Reflecting on Our First Lifelong Civic Learning Convening

Earlier this month, CivicLex and Democracy Notes co-hosted a convening in Lexington on lifelong civic learning, with 50% of our attendees based in Lexington and 50% based across the US. Building it and watching it run with Gabriel Lerner was one of the more rewarding experiences I've had in some time because we got to build it as solidly values-aligned for both Gabe and myself. Here's what I mean. It was...

Place-based: If we're hosting a convening in a place, it should benefit that place. Half of our attendees were in Lexington - public school teachers, nonprofits, and more; plus, all of the food came from locally-owned businesses.

Relational: No screens, no slides, and no panels -- only conversation. We closely planned the attendees, the breakout conversations, and asked everyone to stay off their devices. We also really intentionally kept it small - around 35 people - so folks could get to know each other.

Fun: We had fun! We had a gelato voyage, the agenda wasn't serious, and we tried to set a fun tone for the event and make it something folks actually wanted to be at. We dedicated the first day to just hanging out, no content.

Cross-sector: We had folks from aligned but different spaces, including youth civic education, higher ed, adult leadership development, journalism, philanthropy, and more.

Lots of takeaways, and maybe we started galvanizing a new field, but more to come as we process it all.

SO MANY THANKS to Stephanie Mobley who handled so many of the logistics, Samantha Owens for all the work on documentation, and of course, Joelle Deleveaux and Lumina Foundation for supporting the event.

Big thanks to all those who joined and brought their warmth and brilliance: Aaron Davis, Aaron Mudd, Alex Edgar, Amy Stansbury, Andrew Wilkes, Carly Muetterties, Chloe Jordan, Daniela DiGiacomo, Devin Scanlon, Eunice Lin Nichols, Jessica Lieberman, V. Kaye Monk-Morgan, Kelsey Ensign, Laura Darolia, Mary Helen Montgomery, Melissa Newman, Natalie Furlett, Paz Magat, Pragya Upreti, Rachel Belin, Rian Davis, Ryan Montgomery, Scotty E. Kirkland, Sonam Vashi, Stefanie Georgakis Abbott, M. Tyler McDaniel, Will Powers, Zoë Jenkins