Women in Progress - An Amazing Experience

From Linda and Susannah

We are so thankful we gifted ourselves and others with the Women In Progress, a mother and teen daughter workshop. We just completed an absolutely wonderful week with mothers and daughters in a different way. This year we were in Prospect, PA during the best summer weather ever seen in western Pennsylvania, sunny and 70s.

The best thing we mothers and daughters did was to choose this time to slow down, dream our futures, write and share those dreams and identify some first steps toward reaching them. We shared these practices with our daughters. Some memorable stuff for us and the daughters–

• being outside and in nature, climbing the huge pine tree and “going out on a limb” – literally and figuratively!
• making shrinky dinks, magic wands, treasure boxes and picture collages to remind us how we are always in progress and becoming the women we dream about;
• hanging out with new friends
• spending time together
• capturing our future vision on paper and making some action steps
• thoroughly enjoying the closing ceremony created by the daughters
• having a good time

Mothers listened to daughters and daughters listened to mothers with an open heart. Our connections evolved. Yipee!

We are looking forward to sharing this experience with more Mothers and Daughters in the future and we’re trying other formats, like evening sessions once week over a couple months.

Our next week long "camp" will likely be in Summer of 2011 in North Carolina!

Foam Core - We're Obsessed!

Foam Core -- We're Obsessed!
Back by Popular Demand - a reprint of an Ah Ha! Blog entry from last year.

From Lynette =)

You know from time to time we do get excited about seemingly strange things here at Ah Ha! The latest? We just love foam core -- 40" by 60" foam core to be more specific (we like the 3/8th inch although it is also available in 1/2 inch).

We've found these thin white boards to be magnificent tools in our facilitation of LearningConnect sessions. The 40" by 60" size is perfect for our wall sized templates and with the assistance of a flipchart or even an easel, we can work effectively in rooms that have less than wonderful wall space. And, WOW! these foam core walls have 2 useable sides!!

Remember, an important element of grounded facilitation is taking care of the Operational physical details. Sometimes all the stuff required for LearningConnect even overwhelms me! So recently we've prepped our very portable, very light, yet surprisingly strong "walls" well before DataCollection sessions. This allows us to be more relaxed and attentive to facilitating and being with the team and workshop guests.

When we travel we arrange for a local art supply store to deliver 10 or so boards directly to the facility, conference center or hotel where we're working. When we arrive our foam core boards are waiting for us to get to work. It doesn't get better than that =)