Leadership

July 23, 2019• *cino Work, Hospitality, Leadership, People, Uncategorized

Welcoming new *cino staff: Ale Crevier

We’re glad to have Ale onboard with us this year at The Huss Project! Ale recently graduated from Calvin College in Grand Rapids with degrees in Literature and Linguistics, and is currently putting her love for writing to use at *culture is not optional with the storytelling team.

Ale grew up in the big city of Chicago with a big family of eight. Known as the “circus” to some, her family has fostered much of the craziness, joy and growth in her life. She and neighborhood friends would constantly be hanging out at the house in the summer, telling stories, building forts and playing frisbee. That the doors were always unlocked communicated a simple, but important message, (aside from a reminder to find the lost key) : belonging belongs in and outside of our homes and ourselves – with community. Hospitality isn’t really a choice we give ourselves, but an opportunity that lives in us and is required of us.

*culture is not optional’s commitment to hospitality – grounded in a vision toward play, food and art – was one aspect that attracted Ale to come to Three Rivers. She hopes to put her language skills to use as an AmeriCorps volunteer this year, researching the history of Huss, sharing community members’ stories and updating social media with The Huss Project’s programming.

Among other questions that she is asking herself, Ale is wondering how she might develop consistent, daily habits that contribute to her mental health and social life in positive ways.

 

 

 

 

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June 18, 2019• *cino Work, Leadership, Organization, People, SUSTAIN *cino

Welcoming new *cino staff: Sugan

As the rhythm of summer has already begun, *culture is not optional is excited to welcome our new AmeriCorps members – Sugan, Jacob, Ale, Anna and Annelie! Our projects include food systems work at The Huss Project Farm, storytelling and promotions for *cino and Future Fest and construction for the Imaginarium.

This week we’ve asked the new staff to share how previous places they’ve inhabited inform their current perspectives and role in the world.

Sugan is a recent graduate from Western Michigan University and a summer associate here. They were born in Bundu Tuhan, Malaysia and have lived most of their life in Kalamazoo, Michigan. “The lesson I learned from Kalamazoo is that it’s important to invest in your community,” they noted. “What I’ve learned from spending time in Bundu Tuhan is that you have to draw upon preexisting knowledge. A lot of that knowledge comes from elders. So if you are going to take that model and apply it to non-indigenous and non-tribal settings, it would be talking to people who have been here for a long time.”

Sugan pointed out their appreciation for already having such interactions in Three Rivers. At the Water Parade in town, Sugan met Richard Price, a longtime resident of Three Rivers. He walked AmeriCorps members through several old sites on the walk, such as an old gas station where the Ridgeway Floral & Gifts now stands.

Getting to know folks in Three Rivers like Richard is an essential social value that, for Sugan, applies directly to *cino’s approach regarding other things like permaculture. In order to understand permaculture, we must understand its roots in indigenous cultures, where social and environmental aspects of agriculture are tied, Sugan noted.

Sugan’s involvement in Three Rivers – particularly working at the summer lunch program and Huss Project Farm – has allowed them to combine their interests in permaculture, community sustainability and education. “There is a certain type of empowerment, being able to grow your own food. That creates better connectedness between yourself and what sustains you,” they said.

One question Sugan has been asking themself is how to integrate self-healing work in the context of a systems thinking model. “It is ironic to be doing healing work—whether you’re healing the environment or community—and not healing yourself,” said Sugan. “My biggest question is how do I channel healing energy to myself as well?”

Stay tuned for future bios this week.

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2017 staff retreat

November 9, 2017• *cino Work, Leadership, Organization

2017 *cino community retreat coming up this weekend

Each fall for the past several years, the *cino core community members have gathered at a cozy house outside of town to reflect on the past year and look ahead to the next. In the past, we’ve invited in a friendly facilitator to help us explore our personality types and how they work together, and engage good questions about the interaction between our work and our selves.

This year, we’re keeping it simple with a self-guided retreat. As we’ve noted on the *cino web site and Topology Magazine, 2018 is going to be a year of slowing down, for Rob and Kirstin specifically, but that will have ripple effects for our entire group and the organization’s work as a whole. We’ll be discerning what to maintain in 2018 and what to let lie fallow, including what kind of community we need to build for the year to sustain the things we are committed to with a sense of healthy balance and wholeness.

Surrounding the discussion times will be plentiful amounts of hanging out, reading, eating, walking, and playing together. We always look forward to this time of renewal for our work and our relationships, and greatly value your prayers for discernment, wisdom, and joy as we head into some important conversations this weekend.

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Annual *cino retreat yields 2017 priorities

October 25, 2016• *cino Work, Building, Leadership, Organization, People

Annual *cino retreat yields 2017 priorities

On October 7, those of us who currently comprise the core *cino community gathered at a retreat house near Three Rivers to spend time growing in friendship, sharing good food, and reflecting on the year past and the year to come. Like our past retreats, we enjoyed times of intense, meaningful conversation interspersed with rest and play.

This year, our time together helped us get organized around some specific priorities for 2017 and some new ways of working together to achieve our tasks and goals within those priorities. The four things that rose to the surface that we want to work on in 2017 are:

  1. Grow *cino’s food efforts.
  2. Grow our core community in both quantity and quality.
  3. Cultivate relationships—with our neighbors, city, downtown, donors, partner organizations…
  4. Make tangible facility improvements.

We’ve identified a number of measurable goals within these overlapping categories, including existing programs and new efforts, as well as discerning some things we’ll leave behind for now in order to make space to grow in other areas and be open to the gifts and interests of new core community members. We’ll continue to organize our work through weekly meetings on Mondays, and also to grow in relationship with one another and our neighbors through things like Monday nights at the Riviera Theatre Bar and Friday night potlucks. We’re also looking to support each other more as a community through collaboratively developing and sharing our own personal care plans for the coming year.

Forming the foundation for our work conversations during the retreat was a time of reflection on several readings that touch on the theme of work: how we do what we are called to do with deep joy and gratitude. The readings included a couple of essays from our online publications (one by Brother Abraham and one by Gary Guthrie), a poem by Marge Piercey, and a quote from Thomas Merton that I find to be particularly cautionary for our busy, committed group:

There is a pervasive form of modern violence to which the idealist…most easily succumbs: activism and over-work. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his (or her) work… It destroys the fruitfulness of his (or her)…work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.

We also considered a quote from Kahlil Gibran that echoes Merton’s warning:

Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is
better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the
temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter
bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you drudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge
distills a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing,
you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of
the night.

With this balance in mind, we reviewed a first draft of a design for the Huss Project property, sharing questions and feedback. We know it will take a lot of work to move forward with this design, but we’re excited about the prospect of seeing some major progress happening in the coming year. To learn more about the design, visit a more detailed post with an image of the first draft over on the Huss Project web site.

If this all sounds like something you’d like to get involved in in some way, please let us know! We are very open to the participation of more volunteers and new core community members as we head into a new year full of good work alongside our neighbors in Three Rivers.

 

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*cino resident community prepares for 2016 retreat

September 28, 2016• *cino Work, Leadership, People

*cino resident community prepares for 2016 retreat

Each fall for the past several years, the core *cino group has taken time out of our fall schedule to go away together to reflect on the year past, and imagine and plan for the year ahead. We began with a single night, but in our hunger for more time, we dedicated a whole weekend last year, and will do the same again this year from October 7-9. We’re fortunate to have an abundance of local retreat centers, practically in our back yard, and we’ve enjoyed spending time at St. Gregory’s Abbey, GilChrist Retreat Center, and The Hermitage Community for our annual retreats and other activities throughout the year. These places keep us anchored in so many ways.

This year, there will just be four of us participating in the full retreat, perhaps with a couple of others who are close to our work popping in for parts of the time. The small number was something we anticipated at last fall’s retreat, and this year will be an opportunity to discuss how we feel about where things are. We long to have more partners in this work on the ground in Three Rivers, but in the meantime, the work goes on, and we often feel spread thin. In thinking about this state of things, I’ve gathered a number of quotes, poems, and essays around themes of commitment, labor, busyness, and finding joy in our work. This material will likely form the foundation of our Saturday morning reflection time, with our remaining working hours dedicated to sharing where we are personally and how we feel about the past year’s activities, as well as our vision for the coming year, with practical action steps we can take coming out of the retreat. And we’ll be sure to take plenty of time to rest, walk, play, and, of course, eat good food!

We would all appreciate your good thoughts and prayers for our time together—for clarity, wisdom, vulnerability, listening, and joy!

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Summer 2014

February 20, 2015• *cino Work, Education, Leadership, Organization, People, Three Rivers

Seeking 2015 Summer Interns!

“Living life well, and with intention.”
“A space to celebrate my own contributions and talents.”
“Honest, communal storytelling.”
“Working and playing joyfully together!”

These are just a few of the thoughts from former interns on their time spent working with *culture is not optional in Three Rivers for our ten-week summer internship. If these ideas pique your interest, read on: it’s still chilly out now, but summer will be here soon!

We welcome flexible and committed individuals who wish to embrace community, simple living, social justice and spirituality in everyday life. Interns who are independent self-starters, have some experience living independently away from their parents’ home and work well under little supervision are often best suited for *cino internships. The 2015 summer internship runs officially from May 29 to August 15. Interns live together in a house, alongside the more permanent resident community of the organization, and are asked to contribute an average of 20 hours of volunteer work per week for *cino. Interns can also look for part-time employment in the community if necessary.

If you have an interest in farming and gardening, planning special events, communications and promotion, or business support, read more about our intern positions! Do you have a different set of skills that you think would benefit *culture is not optional? Apply! Want to know more about what *cino interns actually do? Read these reflections from our 2014 interns Nate, Alexandra, Seth, and Kate. Wondering what you’ll get out of the internship after two and a half months? Glad you asked! What about jobs, loans, fundraising, and other details? Find the answers to these questions and more here. Applications will be accepted through April 15, 2015.

If you know someone who would be a good match, please pass along the encouragement to apply!

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Rest

July 25, 2014• Leadership, Publishing

On resting this summer

A few weeks ago, Comment Magazine editor Jamie Smith asked Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma, *cino co-director and catapult editor, to contribute to a symposium answering this question: What does rest look like for you this summer? Since embarking on the Huss Project adventure five years ago, summer has become our busy season as our schedule becomes packed with programming. Kirstin also recently accepted a full-time position as Head Caretaker for GilChrist Retreat Center in Three Rivers, a transition of time commitments that is still ongoing. So rest seems a bit like a light at the end of a dark tunnel of responsibilities, a light we can’t always make out very clearly.

Here’s how Kirstin’s reflection begins:

It is 7:30 a.m. on a Thursday morning in July. While families on vacation sleep in at nearby lake cottages, resting up for a day of rest, I am placing an order for fair trade coffee so that it will arrive in time to caffeinate the 400-plus people who will be attending our huge summer festival next week.

It is 9:00 p.m. on a Tuesday evening. While eleven teachers from around the country settle into their week of quite solitude at the rural retreat centre where I work, I am clearing dishes from our opening dinner, snapping photos for our Facebook page, and making a mental list of the tasks I simply cannot bring myself to do before I drive home and fall into bed.

You can read the rest of Kirstin’s piece at the Comment web site, alongside other reflections by Norman Wirzba, Jacqueline Melissen and Marilyn McEntyre.

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Ray Bradbury

March 11, 2014• Leadership

A nursery for ideas

As we discern how to keep moving forward with *cino, Rob and I have embarked on our own informal leadership course, and as part of that, I’ve decided to start posting some interesting quotes and ideas related to leadership on the *cino site.

Leadership is a tricky thing for us, since much of the literature out there promotes a profit-driven, status quo model that feels antithetical to *cino’s jazzy, upside-down Kingdom, ridiculous joy motif.  In that spirit, here’s something that David shared as a centering reflection for our volunteer staff meeting last week:

If your meeting room, your board room, or your office (take your pick) isn’t a nursery for ideas, a rumpus room where seals frolic, forget it. Burn the table, lock the room, fire the clerks. You will rarely come up with any ideas worth entertaining. The full room with the heavy people trudging in with long faces to solve problems by beating them to death is very death itself. Serious confrontations rarely arrive at serious ends. Unless the people you meet with are fun loving kids out for a romp, tossing ideas like confetti, and letting the damn bits fall where they may, no spirit will ever rouse, no notion will ever birth, no love will be mentioned, no climax reached. You must swim at your meetings, you must jump for baskets, you must take hefty swings for great or missed drives, you must run and dive, you must fall and roll, and when the fun stops, get the hell out.

Credited to Ray Bradbury in The Leader’s Edge

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