Process work community conference
Potentials & Peaks in Uncertainty
Climate, body talk and land managementFri & Sat, 6th & 7th Sept 2024
on the land of the Yugambeh language people, Gold Coast, Queensland
These are cultural issues, inner and outer
Issues of environmental degradation and climate change are cultural issues, rooted in the ways we conceptualise and relate to nature, bodies, and non-rational realities: that nature is a resource to be dominated and exploited; that embodiment is less important than intellect; and that rationality is the superior way to be in this world.
Embedded as we are in these cultural systems, so many of the ways we seek to address issues of environment and climate just keep repeating these patterns, making us feel hopeless and frozen, not knowing how to help without doing more harm.
So how do we engage in these issues differently? How can we shift our inner and outer worlds in ways that are life-affirming, hopeful, and culturally transformative?
We don't know the answers. But we know they lie in emergent community collaborations that engage different ways of being with, doing with, and creating with.
So we invite you to join us for this two-day exploration, guided by three incredible practitioners working at the intersections of environment, embodiment, and Process Work, to uncover both individual and collective paths of heart, through the potentials and peaks of uncertainty.
JOIN US IF YOU WANT TO...
explore culturally transformative ways to engage with issues of climate and environment
understand the deeper processes at play in climate and environmental issues from a diverse range of perspectives
find a deeper connection to your unique way of contributing to environmental repair
learn and experience embodiment-based techniques for exploring complex issues
feel more effective in your social and environmental change work
make and/or renew connections with others interested in the topics and Process Work
THREE KEYNOTE SESSIONS
Navigating the Climate Crisis as a Spiritual Journey, with Charlie Wood
What if the climate crisis was an invitation to transform the way we relate to ourselves, each other and the rest of nature? What if it was an invitation to embark on a spiritual journey?
In this session, we will explore what spirituality is, why humans need it, how it connects with Process Work and how the climate crisis might be calling on us to deepen our spiritual capacities towards a place of greater wholeness and connection.
Drawing on inspiration from others, as well as my work as a climate activist, facilitator, counsellor, and avid Process Work learner, I will share reflections on the core spiritual capacities I see the climate crisis calling us to develop, and invite us to journey with these capacities through a mix of presentation, music, poetry and experiential exercises.
About Charlie
For the past fifteen years, Charlie (they/them) has worked as a campaigner, organiser, trainer, and facilitator across the environmental movement in Australia and overseas. They currently work on deepening the diversity, collaboration and impact of the Australian climate justice movement with The Sunrise Project. Charlie co-founded Tipping Point, a team of grassroots climate organisers who grew the #StopAdani movement and worked with school students in regional Victoria to start the School Strike 4 Climate Movement in Australia. As the Campaigns Director for 350.org Australia, Charlie helped launch and grow the Australian fossil fuel divestment movement from which hundreds of institutions stopped investing in coal, oil and gas; and pushed major banks and corporations to refuse funding some of the world’s largest fossil fuel projects. Charlie has also worked in Parliament as an advisor on climate, energy and environment, a national grassroots campaigner with the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, a researcher at the Australian National University on restorative justice, responsive regulation, and peacebuilding. Before this, they taught kids to read, ran an organic soup kitchen and were a soccer referee. They love writing poetry, singing, running, learning from other people and cultures, the sound of cicadas, gazing at the sky and the smell of petrichor.
Charlie's formal qualifications include:
Graduate Diploma in Counselling (Holistic Practice) - Metavision, Masters of Holistic Counselling and Psychotherapy (graduating end of 2024) - Metavision, B. Interdisciplinary Studies (Sustainability) - Australian National University, Advanced Group Facilitation Course - The GroupWork Institute.
Fruit fly, feral goats and forestry: finding the path of heart, with Bec Lang
Have you ever really thought about the individuals, groups or issues you're drawn to working with or the ones who are drawn to working with you? What is it about YOU that is important and needed in the work you do in the world?
In this session, I will take you into my world of working with farmers, pastoralists, producers, industry groups and government - people often seen as ’the problem’ when it comes to the climate crisis despite them being critical in working towards a way forward. I will share some of the magic of walking a path of heart and how Process Work gives me the tools and concepts to do this.
We’ll then explore your ’superpowers’, deepening your understanding of your unique capacities and how these are both in and needed in, the individuals and groups you’re drawn to work with and also in those you’re not.
Because the best contribution you can make to these troubled times is to really be yourself.
About Bec
Bec (she/her) has been working as a group facilitator for most of her adult life, starting during her Horticulture degree and then working for government in the Community Landcare Program, a farming and environmental initiative supporting farming families and communities to work together to address land degradation issues. Bec then went on to work in the public sector in organisational and leadership development roles in an agency focused on natural resource management and industry development. Now working as a consultant, Bec specialises in facilitating stakeholder engagement in the primary production and environmental management sectors, designing processes that work with diverse and often competing stakeholder interests and views.
Bec's formal qualifications include: Process Work Diplomate, Master of Arts in Conflict Facilitation and Organisational Change, Postgraduate Certificate in Advanced Process-Oriented Facilitation, Graduate Diploma in Social Sciences (Group Work), Bachelor of Applied Science (Horticulture).
Moving the field - embodied systems transformation, with Meredith Elton
Many of us care deeply about the world and are engaged in addressing our social and ecological troubles.
There are innovative and evolving collective and community-led approaches to systems change. Yet the work of world-changing often marginalises embodied experience, limiting it to self-care, inner work, or a brief sharing of feelings.
What might group processes that centre embodied experience contribute to systems change? What do Process Work approaches to working with groups, the embodied systems mapping practices of Social Presencing Theatre and improvised dance, have to offer?
Let’s research together, navigating personal and cultural edges to move and be moved in small and large groups as we explore embodied processes for sensing and unfolding the ‘field’ of our ecologically troubled times and find ways of reflecting on our experiences that are generative of our collective embodied learning.
About Meredith
Living on Bundjalung Country since 2008, Meredith has facilitated, directed and produced a body of place-mentored, communal and collaborative performance works with communities across the NSW/QLD border region. These works include Lines in the Sand: (re)making contact, a creative and cultural grappling with what it means to be at home on Aboriginal land (Festival 2018 Commonwealth Games Cultural Program) and Inherit the Wind, an exploration of weather (internal and external) and our changing climate (Bleach Festival 2017). Meredith is passionate about crafting spaces/containers to feel and sense together in embodied and earth centred ways and to support emergent collective expression. Her work draws from Process Work, somatic practices, Dance Movement Therapy, Bodyweather, ensemble improvisation and ecology, and considers how working at the intersection of dance making and systems change might be useful in these troubled times.
Meredith's formal qualifications include: Professional Training in Process Oriented Counselling and Facilitation - ANZPOP, 2021, Diploma of Project Management - Arts and Culture, TAFE Queensland, 2017, Graduate Certificate in Art and Community Engagement - University of Melbourne, 2014, Graduate Diploma in Visual and Performing Arts (Dance Therapy) - RMIT, Melbourne, 2003, Bachelor of Science (Ecology) - University of Melbourne, 2000.
CONFERNCE DETAILS
DATES AND TIMES
Friday and Saturday, 6th & 7th of September, 2024
Day 1: 10am-1pm and 3pm-6pm
Day 2: 10am-1pm and 3pm-5pm
WHERE
The conference will be held in person in the beautiful learning surroundings of Southern Cross University, on the land of the Yugambeh language people, the Gold Coast, Queensland.
FEES
ACCESSIBILITY
The venue confirms it is accessible to people using wheelchairs, through the provision of lifts, accessible parking, and accessible toilets.
There is a non-gendered disabled-access bathroom and two gendered bathrooms.
All printed materials will be in large print and any electronic presentations will be emailed to participants several days ahead of the conference.
Accessibility needs are of course diverse, so please use the accessibility section on the registration form to let us know if there are additional things we can do or confirm to make the event more accessible to you or contact us to confirm requirements prior to registering via
CANCELLATIONS
Cancellations seven or more days before the first session will receive a full refund.
Cancellations with less than seven days but more than two days notice will receive a 50% refund.
Cancellations with two or less days notice will not be refunded.
You're welcome to transfer your ticket to someone else any time before the conference starts - just let us know so we can welcome them properly.
Our core organising principles...
ANZPOP acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands we live and work on, the Aboriginal Australian, and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and the Maori First Nations peoples. We pay respect to their elders across time. We give thanks for the Indigenous knowledge that has informed the Process Work approach. We honour the courage, resilience, and spirit of First Nations peoples to counter the ongoing impacts of colonisation on their culture, well-being, and sovereignty.
