The Living Lands team headed away for some seaside sessions last Sunday and Monday as part of its first organizational ‘indaba’. The indaba – a popularized Zulu word for ‘meeting/gathering’ – brought colleagues together for diverse visioning and strategy sessions. The outcome was a refreshed Living Lands vision, concise mission statement, focus areas and some good laughs and team bonding.

Participants drew inspiration and energy from the idyllic Tsitsikamma coastline to brainstorm on organizational focus, project planning, (PRESENCE) network enabling and personal and collective learning.

The Living Lands team successfully formulated its organizational vision on the first evening. In line  with its long-time guiding philosophy of adding mutually beneficial value to the existing landscape, the Living Lands team agreed on:

‘Collaborations working on living landscapes’.

The team feels this vision captures the essence of what Living Lands is all about. One of the recurring hurdles that the organisation has faced in its short history is to help  partners understand that Living Lands is primarily there to provide added-value partnerships and synergy to the landscape – both the physical and institutional. And this desire to assist is not always for our own benefit and therefore sometimes misunderstood as having ulterior motives!

This vision ‘Collaborations working on living landscapes’  laid the foundations for the Living Lands team to roll-out a revised mission statement which will be communicated with key partners and  published on this website soon. Furthermore, Living Lands was able to re-define its core organisational focus areas based on current activities, programmes and future ambitions.

The weekend also made time for staff to connect on a personal level with a range of fun activities as well as allowing individuals to develop their own desire and ambitions statements for the remainder of 2010 and 2011.

“Living Lands is a young organization and in the last year we have grown substantially from two-three people to ten people ((7 fulltime and 3 part-time).” said director Dieter Van den Broeck. “So a few focused days like this is crucial for our personal outlook and organizational development. In busy times, we need to prioritize our options according to what best aligns with our vision, mission and personal ambitions.”

The weekend certainly achieved this and reenergized the Living Lands team as they together look forward to finishing 2010 on a high.

http://www.earthcollective.net/livinglands/