Workshop in North America

July 9-12, 2024

Bellingham, WA, U.S.A.

the art of enabling social learning

Communities of practice and systems convening

We’re excited to host a single North American workshop for people who are leading social learning initiatives. To explore social learning and work on your project, we focus on various perspectives. such as communities of practice, systems convening, and value creation.

The workshop takes place in fun-times Bellingham, Washington State, USA. We will be at the beautiful campus of  Western Washington University, a 15-minute walk from downtown. 

This workshop is hosted in person by Bev and Etienne. We’re also working in partnership with  Travis Tennessen who, as well as  being Director of the university’s Center for Community Learning at the university, is a social artist and inventor of social learning activities, especially in the service of place-based learning.

Dancing

Program

You will find this workshop useful whatever your role is in enabling social learning — cultivating communities of practice, systems convener, sponsor, or evaluator. The program focuses on a different dimension of social learning each day. This provides various lenses to apply to your project 

Tuesday

The foundations

Foundations of social learning capability
What projects people are bringing
Exercising social learning leadership

9 July 2024

Evening: dinner on the town and meeting the locals

Wednesday

Communities of practice

Key concepts and cultivation steps
Story-telling
Working on your projects

10 July 2024

Evening: kayaking on the bay, dinner at the beer garden

Thursday

Value-creation

The value-creation framework
Value-creation stories
Working on your projects

11 July 2024

Evening: celebration

Friday

A landscape perspective

Landscape mapping
Systems convening
Leadership group reflections and reports

12 July 2024

Evening: travel home

Travel and lodging

Bellingham-on-The-Bay

Location. Bellingham (Xwotqwem) is a university town of 90,000 on the beautiful Salish Sea, located on the traditional homelands of the Lummi and Nooksack peoples. Vancouver, British Columbia is 60 miles to the north, and Seattle is 90 miles south. You can enjoy views of the bay, mountains, and islands and walk the serene campus and trails in the adjacent arboretum.

Lodging. Good options that are convenient to the WWU campus include the Heliotrope Hotel, Fairhaven Village Inn, and Four Points by Sheraton.

Travel. The closest international airport are Seattle and Vancouver. Rome2Rio describes the different ways to get to Bellingham from the Seattle International Airport. Southwest Airlines now flies directly to Bellingham too.