Tahoe Gathering 2000 Invitation

Thriving in the 21st Century:

An Architecture to Transform Humanity's Future

A Working Retreat at Lake Tahoe

August 3-5, 2000

organized by

Communities of the Future

Tahoe Center for a Sustainable Future

Context

The dawn of the 21st century offers unprecedented opportunities and challenges for humanity. While a trend can be found to support nearly any belief, at the most fundamental level, we have the power to choose our future based on values, relationships and principles. An explosion of democratic, altruistic, values-based systemic change is emerging in communities "of place" and "of interest." Democratic movements worldwide, WTO protests at Seattle, efforts to protect biodiversity in the Amazon, and a myriad of other examples are bringing people together. Linked by shared concerns, human values and the power of the Internet, they are changing the dynamics of relationships, with the environment, each other and hierarchical authority structures. A "transformational movement" of a "million points of Light" is clearly underway, deeply motivated by a connection to Spirit or the Divine, by any name, and to others and the environment. It foretells evolution and a whole-systems transformation across all levels of scale in our rapidly-changing world. Shared connection, collaboration and abundance are being offered as alternatives to relegate domination, competition and scarcity to their appropriate context.

Purpose and Outcomes

We believe the time is right to explore how to bring together the people, resources and knowledge to create the future we want. Our informal network described below continues to expand and align with others sharing similar values towards a common goal - creating a more equitable, rewarding and sustainable future. All of these efforts grow in influence as they link with others to build "pathways to sustainability."

Outcomes of our dialogue will include strengthening the personal relationships among competent, committed individuals. Another outcome will be to focus on key meta-principles and the underlying assumptions that inform choices at all levels. These principles include ideas such as whole systems, dynamic sustainability, alignment, congruence, collaboration, continual learning, integrating what we already know to the trends of the future, helping each other be successful, and taking appropriate risks. Examining assumptions of the context for systems and institutions allows evaluation of mission, actions, results and ability to meet future needs. If they can not meet them, do they need to be reformed, transformed, or replaced? Another outcome will be to agree on how to develop "capacities for transformation" that will lead to sustainable communities at the local level. We will explore how to collaborate to create an environment for transformation at all levels, from the local to the international, leading to a vital and quality future for our children and grandchildren. We will agree on these processes, definitions and identify other outcomes as part of meeting in a spirit of dialogue and collaboration. We will also explore how over time we can align with others and co-create a holistic framework and a platform for action to align systems and produce goals based on the values by which we want to live.

Who We Are

We are primarily practitioners who over the past six years have created projects together, co-evolved ideas and capacities, collaborated at World Future Society and other conferences and written a number of articles and the book, Pathways to Sustainability: The Age of Transformation, available without charge at http://ceres.ca.gov/tcsf/pathways. Following the World Future Society 1997 annual conference in San Francisco, members of the "Pathways to Sustainability" track gathered in Napa Valley to discuss their work, consider trends affecting the future, and develop shared understandings. They created the "Napa Tetrahedron," a three-dimensional model of "generational sustainability" that will be provided to all participants for continuity.

Individuals in this network share values such as commitment to community, compassion, democratic principles, importance of diversity, the need for a fairer and just approach to concepts of equity, humility, integrity, interdependence, love, opportunities for a strong quality of life, respect for all life, individual and corporate responsibility, trust and an emphasis on the need for individual, group and community transformation.

Opportunities and Challenges

Although good progress has been made, we feel the time is right to take our discussion to another level. Only through collaboration and linking with others motivated by common core values appropriate to a constantly changing, interconnected and increasingly complex society can we bridge the gaps and create new perspectives, goals, and policies in human systems. We believe it is essential to have congruence and connections across all levels. International declarations are valuable but ultimately ineffective if not integrated into local communities. Community-based empowerment processes are greatly minimized without national and international policy support for new values and goals (e.g. globalization can strangle the financial viability and sustainability of communities).

Who Will Attend and Why

In a recent survey of those invited to attend this retreat, funding and entrenched systems were most frequently identified as the greatest challenges to achieving a sustainable future. Simply stated, the enormous resources and creativity of humanity can be directed in new transformational ways to create a healthy, equitable, environmentally stable and economically prosperous society for all.

All participants will be highly skilled individuals who contribute their knowledge and wisdom to our gathering. We intend to shift the dialogue from the polarity of debate and division to a transformational context of integration and "generative dialogue" that synthesizes and builds on alternatives. We know much of our current information and ways of thinking are obsolete. All of us share similar conflicts, contradictions, and dilemmas as we consider the future we are creating. We need to acknowledge our interdependence in this time of uncertainty and opportunity. Our dynamic, rapidly changing world creates change far too vast for any one organization or individual to understand, increasing the need for networks aligned with individual and systemic transformation.

Those attending already have a vision of what needs to change to align with the future they want our children and grandchildren to inhabit. In many cases they can identify specific alternatives to change course now. Approaches usually considered conservative or liberal, private or public, will all be fairly considered as experiments determine what works.

Process

Varied ideas will be introduced to participants prior to the retreat to identify topics, create questions, and frame a generative dialogue. All comments are welcome as we co-create this process. At the retreat we intend to co-evolve a framework of meta-networks and ideas that advance the work already done and support the concept of transformation at all levels. Small group dialogue will be emphasized, with the efforts of each group will be integrated into the whole near the end of our 2-1/2 or so days.

In order to be able to connect to a broader community aligned with the ideas, policies and capacities related to transformation, we intend to focus on five elements: 1) values, 2) capacity building, 3) processes, 4) policies, and 5) resources. We believe an effort to develop seamless connections from the local to the international will be necessary to transform our civilization. It is our opinion that only as we transform ourselves individually and connect with others in a journey of alignment over time, can the possibility of such a transformation occur. In this spirit, we may invite member of the Tahoe-Reno community to a final session of dialogue and create a Web site for continuation of a learning community.

We will co-evolve questions to insure a framework for these small group efforts. Again, all comments are solicited. Using the technique of generative dialogue, it is our opinion that new questions will arise to help identify how new transformative systems can emerge, as entrenched interests threatened by change of any kind hope to maintain the status quo.

Costs

As at Napa, we will share expenses. Sierra Nevada College at Lake Tahoe includes rooms, meals and shared space for only $75 per day each. Please let me know if you need help with expenses, as we are identifying sponsors.