Out of the ICF conference

It’s been two weeks since I returned from the Australasian ICF conference in Adelaide. I came back enthusiastic, inspired, and bubbling over with ideas. So many in fact that I quickly moved into overwhelm and what I call ‘splashing around in the shallows’! Anyway the eddying seems to have steadied and has left me with a couple of thoughts and resources I want to share.

The theme of the conference was ‘Creating Future Stories Together- personal responsibility, professional viability, global sustainability’. There was a fair amount of criticism of the theme, many people believing that it was not a coach specific topic. Registrations were down and the jury is still out on whether it was a result of the GFC or the theme of the conference. For me, I signed up as soon as it was announced. It hit two live spots in me, story & sustainability.

The opening keynote speaker was Bob Randall an indigenous Australian and great storyteller who rekindled the fire in me around the power of story. It’s our oldest form of passing on knowledge! Who are our current storytellers? What are the stories we are being told? It’s possible it could be television? What new stories do we need to create that give resource and hope in our current situation?

Another of our keynote speakers, Richard Hames, asked this powerful question. ‘What are you willing to do that you will not see the fruition of in your lifetime, but will allow your great grandchildren to meet their needs?’ He was saying we have to be willing to stand for something now that we will not see the result of in our life time, that we need to rewrite the ‘story’ we are told in our current culture of instant gratification, and ME, NOW.

So I’m left with that question, ‘what seeds do I want to plant for the future?’ I want to ask you that question too. I want to ask you to help write that new story, even if we may not see its end.

Here are some links to a couple of our key note speakers:

Richard Hames
http://www.richardhames.com/html/aboutus.html
Margaret Wheatley
http://www.margaretwheatley.com/index.html
Bob Randall
http://www.kanyini.com/subject.html
John Seed
http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/jsbio.htm