Category Archives: Action Learning

Dayboro Community Pantry

Your Project
Title: Church and Community Ecumenical Pantry Project – A Caring and Unifying Project.

Project Location: Dayboro Uniting Church – on the rural fringe just outside of Brisbane located in the hills and valleys of Dayboro, Mt Mee, Ocean View, Mt Pleasant, Samsonvale, Kobble, Armstrong and Lacey’s Creeks.

Timeline for Project: The Project began in 2006 when the local Combined Churches Committee (Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran, Uniting and AOG) identified a common goal of serving the community through welfare and pastoral care.

Very briefly:
2006 Commencement of an ecumenical Pantry storage and distribution centre in the Uniting Church with a satellite collection point in the Catholic Church. The Lutheran and AOG Churches brought supplies of food and household needs to the Uniting Church. The Combined Churches Committee received referrals from church members and sent two members to visit a needy situation and assess the need. A recommendation was then made to supply goods on a regular basis. Congregations were encouraged to keep up the supplies for the pantry. On average two families a week were being supported.

Dayboro Kids and Young Folk help make decisions and assist in the Pantry
Kids and Young Folk help make decisions and assist in the Pantry

Continue reading →

Garage Sale – Brisbane (South East Qld)

Your Project Wavell Heights Uniting Church Garage Sale
Title: A few key words that describe your project.
To rise money for chaplaincy IN Schools, the Church has a garage sale three times a year.
Project Location: Where are we?
Wavell Heights Uniting Church Hall, 147 Rode Road Wavell Heights.

Timelines for Project:When did we get the ideas? When did we start planning? When did we implement the project? Is it still going? Is there an end point or a new stage in development planned. Garage Sale

We have been doing this for about ten years. Our minister saw the need at Wavell High School, and Chaplaincy was just beginning. We planned to gather saleable items by encouraging our own people to go through their cupboards. As our older folk began moving to retirement villages we asked them to give us any unwonted items. The project has gathered momentum and we now support two High Schools and two Primary schools.
Local people now are aware we do this, and often contact us with saleable items. We put up a banner a fortnight before the date to reach out to the community, and we advertise the date in the local paper.

Continue reading →

About Adult Learning

About Adult Learning
Today much education, esp. in schools, is undertaken in classrooms with structured lessons and teachers in authority and exams at the end of it. Adults can learn this way however we prefer to learn as Adult Learners. Adults generally learn through building on their life experiences, and in undertaking team or group learning directed at concrete projects (such as we are talking about here in this Lay Forum project i.e. we as adults tend to use action learning.

Three types of Learning for and from life: To do this we need to consider learning as a (1) life-long learning and (2) life-wide learning and (3) life-deep learning process.

The former where we learn progressively throughout our lives (life long learning) the latter as we learn about related bodies of knowledge such as say carpentry and plumbing or related areas in a project such as design, admin, book-keeping, project management, accountability and so on (life wide learning). To these three we add the third (life-deep learning) and in particular this is what we are speaking of in this initiative.

Life deep learning then is about understanding at depth the other two and to grasp the layers of meaning that derive from our day to day lives and thus our day to day projects. So that when we undertake, for instance, a church based project there is a depth of possibility and potential that we can bring to bear on the problem the project seeks to address – it is not a kneejerk reaction or a superficial gloss. The possibilities emerge from the design of the project, the problem it seeks to address in some small local yet meaningful way and, our own life experiences and, commitment and compassion and expertise in assisting in its design and/or implementation.

So when we are undertaking action learning through a particular project we need to keep records and bare these three dimensions of adult learning in mind: life-long, life wide, and life deep learning.

See – ALA – Adult Learning Australia

About Learning Circles

What is a learning circle?

Learning circles are a type of community engagement process that can help people explore complex issues, make decisions and take action. During learning circles, members come together to have dialogue on an issue. It is a community driven process. Learning circle participants are recruits from all parts of the community. The learning circle process begins with community organising. It is followed by facilitated, small group dialogue and planning that leads to change. Learning circles are not designed to advocate a particular solution or someone’s wheelbarrow. Instead, Learning circles welcome many points of view around a shared concern. They can then democratically and collectively prioritise action options and choose and enact the circles choice of action and of enacting that action.

A single learning circle is a small, diverse group of 5 to 12 participant citizens who meet for about 2 hours weekly or fortnightly for 4 to 6 times (a ’round of learning circles’), to address a critical public issue in a democratic and collaborative way. Often there may be a gap of up to two weeks while actions are carried out. They are led by a neutral facilitator, who can rotate from meeting to meeting, and all circle members seek to consider an issue from many points of view. A Discussion Guide allows the participants to progress their conversation from personal experiences, to sessions that examine many points of view on the issue, to a session that considers strategies for action and change.

Continue reading →

Action Learning and Action Research

Action learning and action research are closely related processes. The terms have been defined in a variety of ways. For present purposes, we will use the following definitions.

Action learning

Action learning can be defined as a process in which a group of people come together more or less regularly to help each other to learn from their experience.

As Reg Revans used and described it, it was mostly used across different organisations i.e. the participants typically came from different situations, where each of them was involved in different activities and faced individual problems. Most commonly the participants have been organisers or managers, though this is not essential.  The current practice more often now is to set up an action learning program within one organisation. It is not unusual for a team to consist of people with a common task or problem.

There may or may not be a facilitator for the learning groups which are formed. Revans mostly avoided them. Current practice, I think, is mostly to use them.

Continue reading →