Remembering Lessons Learned

As with most things, parts of the gathering are amazing and other parts leave a lot to be desired.  Back in the 90s when the folks in Southern California were focalizing regionals in the desert, one of the things we did was take notes on the good, the bad and the ugly.  Starting the first day of clean up, most evenings after dinner, we would sit around and share our thoughts, brain storm on new ideas while the gathering was still fresh in our minds, and most importantly, write down what we could do differently next time (because back then we always believed in a next time and we new that great ideas slip away easily).

Seems to me that following this year's gathering in Tennessee, there have been lots of discussions of the positives and the negatives.  Some of the things I've been hearing about is a lack of Shanti Sena focus.  To that end, some folks have started a Shanti Sena workshop they hope to take to a number of regionals between now and the annual  US gathering.

Other discussions focus on resurrecting a morning breakfast circle, scouting, access for differentially abled, alcohol abuse and probably a lot more topics about which I am in the dark.

While it's easy to remember what went wrong, it's a whole lot harder to come up with ideas on how to improve the situation.  My challenge to those of you who were in Tennessee this summer, what positive suggestions, actions, process ideas do you have that would contribute to a safe, positive and healing gathering?