Heading north
We’re off to Cambodia thanks to cheap airfares that were too good to resist. In the spirit of travelling light, a day backpack is all that I’ll have with me. There’s space for a camera, a notebook, a drawing pad, pencils, and Julia Cameron’s The Artists Way. I’m testing out some new quick dry clothes. Toiletries, sunscreen and the like comply with airport security requirements. Tossing in a hat, my passport, and walking shoes. That’s enough. Let’s go!
Give us the info you know we need to know
This powerful piece came to my attention this morning. It’s Australia Day and psychiatrist Professor Patrick McGorry has been named 2010 Australian of the Year acknowledging his work in the field of mental health.
The poem by Elspeth Murray cuts across all disciplines for all communicators. It speaks for itself.
Thank you to @PamMcAllister @HildyGottlieb and @davidbdale through the ever bountiful Twitter trail.
The way you travel
“Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life – and travel- leaves marks on you. [...] It’s an irritating reality that many places and events defy description. Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu, for instance, seem to demand silence, like a love affair you can never talk about.” Anthony Bourdain. The Nasty Bits
It’s slices of time, snapshots at best. It’s personal. The breath taking moments, the ones that evoke silence, burn in your memory and fuel the desire to head off again. I’m packing for a visit to Cambodia (and Angkor Wat) and reflecting on how my travel habits have changed over time.
Stay longer. Instead of wanting to see as much as possible, I now explore slowly.
Read later. In the past, I would research ‘everything’ about a place before I left. Now, I want to be surprised by what I find. Any reading can wait until I return home.
Stay in choice. We used to book all or most accommodation before departure thus fixing our path. Now, only the first and last nights are locked in. If the place doesn’t work for us, we can move somewhere that does.
Less is more. This trip my pack weighs 6 kilograms. Carry on bag only. You can manage when bags go astray, but time is wasted when you have to retrieve them.
Write at the end of each day. Some things never change.
Catching my attention this week
Thoughts on the essence of leadership from Otto Scharmer.
Create your own dry-erase space on a wall or anywhere really. Thanks to the Centre for Graphic Facilitation.
Comparing the price of stock photos – Jan Schultink introduces SpiderPic.
It is raining still
It is raining still…. Maybe it is not one of those showers that is here one minute and gone the next, as I had so boldly assumed. Maybe none of them are. After all, life in itself is a chain of rainy days. But there are times when not all of us have umbrellas to walk under. Those are the times when we need people who are willing to lend their umbrellas to a wet stranger on a rainy day. I think I’ll go for a walk with my umbrella. Sun-Young Park
Paper time lines to visualise family stories
My genealogy dabbling began a few years ago and has lead me to a fascination with the back stories of my ancestors’ lives. As time allows I search for records and newspaper stories that give detailed accounts of individual experiences of their time and places.
I am writing a piece of fiction based on the story of my convict ancestor (Mary Ann Hughes) through the eyes of her grand-daughter (another Mary Ann) whose husband became the Mayor of Balmain. This morning, I grabbed some markers and a large sheet of paper and began to play with a series of time lines on the same page. It was a useful exercise up to a point but I was after more flexibility.
So the large piece of paper has now become long strips of paper (6-10 cm wide). The top strip is time itself. The visual below uses decades though the scale could be larger or smaller as appropriate to your needs. Other strips (eg individual life lines, local history events) need to be scaled to match the top template and the level of content required eg births, marriages, immigration, residences.
They will be reasonably easy to store (the paper rolls up nicely) and will enable me to mix and match the relationship timelines for different angles on the story eg siblings together, comparing the story of various grandparents etc.
I’ve mocked up a static visual to give you an idea of how it might look on a large table and/or wall. The possibilities are, as always, only limited by imagination. Story timelines based on genealogy are just one application. You could have fun with future gazing or comparing the emergence of historical discoveries or inventions.
Catching my attention this week
From Johnnie Moore on chaos v order.
Viv McWaters is putting down her clever and putting on her ordinary. A great post on being the you that you are.
Jan Schultink on the picture resources within Google Street view’s urban images.
Crossing over
Today ABC Radio National’s Artworks broadcast a story called Hyperbolic crocheted coral reefs.
You can find out more about the Coral Reef project here at The Institute for Figuring (IFF). It started when mathematician Dr. Daina Taimina discovered a technique of crochet that mirrors the geometry of coral. IFF directors and sisters Margaret and Christine Wertheim created a project to crochet the Great Barrier Reef. Since 2005, the project has expanded to produce beautiful examples of what can be created when there is cross-fertilisation across seemingly disparate disciplines and skills. The IFF website link tells the story beautifully. Here’s White Spire Tube Worm by Evelyn Hardin.
I don’t pretend to understand the high science of this intersection of mathematics, art and marine biology. What’s exciting for me is what can happen when people look outside their specialties and see the broader possibilities that combining knowledge brings.
Breaking out of those silos of our specialities – our known knowns if you like – can produce surprises. It can happen in facilitation practice when individuals in groups come together with an intention to discover rather than to preach. I’ve seen it happen when engineers and artists come together to create new infrastructure in public places.
Strange bedfellows sometimes come together by accident. Other times because they’ve been forced into a situation. Others with a pure intention to see what they might create together.
Do you have any examples of magic that’s happened through combining two or more apparently different knowledge bases to create something new? What activities might we as facilitators use to generate cross-silo thinking?
Australians in World War I: links to family history
My paternal grandfather and maternal great-uncle both served in the First World War. An increasing amount of source material is now readily available to begin to understand some of the experiences of soldiers at war. Some links to those sources are provided here to assist new researchers to discover their own family stories.
The National Archives of Australia holds the personal service records of Australians at war. Many of those records are digitised and available for download. This mine of information can include movements from country to country, training, periods of leave, wounds suffered, hospitalisation periods, promotions and letters from family members particular to the soldier’s service.
The personal service record of a soldier only includes so much information as to specific whereabouts. However, knowledge of the Division in which someone served can lead you to the battles and incidents of the war your ancestor may have experienced.
Alfred Buckler’s service record includes details of the Military Cross he was awarded.
Once you’ve got some clues, you can take your research to another level.
Charles Edwin Woodrow (C E W) Bean, compiled the multi-volume Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918. The military sections of old and new book stores provide indexes to scour. I found the following reference to A J Buckler in Volume VI (The AIF in France: May 1918 to The Armistice) of Bean’s magnum opus. It relates to the Battle of Hamel on 4 July 1918.
“Engineers of the 4th Field Company with specially trained platoons from the infantry constructed strong points in that alignment. Footnote 77. The 4th Brigade was to have dug three of these points; but the allotted platoon of the 15th Bn apparently became involved in the heavy fighting at Pear Trench, where Lt E S Davidson (Neutral Bay NSW), the engineer officer detailed to direct the digging of the northern post, was killed. After his NCO had been wounded, a sapper R A Miller (Sydney) helped with the fortification of the front line. Lts R S Carrick (Sydney) and A J Buckler (Sydney) duly saw to the completion of the other two positions.”
My mother’s uncle George Elliott was 28 years old and serving as a stretcher bearer when he found himself right in the thick of the Battle of Messines. The long planned assault on the ridge in the early hours of 7 June 1917 saw 19 huge mines detonated within 20 seconds. The blast was so loud that it was heard across the English Channel and in Ireland.
According to Robert Likeman’s Men of the Ninth – a History of the Ninth Australian Field Ambulance 1916-1994, ambulance bearers encountered heavy shell-fire on the first day. George suffered gun shot wounds to his neck and both knees and succumbed to those wounds on 8 June.
The Australian War Memorial now has Red Cross records available on its Biographical Database. This note in George’s Red Cross file demonstrates the work of the Red Cross in following up details for the grieving families.
Details of his grave in Pont D’Achelle are also available at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site.
Service records provide all sorts of interesting information. I won’t go into the details here, but this link hints at the reason for other medical treatment George received before his death. Frankly, if I’d been him …..
If you’re browsing for your own interest, have a look too at The National Library’s Australian Newspapers 1803-1954 - a source of news of battles, awards and, sadly, family notices of loss.
Playing with sticks
When you walk into a room with a group of people who take the work that they do very seriously, it’s sometimes a brave act to produce items that look like play things. Yet those very play things in the hands of the same group of people can enable different levels of thinking and creativity to emerge.
Working with objects such as paddle pop sticks, modeling clay or blocks opens up the possibility of shifts and change in a process. The first ideas are placed on a flat board or sheet of paper. The very mobility of the objects invites movement and discussion.
Recently I worked with a group of people who used the sticks and other materials (pencils, erasers, modeling clay, coloured paper and scissors) to map all of the services they deliver. The product of their deliberations was easily transferred (after photography to retain the map) to a matrix sheet on another table grid to identify how those services might be delivered over the next few years.
Other applications for paddle pop sticks include – project planning, task allocation and idea listing. I’d be interested in hearing more thoughts and experience with cheap and cheerful play things.
