Council in Ottawa

           Warm greetings to all the members.

            From October 10th to October 12^th, the Council had the opportunity to meet and work together in Ottawa. We stayed at the residence on the campus of La Cité collégiale, which is the location of the 2016 Conference, Encountering our Humanity. It felt good to experience and warm the space towards the August 2016 gathering. We are excited by the location.

            What is going on in the world around us? What is happening now in Canada? What do we see in the Anthroposophical Society? What are we being asked to do? How do we move from being a “sense organ” to taking action?

            These questions were the starting point for an artistic exercise that had a lot to reveal about how we work together as members of Council and about the capacities we are being asked to develop. We had the experience of needing to let go of what we had planned, to be awake to the moment, and what is emerging in our meeting together. We needed to be in a space of  “not knowing”; and to be able to give up our own idea of what needed to happen, for the emergence of the “whole.”

            We discovered that when we can work in this way, it is an inspiration. The results spread outward. And we could see in our meeting, that it allowed us to move more easily through items in our agenda, without getting stuck.

            We are sharing this with you as part of our council imagination. It’s a picture of leadership “with.” It’s a picture of a way of working together that is different, that is out of the moment, and that “lets live” what is emerging with the people who are present. This is conscious social work. It reflects the mood needed today.

            It also reflects the change in the Purpose of the Society. This is the Purpose sentence we have arrived at, to now approach Industry Canada, and change it in our Charter.

“The purpose of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada is to foster the life of the soul and a true spiritual understanding of the world, both in the individual and in human culture, based on the path of knowledge brought by Rudolf Steiner.”

            During the course of our weekend meeting, we also had a day of planning for the 2016 Conference. This included a larger group than the Council, others who are carrying this important project. We are very grateful for this group of volunteers for all the time, energy, and expertise they are contributing.

            We have been actively searching for a new treasurer for the Council, as Doug Wylie’s term will end in 2016. Our way of doing this is to meet with potential candidates, and have a conversation, and work together to see if we can work in a collegial way. John Glanzer from Calgary met us in Ottawa. We are pleased to announce that John has accepted to be proposed to the membership of the Society for the role of Treasurer, at the next AGM in Montreal, May 21 2016.

            Other items we engaged with, that you will hear more about in the near future are the National Library move to a smaller space in Hesperus, the website for the Anthroposophical Society, how the Council engages with members, and questions from the last AGM.

            We wish everyone a warm Advent season, and look forward to our next encounters.

Dorothy LeBaron, on behalf of the Council