1. Future Scenarios Workshop Abstract:
Scenarios have been developed as a valuable strategic planning tool. Organizations such as the Global
Busineess Network (GBN.com) have developed scenario planning methods for helping businesses and
organizations to free themselves up from the present, and make preparations for potential future possibilities.
I would like to work with other permaculturists to consider what some of the variables might be that could affect
how our future unfolds, and create some stories that might describe potential futures that lie ahead of us.
A typical scenarios workshop might take 3 days or more, so I would compress the process into a short workshop time
period, so we might have some more concrete handles on what our world may look like in the next several years.
This will not be "predictive", but is meant to open ourselves up to many different possibilities, which could help
guide our thinking when we want to consider how best to prepare for all the potential future scenarios.
As a teacher and an organizational consultant, I have studied future scenarios as a "learning tool" to
enhance creative thinking and free people from being stuck with the way things are, and consider the way
things might become. I co-facilitated one scenarios workshop with community and governmental members of my
home community, Bainbridge Island, many years ago. It makes sense to me, as preparation for those of us who
are thinking about what we might do as we see major changes ahead of us, and want to take leadership roles in
our communities to best adapt to those changes.
2. Local Currencies Workshop Abstract
Local currencies are useful for facilitating trade of goods and services without depending on national
currencies. There are over 5000 local currencies around the world, with considerably fewer in this country.
During the Depression, thousands of local currencies sprang up in this country, when people had very little
cash to facilitate trade. I started a community currency in Port Townsend a few years ago, which has
successfully grown to include a couple hundred trading members, with a management group that administers
the currency system. I could share the main types of local currencies with interested participants, so that
we could discuss the pro's and con's and come up with some approaches to give people tools for setting up
local currencies in their own communities.
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