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New Beginnings and Generosity

Susan Benedyka sent me the greeting:

Happy New Year and all the blessings that new beginnings bring!

And some of you will have seen us repeat it in our new Facilitation e-newsletter The Edge. I love the flow of the words created by blessings, beginnings and bring. what are some of our blessings from new beginnings. At this very moment as I write, it is the wonder of sea birds flying past the window of our Victorian coastal shack that we purchased a few months ago. There are many Pacific Gulls in this area and they fly just along the edge of the coast line as well as soaring up and around. The shrubs and bush are full of small birds providing a constant chorus.

The Edge is also a new beginning that feels like a big blessing for a person like me working as a solo consultant. It is a wonderful to be working in our small editorial group of three - Daryl, Gillian and myself - and also in association with the wider facilitation community as we find people willing to contribute to the newsletter. So far we have had contributions from Chia Moon and Martin Butcher. Next edition Dave Hall is providing the lead article.

Generosity was the topic of a recent article on Viv McWater's blog.

She said .... "I think generosity is something we can give without always recognising the impact that it can have on others. Stopping to listen - really listen - to someone’s story, or gripe, or idea. To share what we know and to help build - relationships, families, communities, organisations, governments. To provide a willing hand, or a suggestion, or even a criticism - all done generously. This is how individuals make a difference."

Back when I worked in the NSW Department of Planning, the Director General of the time, Gabrielle Kibble in making a speech at the farewell function for a senior member of staff descibed the person leaving as a generous person and went on to descibe many ways in which he was a generous man in his dealings with people. It is a speech that often comes into my mind, especially when I am being less that generious and it is a continually worth striving for.

I had not related generosity to facilitation before - to the work we do in "really listening" to people or having the group really listen to its individual members in ways they have not done before. So the quote from Winston Churchill at the end of Viv's article is an interesting one for faciliators:

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” Winston Churchill