OD For Life: Basecamp Gathering

The first OD For Life gathering will take place in the Netherlands on the 2nd and 3rd December 2021, with an optional extended social occasion (a Saturday morning walk and a meal) on the 4th December.

Like the basecamp of a major mountain ascent, we see this as an opportunity to see who else has been drawn to this conversation, to take stock of the journey ahead, and to make initial preparations.

Held by nature and lightly guided by a set of principles common to all thriving living systems, we will begin to identify a way forward, so that we may eventually craft every client project and every organisation as a practice ground for a more thrivable world.

In this spirit of co-creation and shared contribution, key areas of focus will include:

• Bringing life-aligned leadership to life — shifting from an extractive to a regenerative narrative of progress.

• Working sessions on tensions and dilemmas as a field.

• The initial development of a manifesto for the field.

• Personal work on challenges on the edge of transformation.

• Defining themes and structures for continuing the work as a group and a movement.

We aim to bring a group of up to 45 practitioners together for this creative inquiry.

We will harvest what we discover and share it widely.

And we will carry forward the conversation in other gatherings and virtual sessions happening on a rolling basis, including a second community gathering in the USA in August/September 2022.

What will the gathering involve?

Guided by a simple set of living systems design principles, our offer is to create a space in which necessary wisdom can emerge from those who are gathered. Together, we will begin to give voice to the collective sensing of our field.

And though our work together is urgent and serious, our experience of it will be nourishing, creative, inspired and joyful.

With these intentions, this is the shape of the journey as we currently envision it:

• Grounding ourselves in a stance of stewardship and alignment with life. Exploring the perspective that what we're "developing" in organisational development is life and its ability to thrive.

• On that foundation, exploring what calls us together as a profession and as a community. What is our collective calling? What is ours to contribute to our clients, to society and to all life? What is our manifesto?

• From there, asking: what will support and connect us in this work? How do we need to be in relationship with each other, with our clients, and with the rest of the ecosystem we’re serving? What is the shape of the necessary practice ground for the work we are called to do?

• Finally, what does all this suggest for what each of us will do, in our own contexts? What do you need, and what do you feel drawn to contribute?
  
  The Team

  Andres Roberts

  Andres is a guide dedicated to a new kind of progress, fit for a positive future for all. His work combines renewed ideas about learning and change, reconnection to Nature, and the wisdom of ancient cultures to help more positive, and more systemic, change happen. Building on twenty years of experience in learning and leadership, Andres has studied with respected elders from across the world, helping to make ancient wisdom and Nature-based practices more accessible in the modern world. Andres is co-founder of Way of Nature UK and founding partner of The Bio-Leadership Project.

  Din Van Helden

  Din has been learning, co-designing, facilitating and consulting for the last 20 years in the field of Organisational Development. Entrepreneur at Grounding. 

  Din aims to enable the conditions for life to thrive, evoking levels of connectedness – at the individual level, as well as in the quality of relationships between people, in order to create a positive impact on the systems we are participating in.

  Joeri Kabalt
  Joeri has ten years of experience in Organisational Development at Kessels & Smit, The Learning Company and specifically with Appreciative Inquiry as a change philosophy that centres participation and possibilities.

  She is intrigued by how we can live our lives with a sense of wonder and passionate about enabling meaningful and deep connections and encounters with ourselves, each other and nature.

  
  Michelle Holliday

  US based thinker, facilitator and author. Author of The Age of Thrivability: Vital Perspectives and Practices for a Better World, as well as in a popular TEDx talk and an online slideshow. Michelles work centers around “thrivability” — a set of perspectives and practices based on a view of organizations and communities as dynamic, self-organizing living systems. Michelle spent the first part of her career in brand strategy, working internationally for Coca-Cola and H.J. Heinz. The second part of her career focused on employee engagement, consulting for a range of organizations in Washington, DC. More recently, as part of the global Art of Hosting community of practice, she’s designed and hosted hundreds of transformative conversations for clients and the public.

  
  Ella Wiles

  Ella is a host and operations and production lead for Bio-Leadership. She is dedicated to urgent action knowing we need to develop life-centered practices and awareness to lead differently. She has worked in a series of sectors from human rights, research to materials reuse and social enterprise and tech start-ups - all with ambitions to help people and planet. At the core of all these sectors she has learnt the importance of how we connect with nature and each other, overcoming the fallacy of separation is at the core of her work. That sense of purpose has led Ella to work closely with the Bio-Leadership project over the last couple of years.

  
  Practical Pointers
  
  

  When:

  Thursday December 2nd & Friday December 3rd
  Optional light social gathering Saturday December 4th

  Where:

  Better Meetings, Woudenbergseweg 41, 3711 AA, Austerlitz (Utrecht) The Netherlands
  
  Costs:

  For profit business €1.200 per person.
  Non profit and entrepreneurs €750 per person.
  A limited number of reduced price scholarships are available.
  
  This price includes our sessions at Better Meetings and delicious organic lunches & dinners. Not included in this price are the overnight accommodations. Please let us know if we can support you with hotel bookings close to the venue.

  REGISTER HERE

  We welcome maximum 45 participants.