North Sydney

February 23rd  2000

Did I say something about all the new participants showing up to Conversations this month?  Well it happened again this evening.  About half of our group were newcomers and the numbers still grow.

The evening turned more into a meeting than our usual conversation style but we still covered a lot of ground.  Issues such as Corporate ethics,  reducing our ecological footprint, building community through the likes of car free days (as they did in Italy recently) and street parties were all explored. We talked about voluntary simplicity and responded to David Suziki's question, "When is enough, enough?"  (No David wasn't there.  He'd asked that question at another forum the night before.)

One thing we were pretty clear about was the that huge parties or organisations are not necessary to create change.  What it can take is lots of people doing little things to make a difference and influencing just those we can touch in our immediate circle.  The real possibilities for change come about by small conversations and perhaps handwritten letters to the pollies.

A big question was simply, how do we get the things that we already know internalised to actually BE in our lives.  And then how can we influence others to help them overcome their prejudices?

While looking for a sustaining theme for the next few conversations we looked at aspects of environmental issues. One was the effect of the meat industry on the environment. 
Sustainable environmentally friendly transport came into scrutiny but the final theme that won our support for continued investigation and conversation was:

"In what ways can we as individuals make a difference in our community?" Questions to add to that would be, "In what ways have we seen others have an impact on the community?"  In what ways can we get or give support to making changes in our community?"

Perhaps you have some ideas to add yourself.   Well then come and join us in this one or if you can't make it, email your thoughts and we'll express them to the group.

The next meeting at this venue in North Sydney will be on Wed March 22nd 6.15pm

Post Script.
A half a dozen of us adjourned to a local eatery for dinner afterwards and that's where ideas flowed even more freely.  An example of the creative thoughts was an environmentally friendly solution to the problem of transporting people around the city.    A nameless and, I believe 'homeless' participant in our little party has come up with the "Slippery Dip" idea of building a network of slides from the top of   tall buildings around the city to the ground at various destinations and.....    need I go on?  He (yes it WAS a bloke's idea.) offered the great advances that have been made in the field of friction reduction so we won't burn our butts.  Truth to tell, some of us were a little sceptical...  hmmm  Good night.