Regenerative Practices and Whole Measures for Community Food Systems Leaders

Note: This beautiful retreat has come and gone.
You can read our retreat report by downloading the pdf here!

April 22nd-24th, 2010

Four Mounds Inn and Retreat Center
Dubuque, IA

A spring Regenerative Leadership Retreat offered by CRS,
with the generous support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Facilitated by Hank Herrera, Ginny McGinn, Chris Paterson and Ben Webb

Participants for this retreat will be accepted by nomination. Nominate a leader of your choice (by February 20th, 2010).

To Midwest leaders in the community food systems movement: We are deeply grateful for the role you play in bringing about a more healthy, just and secure food system. We are also keenly aware of the adaptive challenges and resistance that leaders like you sometimes face when you are stirring new cultural ground. In appreciation for your leadership, the Center for Regenerative Society invites you to join a diverse group of your peers from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois for a 2-day retreat that combines leadership renewal with movement building practices from a planning and evaluation tool called Whole Measures.

Leadership Renewal

During our time together, surrounded by the rising powers of Spring, we will:

Reflect anew on what we think we are doing and serving in the largest sense.
Reconnect ourselves to what sustains us both physically and spiritually in order to, as Wendell Berry says, “be joyful, though you’ve considered all the facts."
Enjoy a taste of seasonal leadership renewal, guided by CRS director Ben Webb and using themes of regenerativity in a variety of poetry selections.
Converse with regional peers in large and small groups about cultivating your own regenerative leadership.
Honor one another with stories that help us reflect, connect and envision our future.
Spend time outside along the beautiful river bluff.
Take in the artful and nourishing food brought to us by Ruth Hampton of Trout River Catering, organically and/or regionally sourced as much as possible.
Spend time with good Sister Silence.
Take advantage of a gentle yoga session offered Friday morning and Saturday morning.
Rest in the quiet environment of Four Mounds Inn's rooms and grounds.

Movement Building

In addition, you will be among the first leaders to explore a new CFS movement-building tool called "Whole Measures for Community Food Systems," developed for you and your colleagues in North America by the Community Food Security Coalition. Leading the Whole Measures discussion will be Hank Herrera and Chris Paterson of C-PREP (Center for Popular Research, Education and Policy), along with Ginny McGinn of the Center for Whole Communities, which first conceived and successfully pioneered Whole Measures for the land conservation movement.

Whole Measures CFS is a community-oriented toolkit for dialog, visioning, planning and evaluation. It is based on a set of core values, principles, and practices specifically tailored to create a public conversation, build social justice, and measure outcomes for community food systems work. Whole Measures CFS is geared towards organizational and community change that produces new stakeholders and broader constituencies who discover they share much in common. It also helps a community – both new and old farmers, youth, activists and educators, immigrants and diverse leaders – tell its story and build its capacity to create a healthy, just and sustainable food system that benefits everyone, including low-income children and families.

We welcome leaders who can benefit personally and professionally from this Regenerative Leadership Retreat and its included exposure to the Whole Measures toolkit. In building our retreat group, our goal is to gather a diverse group with regard to race, gender, populations served (urban and rural, with specific attention to low-income and underserved populations) and mid-career and next-generation leaders. These goals will be considered as we fill the retreat.

Details:

The retreat begins on Thursday afternoon, April 22nd at 3:00 PM and ends Saturday afternoon, April 24 at 3:00 PM.

It will be hosted at Four Mounds Inn and Retreat Center , whose beautiful grounds are situated in the Driftless Area bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River just north of Dubuque, Iowa.

Registration: Participants for this retreat will be accepted by nomination. Nominate a leader of your choice (by February 20th). Thanks to a generous grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, there is no charge involved for retreat participants.

Questions? Contact Us.