Here are a few activities, groups, organizations that I particularly would
like to call to your attention.
Note that almost anything I pass on in this forum involves people who are
HERE. That is, people who are members of NCN, people you can communicate
with and who would be happy to talk with you. Most good things happen
through personal relationships. So this isn't just like inspiring newspaper
clippings that might make you feel good, but that you have no personal
relationship with. This is mostly stuff you can participate in.
- Flemming
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THE TWILIGHT CLUB
This is a remarkable and inspiring organization, its roots more than a
century old, and now in its second incarnation. Here's a little history
from the website:
"In the later decades of the 19th Century, the British philosopher,
Herbert Spencer, took an honest look at world trends and predicted that
civilization was on a downward trend, for culture, beauty and ethical
practices were neglected in society. He believed that politicians were not
likely or able to change the trends. If there was to be a change, how would
it come about? He believed the poets, visionary thinkers and artists of the
world would have the solution. In Britain he inspired men such as Rudyard
Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Darwin to consider the problem.
In America, his friends Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Howard Bridge, Richard
Watson Gilder, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Walt Whitman, Edwin Markham, Henry
Holt, John Burroughs, Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie took up the question.
These men, searching for a way in which to change the negative direction of
society to positive action, formed a gathering, calling themselves the
Twilight Club, because they met at twilight - not simply the twilight of
the day, but, as they saw the situation, they were meeting at the evening
twilight of the 19th Century and the morning twilight of the 20th Century -
at the twilight of civilization, unless the downward trend could be
stopped."
"Their conviction was that world peace, harmony and unity would only
come about through the brotherhood of man. They were convinced that a
person's moral creed could not remain as words and platitudes, but must be
translated into action. Building on this idea, they formed The Poets' Code
of Ethics, intended as a worldwide moral code that related strictly to how
people acted towards each other, the ethical nature of the code being based
on the concept of service to others and to the world."
Yasuhiko Genku Kimura <kimura@twilightclub.org> is the Executive Director.
He's also a business consultant and speaker and writer, and a former Zen
monk. We've had very enjoyable meetings and conversations here in L.A.
The Twilight Club has a number of projects, and the beginning of an online
community, and invites serious participants and associates. The website is
a great place to start:
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HUMAN EVOLUTIONARY INITIATIVE - EVOCO
Katie Hernandez <kthernandez@worldnet.att.net> has done a remarkable amount
of work in spearheading EVOCO/HEI. This group is very much in the spirit of
NCN, and quite possibly can manifest some of the principles through its
focus. It is a group with ambitious and broad aims, and it is an experiment
in creating sustainable business activities and infrastructures and
frameworks for the networking of transformative organizations. The mission
statement is currently being developed and expanded, but I hope it is
alright that I quote the initial mission statement from the website, which
does show the general direction:
"The Human Evolutionary Initiative (HEI) was established on September 18,
1998, to provide skills training for evolutionary development leaders, an
electronic infrastructure for communication and data transfer tools, and a
foundation of mutual trust and support which maximizes positive interchange
of ideas and resources between all projects and organizations, public and
private, dedicated to furthering the work of evolutionary
development."
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INCOME BUILDERS INTERNATIONAL - IBI
I recently attended the one week "Free Enterprise Forum" which is held by
IBI, Income Builders International, every couple of months.
Now, I wouldn't normally be attracted to something that has "income" in its
name, despite that I could use a lot of it. I'm a bit wary of hyped up
materialistic money making schemes that promise a lot but turn out to be a
big distration from what I want to do.
But Income Builders is actually embodying a number of things I believe in.
It is a non-profit organization. It brings together people with ideas and
projects, professionals in business formation and financing, and people who
have a lot of money. In other words, you mix up people who have great
things they'd like to do with people who know how to ground it in business
realities and with people who are able to finance it. That in itself is
useful, of course, but most interesting to me is that it is done by
creating an open atmosphere of sharing and collaboration and rapid
networking. And that it is based on finding and manifesting your "WOW",
that thing which you in particular are passionate about and driven to do,
your way of adding value to the world. It is very unusual and refreshing to
see that many people who're willing to help others manifest their projects
and their dreams AND who actually have resources to do so.
Some of what IBI teaches is to be much more clear on what one's "thing" is,
and what one is looking for NEXT. I.e. if you can't state your project or
service in a few short, clear sentences, and if you can't convey your
passion about it at the same time, or if you can't state very specifically
what you're looking for in order to manifest the next step of your dreams -
then opportunities are likely to pass you by that otherwise would have
enabled you to do what you want.
That has much less to do with money than it has to do with clarity of one's
mission, and asking specifically for the resources or the help one needs.
Anyway, IBI is one organization that has plenty of tools for accomplishing
that, and which is very focused on making people manifest their projects.
It has the intentions in the right place, and the hype is fairly minimal
and tolerable.
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o o
/ \------------------ Flemming A. Funch -------------------/ \
/ * \ New Civilization Network / Synchronicity Networks / * \
/ * * \ ffunch@newciv.org / * * \
o-------o----------- http://www.worldtrans.org/ -----------o-------o
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