nexus between resources and learners.

These innovative leaders have believed passionately in the evolutionary power of education. All are themselves exemplary lifelong learners and have left lasting impressions on the students, institutions, and organizations they have served.

http://www.halloffame.outreach.ou.edu/
University of Oklahoma

AUSTRALIAN BOOK ALSO HONOURED IN USA

*The Action Research Issues Association has published, through its imprint, Action Research Press, with Allen & Unwin in Australia, Asia and NZ (2010) and elsewhere worldwide with Left Coast Press (2011):
'Building in Research and Evaluation: Human Inquiry for Living Systems' by Yoland Wadsworth.

It has recently received a citation as runner up for Outstanding Book of the Year Award 2012 by the American Educational Research Association Qualitative SIG.

See ARIA's resources website for the citation:
LivingSystemsResearch.com

Yoland previously wrote Do It Yourself Social Research and Everyday Evaluation on the Run, Australia's best-selling research and evaluation books since 1984 and 1991, now both in 3rd editions through Allen & Unwin (2011) and internationally through Left Coast Press Calif (2011)

The new book layers together an inductive-abductive-deductive action research cyclic methodology with: the new systems thinking/eco-biology,  a socio-analytical psychology of 'inquiry preferences' and sociology to provide a radically new way of thinking about ‘inquiring’ as the dynamic for bringing new life to all our 'systems', from small groups to organisations to whole communities.
It also engages with the darker sides and difficulties faced in health, community and human services -- an industry that has exploded in size and monetary value in systemic correspondence with great social inequality and exclusion -- and offers a 'full cycle' inquiry process and a reliable sequence of questions to ease the way from systemic patterns we don't want, to ones that are more life-giving.

USA BOOK HONOURED IN AUSTRALIA (by us :-)

Tim Pyrch has launched a fabulous-looking book on facilitation of PAR practice -- with a great-looking Table of Contents and one of the most inspiring and simply beautiful covers I've seen for a long time:
http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Free-facilitators-participatory-research/dp/1105551946#reader_1105551946

PATTERN DYNAMICS BY TIM WINTON (no not the author, the permaculture systems thinker)

Tim recently ran a packed workshop on his 'pattern dynamics'.   Have an explore through his glorious website at:
http://www.patterndynamics.com.au/

OTHER VICTORIAN EVENTS

*6:30pm Michel Baewens speaks at Habitat at The Augustine/Borderlands $5 Tuesday 18 September 2012
Peer To Peer Collaboration and the Coming of the Commons
See about Michel at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Bauwens
http://p2pfoundation.net/

* 12.00-1.00pm Lunch hour seminar presentation about the Narrative Evaluation Action Research (NEAR) project in Health Promotion, McCaughey VicHealth Centre for Community Mental Health and Wellbeing, University of Melbourne, Tuesday 25 September 2012
Room 515, Level 5, 207 Bouverie Street, Carlton
Further information 8344 9101 (McCaughey Centre) -- NO RSVP REQUIRED
Exploring integrated health promotion through the use of emergent narrative inquiry strategies
•    the innovative methodology of narrative evaluation using an action research epistemology
•    the 3-phase development and take-up by the field of this methodology
•    the 4-phase evaluation methods: a utilisation-focused developmental evaluation, an implementation formative evaluation to trial the methodology under three sets of conditions, an effectiveness improvement evaluation for systemic scaling, and a retrospective summative evaluation for the department
•    potential future uses of the emergent inquiry methodology

* 2-day course on Community Development -- Help! I've got CD in my PD, Thursday 18 and Monday 22 October 2012.
Further details available at:
http://cd.borderlands.org.au/?page_id=128

INTERSTATE AND OVERSEAS EVENTS

* 3rd International Creative Communities Conference, Surfers Paradise, Australia, 26-28 September 2012.
Further details available at:
http://www.griffith.edu.au/humanities-languages/centre-cultural-research/news-events/creative-communities-conference

* Collaborative Action Research Network's (CARN) international conference in Ashford, Kent, UK, 23-25 November, 2012
Further details available at:
http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/health/EnglandCentreforPracticeDevelopment/CARNConference2012/home.aspx

___________________

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