News from Member Council
Welcome to the Member Council page!
The Member Council will be using this SIA website green Meet section more and more to communicate with you as a Regional Representative or Community Group Coordinator. We hope you will get in the habit of looking here to see what is new that you should know, and what the special opportunities are for the Network to connect and communicate. You are very important to the dynamic engagement of the IONS members and your communities with the mission of IONS - and what is surely your own personal mission - to bring about a positive shift in consciousness. To this end, we want to involve you as much as possible and give you the "insider" scoop on what is new at IONS and in the Network.
The Member Council purpose is to create connection, partnership and coherence across the IONS community, in service to individual and collective transformation. This means that we will facilitate information going both ways from IONS and MC to you and back again. CG Coordinators can contact the MC through your Regional Representative, or as noted in the CG Basics section as noted by need. The MC wants to facilitate the lifting up of what great work you are doing out there as the arms, legs, and voices of IONS. Please look on the CG Happenings page to see how to send your news to appear there for all to appreciate.
Please see below for the names and emails of Member Council participants.
Member Council Hosted RR and CGC calls
First Tuesday of each month at 5 pm Pacific time
The Network is starting to buzz! We will be getting together by phone on the First Tuesday of each month at 5 pm Pacific time to talk about Network News plus what new and exciting is happening out in the field in your regions and groups. This is a great time to share your thoughts and desires. Each month a topic will be announced, and the MC welcomes your ideas for topics you want to talk about. Send a note to John Ogden at blueheron2@twcny.rr.com.
We hope you will put the First Tuesday calls on your calendar and join your CGC friends from all over the country to share our passions and stimulations around what your groups are doing to further the Shift. We have so much to learn from each other that can bring this Shift intention into a reality. The more coherent we become as a Network force, the faster it will happen.
IONS March 2009 Board Meeting Recap
Shirley Freriks and Jane Gignoux
Member Council
The Community Groups are on
the IONS Altar of Opportunity!
This was the way our new President, Marilyn Schlitz, started the meeting. We, the members, are now appreciated and recognized as a valuable asset and resource to help IONS attain their goal to catalyze a sustainable future for humanity. The opening quote for the Strategic Framework report is from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: “There is almost a sensual longing for communion with others who have a large vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendship between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality impossible to describe.”
Marilyn is working with Board, Staff and a consultant to reframe the new direction for IONS. What she sees in the big picture is that there is a lack of balance now between the dominance of the external hard sciences and respect for inner wisdom, or the new science of consciousness. IONS intends to refocus on the core mission of excellence in consciousness research at the nexus of inner wisdom and objective science, and to apply their findings to promote human flourishing and planetary sustainability. This is the primary driver for all of IONS’ work. She feels this work is more relevant than ever given a world in turmoil and going through a major paradigm shift. We have talked about this for years in our groups, and now we are in it.
Marilyn says, “In order for our research to have the greatest impact in bringing about positive change in the world, we must reach two groups: critical change agents and a global populace of people asking noetic questions.” The Community Groups are definitely out there asking the noetic questions, and having fun discussing them. She continues, “To accomplish this positive change, we intend to specifically target health and healing workers (in the first year) because they are in need of new tools to help their patients and themselves while dealing with the failed paradigm and crumbling infrastructure of Western medicine. We will also extend our reach to a global audience through partnerships with existing global distributors who desire quality content. We will unify our brand and communications vehicles, and focus our resources on creating high quality content.”
Looking toward a new statement of the mission, Marilyn presented this current draft: To explore the mysteries of consciousness by integrating science and spirit to catalyze a sustainable future for all of humanity. We are invited to have input into this mission statement. Is this statement one you and your Community Group can participate in and support? Please offer your ideas to Rose Welch (rwelch@noetic.org).
The draft document states that IONS intends to do more learning programs to increase the education component.
- For the Community Groups, one idea for the future is for the Hub to offer periodic webinar presentations by IONS Senior Staff members. In addition to interacting with the webinar, there can be dialogue questions and handouts to inspire, nourish, and support dialogue in your meetings. What suggestions do you have for presentations topics you would like to have? Would you use the webinars? Something else? Please email thoughts to Kathleen Freeman kfreeman@noetic.org .
- One of the most exciting programs is a new K-12 curriculum on Worldview Literacy, or what the students know and how they know it. This multi-media program invites students and teachers to co-create curriculum while developing an understanding of, and appreciation for, the worldview of self and others.
- Another new idea is to create a “Noetic University” using the noetic archives as tools for training programs geared to academics, educators, social service workers, activists, and the general population.
- Technology and the website as an education tool as well as a communications tool is a big part of the new direction. The SIA website will be merged into one strong noetic.org website.
They want to focus on MEMBERS AS PARTNERS. This is something the Member Council (and the Stewardship Council and Elder Council before it) have been working toward for many years. The IONS Tactical Plan calls for “Nurturing our Community Groups”. They want to improve their active engagement with local community groups and enhance the two-way dialogues in order to develop the best ways for them to work together with Hubquarters and with other groups in the world. They will be interacting with the Member Council on this initiative, and the MC will be asking the RRs and CGCs for input. How will a closer partnership with IONS benefit what we are doing in the field, as well as the Mission? Please be thinking about what you might want from IONS to support your meetings, and in the community outreach you do. Soon, you will be asked for ideas.
The Institute has contributed much over the past 36 years to help transform mainstream culture. Advances in mind-body medicine are now included in most major medical centers around the globe. Meditation is a part of the curriculum in thousands of public schools. Transformational practices are offered in nearly every health club and many hospitals as preventative medicine. Insights into the fundamental nature of interconnectedness are part of mainstream physics. At a deep level, IONS has helped to expand the very boundaries of what we know to be real and true about ourselves, and the Universe.
We, as members of the Institute, are being called to help midwife the emergence of a more sustainable worldview by addressing the root cause of many of the major problems facing humanity: limited consciousness. The Community Group Network has a large role to play in the field – and we are already on the case!
Member Council Email Contacts
• Robert Blackstone - r.blackstone@sbcglobal.net
• Tahdi Blackstone - tahdi@juno.com
• Deborah Breitbach - dbreitbach@noetic
• David Cooper - David@cooperstwo.org
• Susan Cooper - cooperstwo@yahoo.com
• Ann Frost - annfrost@shaw.ca
• Jane Hughes Gignoux janehg4@verizon
• Linda Hassler - lindahassler1@mac.com
• Alpha Lo - alplo@yahoo.com
• Angela Murphy - amurphy@noetic.org
• John Ogden - blueheron2@twcny.rr.com
• Simone Ramounoulou - simone@willisharmanhouse.com.br
• Alan Snow - asnow@accesswave.ca
• Rose Welch - rwelch@noetic.org
• William Welch - welch_william@att.net
