Dear All,
Thank you for joining me on yesterday’s Gathering Makeover. If you missed it or want to rewatch it, a replay is available by logging into your personal Kajabi account (instructions at the end of this email).
This week I focused on the power of openings. Specifically, how do you design the first gatherings for a community after so much time away? We used a live case study: I helped a team of public high school administrators plan their first Kick-Off meeting back on August 16th for 190 faculty members.
A few takeaways from event #2:
- Every gathering carries the opportunity to build a temporary, alternative world. As a host, you are a guardian of that transition from the world they are leaving behind. All of your guests shared a collective experience over the past 16 months (a global pandemic), and they also each carry their own varied individual experiences within that. What are you inviting them to think about from that experience and bring into this new “world”?
- A gathering doesn't start at the moment of entry. It starts at the moment of discovery. Your invitation has the opportunity to convey more than just logistics (date, time, place) but also ground them in what they can expect from the event. Clarity is kind. You might ask them to bring something with them (the most treasured object on their desk! A picture of the newest member of their family!), so they can participate before they even arrive.
- The power of the opening is twofold: to both honor and awe your guests. The first moment of entry after a significant time away is a heightened experience. Create an opening moment by determining the threshold they will cross. For the school, the threshold could be the door to the cafeteria, or when they turn off Maple Ave. and into the driveway. What happens there? Where and how do you mark it?
- The role of the host is to connect your guests, protect your guests, and temporarily equalize them. Consider designating lighthouses or stewards to act as a buddy system for those who need it. As you give people roles, they, too, get to share the care (and the worry) about the event going well.
- Find simple ways to own, name, and mark the moment, rather than skip or avoid it. In this case, the school itself has been physically under renovation. What if, for example, they were to hand every administrator a yellow construction hat as they arrived and invited them in to see what they wanted to tear down, re-imagine, or construct together?
And finally, between this week and next, I’ll leave you with this reflection question:
Reflecting on Pandemic Era Inventions: What did we learn, create or try anew during the pandemic that we want to bring with us?
Next week, we’ll focus on hybrid gatherings and how we navigate simultaneous virtual and physical guests. I’ll be in conversation with Robert Hartwell, Broadway dancer, trainer, and founder of the Broadway Collective, to discuss hybrid gatherings, re-entry for groups, and the power of the physical after 16 months apart.
Join me Wednesday, August 11th at 3pm ET. We'll email you the link that morning. I look forward to seeing you all there!
Warmest,
Priya
INSTRUCTIONS TO WATCH THE REPLAY
Each person who signed up for the Gathering Makeover was emailed personal login information (email and password) for the replay portal. The email is from [email protected] with the subject line “Your New Priya Parker Account”. Go to this login page and enter your information.
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