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Archive Number 1026 | ||
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Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 09:39:35 -0800
Hello all, This is just a quick report to the listserv about the healing story = weekend held in Sacramento last weekend. It was great! We had more than = 150 people for Laura Simms' Friday night telling and conversation about = the Gaindeh Project and healing story work in New York after Sept 11. = After telling about 90 minutes worth of traditional and original tales, = Laura spoke a little about how stories heal and took questions from the = audience. It was a great opener for the weekend! We had 31 or 32 people for Allison Cox's workshop on Saturday. We had = people coming from all over Northern California for the workshop. When = Allison asked at the beginning what kind of work the attendees did, we = got the following replies: nurse, public health manager, actress/singer, = prevention specialist, geriatric and domestic violence social worker, = Administrator of social service programs, family therapist (2), = organizational development consultant, crisis nursery social worker, = physicians' assistant, college teacher (2), retired teacher (2), teacher = K-3, program manager for prevention of child abuse, breast cancer = support volunteer, and 5 people who identified themselves as = storytellers, working in places that included prison, schools, hospices, = shelters, critical care units. So we had lots of people working in = various healing settings who did not currently see themselves as = storytellers but wanted to use story in their work. That was very = exciting to me; that was exactly the audience we had hoped to draw = (along with the storytellers), but we had been uncertain about whether = they would really come. The day went splendidly. Allison gave a wonderful and inspiring overview = of how she uses story in her work for the Health Department. Lots of = great anecdotes and observatons. Then we had a panel during lunch. = Allison moderated, and the panellists were Erica Lann Clark, Dewey = Dempsey, Laura Simms, and me. Then we broke into small groups, and = Allison gave us all a taste of what it is like to be in a group that is = working with healing story. After each of us had chosen a character or = image from a traditional tale, Allison asked us a series of questions = about that character. Then we shared with the other members of our small = groups any insights that had come to us about that character. Then we = had an hour of informal socializing and networking. I found the whole day very exhilarating, and the attendees seemed very = inspired and motivated by the workshop. We asked them to write in to the = festival website with comments or follow-up = (www.sacramentostorytelling,com) Hopefully we will get some feedback that will help us refine the = workshop even further. An extra bonus was that a local women's shelter had heard about the = conference and asked if some of us could come and tell some stories in = the shelter. So Saturday night after the workshop the panellists and = presenters trooped over to the St. John's Women and Children's Shelter = and told some stories. It was a moving way to end the weekend, putting = into practice what we had been talking about. It was very satisfying to = hear each other and to be with the women and children, who loved the = stories so much that they requested more, even while their dinners were = getting cold in the dining room! A very beautiful ending to a great = weekend. Joan Stockbridge | ||