Still waiting for your turn?
If you are one of the thousands of people who have registered to participate or host a Welcome Dinner, you may be wondering why you haven’t had a turn yet. In the past year alone, we have doubled the number of dinners (and lunches) held and we are about to reach the incredible milestone of our 200th Welcome Dinner. Every Welcome Dinner takes an average 10 hours of coordination work, primarily done by volunteers. If we have not yet managed to find or appoint a Coordinator in your area, then we probably haven’t had any dinners there yet and since we try to match people up locally, you may not have been invited to one in another area. However, you should be receiving our quarterly newsletter and invitations to larger Community Welcome Dinners when they occur. If you are waiting to host, you can attend as a participant for now. One of our challenges is that in some areas we have a long waiting list and in other areas we haven’t yet found hosts. We are also always seeking more help to invite newly arrived people to take part and much of our time is spent getting out into our local communities to connect with newly arrived people – please assist us with this if you can!
Unlocking the power of your neighbourhood – a Jim Diers workshop
By Michelle Kiernan - Welcome Dinner Project Victoria South East Hub Member One of the best things about volunteering with the Welcome Dinner Project is the opportunities for professional development. I was fortunate enough to avail of one of these opportunities...
U Lab: Leading From the Emerging Future
Reflections on being a U Lab learner by Wafaa Beaini - Welcome Dinner Project Victoria South East Hub Member Wafaa is currently part of a small group of WDP Victoria volunteers who are learning about Otto Scharmer's Theory U as part of the 2017 MOOC U Lab. What...
Learning how to deal with challenging encounters
By Amir and Saya – Welcome Dinner Project facilitators in Victoria As Welcome Dinner Project facilitators, we all have a keen interest in learning and honing skills for wonderful events. We are well looked after, with a calendar of interesting and valuable training...
Welcome Dinners are building an Economy of Trust!
Welcome Dinners are free to attend but we are still tapping into the local economy, not the one based on consumption but rather one based on sharing - the economy of community, where the exchange is in the form of goodwill and trust. Last week, two of us from the...
Having brave conversations around the dinner table
By Rachel Clark Every season, Welcome Dinner Project volunteers gather for a free ‘professional development’ training session. The aim of these trainings is to give us the knowledge, skills and questions to go deeper in serving the vision and values of the Welcome...
Community Welcome Dinner in Eastlakes, Sydney
On Friday 2nd of June, a Community Welcome Dinner was hosted at Eastlakes Community Centre in Sydney. 90 people came along to share food and stories. On the day before, eventbrite tickets were all gone and everyone was quite excited about preparing the food they will...
