An Invitation to Visit the New IPCR Website Discussion Forum

The website of The Interfaith Peacebuilding and Community Revitalization (IPCR) Initiative now has a Discussion Forum. The IPCR Discussion Forum can be accessed from any IPCR website page at www.ipcri.net and also at http://ipcrdiscussionforum.proboards.com/index.cgi . The Discussion Forum is from ProBoards (at www.proboards.com ). The Discussion Forum building process is easy to understand, and the tools and features are easy to use. An ad-free forum is only $7 per month.

The IPCR Initiative provides many freely accessible documents and resources that are relevant to building a “constellation” of initiatives approach to peacebuilding, community revitalization, and ecological sustainability—and the “constellation” of initiatives approach can be adopted and modified to supplement local community specific responses to the growing number of critical challenges which require urgent attention.

A central focus of The IPCR Initiative is its advocacy for a combination of Community Visioning Initiatives, “Community Teaching and Learning Centers”, and “sister community” relationships as a way of generating an exponential increase in our collective capacity to overcome the challenges of our times.

The IPCR Discussion Forum provides a wide variety of ways to encourage and grow a valuable and active learning environment—which can, in turn, assist and support efforts to achieve the above mentioned goals. Here are 3 examples of how such a valuable and active learning environment can be grown:

1) The current focus of this writer (the founder and outreach coordinator of The IPCR Initiative) is a kind of open collaboration project titled “IPCR Critical Challenges Assessment 2011”. There is an introduction to this project on The IPCR Initiative homepage (near the bottom), and an IPCR webpage for the project at http://www.ipcri.net/Critical-Challenges-Assessment.html This IPCR webpage will provide draft versions (and, eventually, completed versions) of the “statistics and observations” sections and the “commentary” sections associated with each of the 10 critical challenges currently identified. (An example now accessible—the “statistics and observations” section “Draft IPCR Critical Challenges Assessment Section #3 The End of ‘Cheap Energy’ (particularly in reference to Peak Oil)”. There is now a section in the IPCR Discussion Forum for discussing this project.

2) One of the sections in the IPCR Discussion Forum is “A Mini Questionnaire from The IPCR Initiative”. There are ten threads (stickies) posted in this section, and each of these ten threads is a question which can be replied to as if one was participating in a survey. Visitors to this section can read other people’s replies, so it’s not exactly like a survey; however, this is one way to see if the questions are useful—as in “Does the question bring forth replies that provide valuable insight on the subject of the question?” This section can become a location for creating useful questions, and testing them—and thus creating a database of questions which can be used in preliminary surveys, in preparation for Community Visioning Initiatives. This is a very important and potentially valuable aspect of the IPCR Discussion Forum—and it may be an inspiration to others to use Discussion Forums in this way. I invite readers of this message to visit this “Questionnaire” section of the IPCR Discussion Forum, and respond to the questions—or provide comments and suggestions relating to them.

3) The IPCR Initiative gives much attention to the potential of Community Visioning Initiatives (with supporting “Community Teaching and Learning Centers”—and supplementary “sister community” relationships). The ways we “invest” our time, energy, and money have a direct impact on the “ways of earning a living” that are available; and in the months and years ahead we may need to be especially constructive and creative in how we use our time, energy, and money—as this will determine what “ways of earning a living” exist. The IPCR Discussion Forum has sections for discussion of Community Visioning Initiatives “Community Teaching and Learning Centers”, and “sister community” relationships—and these sections can become clearinghouses for the exchange of information on model projects and best practices.

I believe this IPCR Discussion Forum can be very helpful to people here at worldpulse.com, and I invite readers to visit the IPCR Discussion Forum, by visiting the IPCR Initiative website at www.ipcri.net or by visiting the IPCR Discussion Forum directly at http://ipcrdiscussionforum.proboards.com/index.cgi .

As an aid to understanding the wide range and character of the IPCR Discussion Forum, here is a list of the 17 categories which are the starting point sections for the forum. I will be alert to comments, suggestions, and recommendations by participants, and changes will be made as necessary, so the forum can move closer and closer to realizing its potential as a valuable learning environment.

The 17 Categories of the IPCR Discussion Forum:

Introductions and Welcomes
IPCR Discussion Forum Overview
Frequently Asked Questions
IPCR Critical Challenges Assessment 2011
A Four Page Summary of The IPCR Initiative
The “1000Communities2” (“1000CommunitiesSquared”) Proposal
The IPCR Journal/Newsletter (Winter 2010-2011 issue)
The Eight IPCR Concepts
A Mini Questionnaire from The IPCR Initiative
Community Visioning Initiatives
“Community Teaching and Learning Centers”
“Sister Community” Relationships
117 Related Fields of Activity
IPCR News Aggregator—and Links
Fair Use, Creative Commons, Open Source, and The IPCR Resource Sharing Policy
Open Topic
Suggestions on How to Improve this IPCR Discussion Forum

Additional Note: Significant revisions have recently been made to the The IPCR Initiative website homepage—and some additional interior webpages have been added. I hope that readers of this message who have visited the IPCR Initiative website in the past will be pleasantly surprised by new organizational structure of the IPCR homepage, and the resources now accessible on the IPCR Initiative website.

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For a Peaceful and Sustainable Future,

Stefan Pasti, Founder and Outreach Coordinator
The IPCR Initiative