Met wonderful people at the Community Development Society!  In addition to participating in the conference, because this is a membership-based group, I also attended their annual meeting.  People are kind, a relatively small group but growing.

Some interesting notes around the issue of community development society, and also specifically those related with the environment,  that I took and would certainly be part of my thinking for a very long time.

mechanical posture vs ecological posture

I have been thinking about how human-human relationship (community development) and human-nature relationship (sustainable development) have some natural differences.  One tends to ve social science/humanistic driven while the other is scientific driven.  I argue that some community development tools need to be consciously integrated to the efforts of promoting sustainable behaviors when addressing the increasingly complex environmental problems.  But will only be successful if it is framed as a collaborative action as opposed to individual action; thus, collective behavior change as opposed to individual behavior change.  How the spirit of collective action in community development be integrated in environmentalism, in practice.

to get to the goal, you gotta dance with the wicked

This reassures me that nothing is simple.  When it looks simple (the problem you are trying to solve), then it highly likely that you see it wrong.

safer to be wrong in a group than to be right alone

It is not easy to make a difference and create change.  Empowering a group of people for actions will have to deal with existing power that may collectively resist to change.

Thinking outside the box may no longer relevant when everyone has a different size of boxes

This is just reality that every individuals has their own frames when it comes to see a problem.  This quote encourages us to always see a problem through the lens of diversity.

dh