Theatre and Conflict Resolution Speaker Event

October 4th, 4:30-6:00 at KPMG (4th floor, 777 Dunsmuir) 

Join us October 4th for a lively discussion of the ways in which theatre can contribute to our understanding of conflict resolution, and might even increase our skills! Mediator/Fringe performer Ashley Syer and mediator/Fringe Board member Sharon Sutherland will lead the discussion.  If you didn’t get the chance to see any of the Fringe recommendations, come anyway!

RSVP: Please email us at coreclinic1@gmail.com if you plan to attend.  It greatly assists us with set-up and our refreshments order if we have a good sense of numbers.

LIVESTREAM: We plan to livestream this event and will post the link here and on the facebook event page shortly.  Please let us know if you intend to join us via livestream.

Writers Group

Our regular Conflict Resolution Writers Group is starting up again for a productive fall.  We meet for 2 hours most Fridays and Saturdays beginning Friday, September 30th.  Some sessions are online, others are in person meetings are locations around the Lower Mainland.

If you’ve been considering doing some writing on a  Conflict Resolution topic – or are just looking for the motivation to write that working in a group can bring – check out our schedule here.

Conflict Resolution Week Media Releases

We are encouraging people who might be interested in drafting a Media Release of some kind to join us on Friday, Nov. 4th (Vancouver location tba).  We’ll spend a bit of time at the beginning of the session talking about how to prepare Media Releases, where to send them, etc. in anticipation of Conflict Resolution Week, November 19-26.  If you’ve been thinking about hosting a #ConResWeek event and want to make sure people know about it, consider joining us to craft a media release.

Blogging on Conflict Resolution Topics

Have you been thinking about blogging on a Conflict Resolution topic? Both CoRe and Mediate BC welcome blog posts for publication, as do many other conflict resolution and related sites.  In fact, Mediate BC is actively seeking content in connection with Conflict Resolution Week for its own blog and to share with partners like Small Business BC and ClickLaw.

If you’d like to get started on your first blog or just like the idea of joining others to brainstorm and create blog posts on Conflict Resolution topics, let us know. We are planning a blog-specific session in November and want your input into location and date.

 

 

 

David’s Conflict Resolution Picks

CoRe is going to the Vancouver Fringe Festival this year, and we are hoping many dispute resolution professionals will join us!  We will be identifying, attending, and discussing plays that offer a lens for meaningful discussions of conflict and conflict resolution.  You can join us in this exploration in three ways:

• Plan to attend the September 15th performance of Does Not Play Well with Others at 8:30 at the Revue Stage! Puppeteer Adam Francis Proulx will be joining members of the mediation community in the Fringe Bar after the performance to discuss conflict themes in the performance.  He is giving a great deal of thought to the topic as he is also a featured presenter at CLEBC’s Dispute Resolution Conference the next day.
• Check out one or more of the “conflict resolution plays” recommendations from VanFringe Executive Director David Jordan and CoRe Vice President and VanFringe Board Member Sharon Sutherland. David and Sharon have each identified plays that they anticipate will offer interesting insights into conflict.
• Watch one or more of the recommended plays and then join us at the CoRe Speaker Series session on October 4 when we will be discussing theatre as a tool for understanding conflict. (This one comes with CPD!)

VanFringe ED David Jordan is well known for his ability to spot the best of the upcoming plays each year! Long time Fringe goers eagerly await his recommendations before booking their tickets.  We asked David if he’d be willing to apply his insider knowledge and skill to selecting a list of plays that would be especially relevant for conflict resolution professionals.  Here’s his picks:

• Does Not Play Well with Others (“Will be fun and feature lots of different conflicts that escalate”)
• Mrs. Barbour’s Daughter (Mary is facing eviction. Sole remaining occupant of a building due for demolition Mary is standing her ground… or rather sitting!)
• Love Is a Battlefield (“Martin and Vanessa are excellent actors and their on stage conflict will likely be very real and well articulated through psychological action.”)

Sharon’s Conflict Resolution Picks

For many years, Sharon has incorporated various theatrical tools directly into her conflict resolution practice and training, so she struggled to keep her list of plays to a reasonable number.  She notes, “There are just so many different ways that theatrical productions can generate invigorating and useful reflection amongst conflict resolution practitioners – depictions of direct conflict, examples of outstanding conflict resolution skills, opportunities to gain greater understanding of different perspectives, metaphorical representations that allow us distance to reconsider our assumptions about conflict and its resolution…  How to choose?”

• Does Not Play Well with Others (especially attending the Sep. 15th post-show discussion)
• Carry On: A Musical (Don’t miss this one with mediator Ashley Syer in the cast!)
• V.R Dunne or The Women of Lockerbie (examining historical conflicts through theatre)
• Marrow or The Girl Who Was Raised by Wolverine (for adventurous choices)

And consider catching two plays that Sharon reviewed positively as plays for conflict resolution professionals last year that will each run soon after the Festival: The New Conformity which is part of the Fringe Pick Plus and Baba Brinkman’s Rap Guide to Climate Chaos showing in Fringe Presents.

 

 

Rowan Meredith (centre) receives the VMAA Prize from CoRe president Jacqueline Fehr and VMAA director David Read.

We are delighted to congratulate Rowan Meredith on her selection as the 2016 winner of the Vancouver Maritime Arbitrators Association Prize for exemplary service to CoRe Conflict Resolution Society.  Rowan received her prize – a $500 cheque – from VMAA director  David Read on August 8th.

Rowan has volunteered with CoRe for more than six years – taking on a variety of administrative tasks (e.g. managing membership lists, overseeing Speakers Series attendance, assisting with website content, etc.) Last year, Rowan stepped in to manage all aspects of Speaker Series events when our regular Speaker Series coordinator was sidelined for an extended period through injury.  During that time, Rowan handled all details of Speaker event planning, promotion, and scheduling, and even stepped in to assist with live streaming of events as needed. We are incredibly grateful to Rowan for ensuring our programming continued uninterrupted over the course of the year.

Rowan has just completed her first year of law school at UCLA, but continues to assist with CoRe administration online.  She stays actively engaged with the BC dispute resolution community through her CoRe activities and volunteer work on the CLE Dispute Resolution Conference planning team. We look forward to her return to BC in January 2017 when she will attend University of Victoria as a visiting student for a term.

Congratulations, Rowan!  And thank you to the VMAA for its generous support of our students!

Join us in-person at KPMG (4th floor, 777 Dunsmuir) or via livestream this afternoon at 4:30 for Sue Drinnan‘s talk on Resilience By Choice.

Learn how to strengthen yourself and those you lead to stay calm, productive and focussed, even in the teeth of stress, disagreement and dysfunctionality. How do we keep caring and doing our best without burning out? What must we do as leaders to support our committed professionals in developing and strengthening personal and organisational resilience?

You will learn to use the latest neuroscience to protect from overwhelm by:
– becoming aware of common, costly yet silent thinking patterns which tax your ability to stay focused
– shifting daily habits to respond to disruptive change or behaviours without a deep personal cost
– building into your own support system the elements which re-center, re-energise and refresh
– staying separate yet agile and empathic, without temptation to slip into sub optimal behaviours

Learn to not just survive, but to bounce back stronger after setbacks so you can truly apply what was learned to be more effective and resilient for next time.

Attendance at the speaker series is free for CoRe members and volunteers, $20 for others. Pay ahead online at https://coreclinic.wordpress.com/speaker-series/ or bring a cheque or exact change to pay at the door. CoRe annual memberships for 2016 are available for $50 at the door or at https://coreclinic.wordpress.com/membership/.

For people attending by livestream, we encourage you to make a donation to CoRe online at https://coreclinic.wordpress.com/support/.

Copies of Sue’s handouts and slides:

• Resilient by Choice
• Resilient by Choice slides
• Unhelpful Thinking Styles: http://media.psychology.tools/worksheets/english_us/unhelpful_thinking_styles_en-us.pdf

The CoRe Clinic is an approved continuing development provider for the Law Society of BC. Its Speaker Series events are pre-approved educational activities for professional development credit. Real time attendance via livestream will provide CPD credit.

How to Problem Solve with an Adversarial Negotiator (or Empathy for Zombies)

Join Carrie Gallant and Sharon Sutherland on May 10th for the next CoRe Speaker Series event:

Have you encountered negotiators who believe that there is only one successful approach to negotiation – assuming everyone else has wholly adverse interests and is trying to take advantage of them (or their client)? Negotiators who seem to have learned their negotiation skills by watching Saul Goodman (Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul) or Alan Shore (Boston Legal) on television?

This session will focus on the ways in which you can work with a purely adversarial negotiator to achieve mutually beneficial results – without being taken advantage of in the process. We will focus on skills for both negotiation and mediation, with an emphasis on skills for representative negotiators.

ATTENDANCE: The session will be held at KPMG’s downtown Vancouver office (777 Dunsmuir Street, 4th). RSVP to coreclinic1@gmail.com to confirm your seat.

ONLINE: We are experimenting with an alternative online option tomorrow.  Audio will be available via teleconference, while slides/videos will be shown via join.me. Audio information:

Phone number: (425) 440-5100  From Vancouver: 778-300-1942  From Victoria: 250-412-5346
PIN Code: 700387# 

To view the presentation, open your browser window to join.me. You’ll see the following page:

Click on the words “Join Meeting” and it will open up a space to enter a 9 digit code.  We will post that code here just before the session starts, and will also recite it for people signed in for the audio.

PLEASE NOTE: We are limited in the number of viewers able to participate through join.me on this session. We can include 9 attendees. If you are unable to view the slides on join.me, please download them here and follow along.  (You will not be able to see a few very short videos.)

If you have any difficulty connecting, please email us at coreclinic1@gmail.com.  We will be monitoring email throughout the presentation.

 

Attendance at the speaker series is free for CoRe members and volunteers, $20 for others. Pay ahead online at https://coreclinic.wordpress.com/speaker-series/ or bring a cheque or exact change to pay at the door. CoRe annual memberships for 2016 are available for $50 at the door or at https://coreclinic.wordpress.com/membership/.

For people attending online, we encourage you to make a donation to CoRe online at https://coreclinic.wordpress.com/support/.

The CoRe Clinic is an approved continuing development provider for the Law Society of BC. Its Speaker Series events are pre-approved educational activities for professional development credit.

Join us at 4:30 today for the livestream of Carrie Gallant’s CoRe presentation on Conversational Intelligence™

Conversational Intelligence™ (CIQ) is not about how smart you are, but how open you are to learning new and effective conversational rituals that prime the brain for trust, partnership, and mutual success. Based on the latest neuroscience and brain research, CIQ relies on a framework for knowing which kind of conversations trigger the lower, more primitive brain and which conversations activate higher-level intelligences such as trust, integrity, empathy, and good judgment. We will examine how this applies in conflict, mediation and dispute resolution and some tools you can use to move towards collaboration.

Learn more about Carrie at http://www.gallantsolutionsinc.com/about-us.html.  Carrie’s slides are available here.

Speaker Series attendance is complimentary with membership in CoRe.  Non-members may attend individual sessions for $20 per event.  Pay for any Speaker Series event at the door or through Paypal. Sessions are often available for livestream viewing: we encourage livestream viewers to make a donation  to support this service.

CoRe Speaker Series

Tuesday, April 19, 2016 – Conversational Intelligence™ (CIQ)

Presenter: Carrie Gallant

(CIQ) is not about how smart you are, but how open you are to learning new and effective conversational rituals that prime the brain for trust, partnership, and mutual success. Based on the latest neuroscience and brain research, CIQ relies on a framework for knowing which kind of conversations trigger the lower, more primitive brain and which conversations activate higher-level intelligences such as trust, integrity, empathy, and good judgment. We will examine how this applies in conflict, mediation and dispute resolution and some tools you can use to move towards collaboration.  Carrie’s presentation will be livestreamed here.

Tuesday, May 10 – How to Problem Solve with an Adversarial Negotiator (or Empathy for Zombies)

Image: Zombies Invade San Francisco! by Laughing Squid, Creative Commons.

Facilitators: Carrie Gallant and Sharon Sutherland

Have you encountered negotiators who believe that there is only one successful approach to negotiation – assuming everyone else has wholly adverse interests and is trying to take advantage of them (or their client)? Negotiators who seem to have learned their negotiation skills by watching Saul Goodman (Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul) or Alan Shore (Boston Legal) on television?

This session will focus on the ways in which you can work with a purely adversarial negotiator to achieve mutually beneficial results – without being taken advantage of in the process.  We will focus on skills for both negotiation and mediation, with an emphasis on skills for representative negotiators.

All CoRe Speaker events are held at KPMG, 777 Dunsmuir Street, 4th floor and run 4:30 – 6:00 p.m.  

Speaker Series attendance is complimentary with membership in CoRe.  Non-members may attend individual sessions for $20 per event.  Pay for any Speaker Series event at the door or through Paypal. Sessions are often available for livestream viewing: we encourage livestream viewers to make a donation  to support this service.

For additional information, or to register for any event, please email coreclinic1@gmail.com.

2nd Biannual Collaborative Game Jam – June 17-19

CoRe Jolts is excited to be hosting the second Bi-Annual Collaborative Game Jam  aimed at the creation of collaborative tabletop games on June 17th-19th, 2016 in Tsawwassen!  For more information, check out the full announcement at CoRe Jolts.

Conflict Resolution Writers Group

The Conflict Resolution Writers Group continues to meet weekly – on alternating Fridays and Saturdays.  If you’d like to join us, check out our updated schedule here, or email at coreclinic1@gmail.com for details.

 

Mediator and arbitrator Hugh McCall joins Wendy Lakusta and Sharon Sutherland to discusses the ways in which a mediator can assist with the complexities of multi-party dynamics and power in strata disputes.

Hugh has acted as a mediator and arbitrator in numerous areas including partnership, business, insurance, construction, strata property, residential tenancy, municipal bylaw, motor vehicle warranty, legal fees, consumer, family, child protection and claims of physical and sexual abuse at Indian Residential Schools.

Wendy and Sharon are at work on a new series of Mediation Works videos aimed at building community within the Conflict Resolution field.  Watch for the new series to begin in Spring 2016!

Damage Control? Strategies for Working with High Risk and Hard to Serve Populations

Plan to join us on Tuesday, March 8th for our next CoRe Speaker Series event!  Jereme Brooks will lead a workshop on:

Jereme is a Child Protection Mediator and also works with, and designs programs for, high risk youth and families. In addition to his sense of humour, he brings strong connections to the two cultures he is a product of (Okanagan First Nation and Street) to his mediation practice.

Join Jereme for a workshop exploring these questions:

• What are the more common groups in Canada that fall under High Risk and Hard to Serve Populations?
• What are some characteristics of these groups?
• Do you need to be High Risk to be Hard to Serve and vice versa?
• Identifying some of the more common roadblocks to service put up by clients and service providers
• Simple practice philosophies to assist in increasing our capacity to work with these groups

Jereme’s talk is hosted by KPMG at 777 Dunsmuir Street (4th floor). For people who cannot attend in person,the workshop will be livestreamed at https://youtu.be/EqzPwJcK8o4. We encourage all online viewers to make a donation to CoRe to support our Speaker Series.

And Save the Date!

Tuesday, April 19 – Conversational Intelligence™

Speaker: Carrie Gallant
Conversational Intelligence™ (CIQ) is not about how smart you are, but how open you are to learning new and effective powerful conversational rituals that prime the brain for trust, partnership, and mutual success. Based on the latest neuroscience and brain research, CIQ relies on a framework for knowing which kind of conversations trigger the lower, more primitive brain and which conversations activate higher-level intelligences such as trust, integrity, empathy, and good judgment. We will examine how this applies in conflict, mediation and dispute resolution and some tools you can use to move towards collaboration.

For additional information, or to register for any event, please email us at coreclinic1@gmail.com.

CoRe is an approved continuing professional development provider for the Law Society of BC. Its Speaker Series events are pre-approved educational activities for professional development credit.

Say Salaam Initiative

Credit: ridzdesign

Many thanks to Shelina Neallani, Shannon Bentley, Carrie Gallant and all of our guests for a fascinating discussion of conflict resolution approaches for responding to anti-muslim rhetoric and sentiments (and for responding more broadly to identity-based attacks).  Carrie will be continuing to work on the development of tools to assist individuals and communities experiencing abuse, and perhaps to add to the toolkits of conflict resolution professionals.  If you are interested in contributing to, being involved or keeping in touch with the progress of Say Salaam, please let Carrie know. (Email coreclinic1@gmail.com). We are grateful to our guests for their shared expertise and reflection.

Next Conflict Resolution Writers Group Meeting

If you’re considering writing about conflict resolution topics – whether it is a single blog post, a children’s book, a screenplay, or a full length textbook – you’re invited to join us in our weekly writers group meetings.  We offer each other support and feedback as requested, but spend most of each meeting writing!  Our next meeting will be held in the corner group room in the JIBC library on Saturday, February 20, 10:00-12:00. Dates and times of future sessions can be found here.

Upcoming Speaker Events

Don’t miss Jereme Brooks on Tuesday, March 8th!  Jereme will present:

Damage Control? Strategies for Working with High Risk and Hard to Serve Populations

• What are the more common groups in Canada that fall under High Risk and Hard to Serve Populations?
• What are some characteristics of these groups?
• Do you need to be High Risk to be Hard to Serve and vice versa?
• Identifying some of the more common roadblocks to service put up by clients and service providers
• Simple practice philosophies to assist in increasing our capacity to work with these groups

Join us at KPMG, 4th floor, 777 Dunsmuir Street, 4:30-6:00.  Or watch the livestream on our Youtube channel.

And save the dates for:

– Conversational Intelligence with Carrie Gallant (Tuesday, April 19)

– How to Problem Solve with an Adversarial Negotiator (Tuesday, May 10) – presented by Carrie Gallant and Sharon Sutherland