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Recap of our first Conference Planning Meeting held 2-24-14; attended by Brent, Linda, James, and Bonnie. Please follow this thread at your convenience. If you would like to be involved in the planning process at any point, please let me know. No doubt as we start to firm things up, we'll need additional help in additional areas such as getting the word out so think about that as well....Exciting stuff
RECAP
Please note we’re hoping to report in and make some progress via email over the next month and have scheduled our next live conference call for Friday, March 28 at 1pm.
Just a recap from my perspective; please feel free to add any comments, thoughts or questions.
VENUE
Regarding VENUE, Brent is going to look into any opportunities with the L.A. Jung Institute. Linda is going to pursue Antioch in L.A. as well. I will check in with Craig about CIIS in SF and also with Patricia Damery about partnering with SF Jung Institute. I’ll also check in with Lori Pye who is a professor in the myth program at Pacifica. She has been a great supporter of the Alliance and is super experienced at hosting conferences in Santa Barbara/ Southern CA. We also discussed branching out if needed—i.e. if none of those venues have meeting rooms as big as we would like, maybe we could involve them for daily breakout sessions and contract a nearby church for an opening and closing session. Obviously we’re hoping to find a venue for free or one that would settle for a small percentage of income. Our target for number of participants would be around 250+ if possible. Finalizing the venue might also determine dates for the conference to a great extent.
TOPIC
The four of us will make some personal notes on what we think the topic could be, and/or articulate a few lines for a title based on Depth Psychology and the Future (in some way). Once we have a chance to assess our thoughts, we can either schedule a call to brainstorm and discuss more, and/or we can put topics to a vote from either the board or the Alliance community.
SPEAKERS
I will put out a survey to the Alliance community to ask for a “wish list” of speakers and see why comes up. Meanwhile, the four of us (and the board for that matter) should probably be making our own lists of people we know who might be willing (especially at low or no cost). If we incorporate several dozen breakout groups, we can partially populate the conference with presenters who would also pay to attend. If we do this, we’ll need to call for and review proposals to make decisions on who will present.
TICKET COST
We didn’t discuss this and I know Brent already has some idea of what it would take to be lucrative. Just in case I forget when we get to it, I think we should also consider “early bird” rates to front load participants as well as reach out to organizations and offer a discount (maybe 10%) to their members.
CONFERENCE MISSION
This was a great point brought up by James. WHY are we planning a conference? What is the goal? How can we address both the soulful issues that connect around depth psychology as well as tying it to a specific question or addressing a specific need?
My thoughts on why…(and it’s interesting to note the priority I gave these). I’d love to know what you all think:
1) To generate income for the Alliance; seed money and compensation for those taking on the work
2) To get exposure for the Alliance
3) To establish credibility for the Alliance
4) To provide education and opportunities to connect in community
I will try to do some work around the Alliance mission and vision statements and create more of a “business plan” over coming weeks and months. I will also do some research into making us a non-profit to weigh pros and cons.
Replies
CONFERENCE PLANNING UPDATE AS OF 3-28-14
Attendees on the call today: James, Bonnie, Linda, Donna, Eva Rider (member representative)
We have an offer from JFKU in the San Fran Bay Area to host us free, though the timeline would require us to hold the conference next March (2015). This would give us more time to prepare and to book speakers in advance. I’m tempted still to reach out to SSU as Sonoma may also be a viable option to host us and I know the chair of the depth program well since I did my Master’s there. I’ll try to do that in the next few days so we can nail it down. I suspect the timeline would be the same either way as we can only be on campus when they are on a break. This August before school starts for Fall is too soon, the next break is typically over the holidays, which leaves Spring break our first/best option.
The survey (you will have received an email copy 3-28 from me) shows people are most interested in a theme around “depth methods” or Jungian techniques to access the unconscious—very traditional depth stuff. We discussed that we could perhaps still integrate the topic of the “future of depth psychology” by focusing on which techniques are tried and true, how they are being concretely applied, and if/how they are evolving. I’m excited about the possibilities and ask each of you to submit at least one sentence that articulates a conference theme along these lines (or somewhat related—be as creative as you like and let psyche work you!). It would be best to track these ONLINE so I’ll create a post (again, you can get there by clicking the “bee” icon on the home page) and if you can respond with your suggestions by April 30, that would be great. I’ll do the same for speakers, so if you want to review who was suggested by survey takers and choose your own top 5 and list them, we can start contacting people as soon as we have a few more things nailed down.
Linda filled us in on what she has learned about crowd funding. Most of the major sites (Kickstarter, IndieGoGo) don’t allow “events” per se, but they do allow funding books or publications and we talked about publishing a book of our presenters talks after the conference so we could go that route to get seed money for the conference itself. I’m going to look more at it and if anyone else learns more or has thoughts, let me know.
Any additions/corrections/suggestions welcomed!
James-- I love the way you've articulated this here, and indeed (as predicted) prefer the word "shadow" to "evil" as stated. The survey results for topics preferred by members so far indicate their first choice is what I'm calling "depth methodologies and techniques"--that is, essentially, "ways to access the unconscious."
Maybe we could create a headline about (ignore my wording) "How to" Access the unconscious in a world that is unconscious. This might appeal to both people who are seeking knowledge and inner work, and people who are offering techniques and looking to hone or share their skills....
It would also be, in my opinion, about the future of depth psychology and we could still have a multitude of discussions around this...Are all the known techniques still the best, are there new ones we should be aware of and/or focus on, what happens when we do access the unconscious, how do we protect ourselves and our clients when it goes too far, etc.
Just a note:
Depth Alliance has the opp to sponsor a conference which is being put together for this September by Gary Bobroff who is a Pacifica grad and Alliance member. Gary drove to the Bay Area to speak for the very first Bay Area local Alliance gathering a couple of years ago about his work on crop circles and the re-emergence of the archetypal feminine.
Venue Update: As of 3-13, we are still trying to find a venue and after that will pick dates, then topic and speakers. I had a call yesterday with the director of the new depth psych program at JFKU. They are willing to offer space but the next realistic opp for dates wouldn’t be until next March/Spring break—a year from now. Though that might be OK. They are in the far East Bay (Pleasant Hill) so I’m wishing they were more central. They have a much smaller campus in Berkeley. Maybe we could combine with a Berkeley hotel to do large sessions at the hotel and breakout sessions at the JFK Berkeley campus. I’m next putting it out to the conference planning committee for discussion. Our next meeting is March 28 at 1pm PT if anyone (new) would like to join that session.
I've managed to get quotes to rent space at a Unitarian church in downtown San Fran. The question is whether it would be worth paying for such a central location/destination place for the conference or whether to take the offer for FREE space at JFK 30 miles east of SF.
Maybe we could raise some funds to support rental via crowd funding...Anyone here have experience with it?
Just a quick update on the search for a location for our conference. I have a conference call with Jacob Kaminker, who is heading up the new depth psychology program at JFKU in the SF Bay Area on Wednesday. Patricia Damery put me in touch with him. He has indicated they may be willing to host our conference—however, they are located 30-40 minutes east of SF and it’s pretty suburban so perhaps not as big of a draw as having the conference in SF.
I’ll see what he can do; I expressed my location concerns to him via email and suggested maybe they could sponsor with some $$ and we could still rent a place in SF but he seemed a bit skeptical. I know budget is usually not an option for many academic orgs. At any rate, I’m also checking into costs to rent a Unitarian church where the Jung Institute and other related orgs have hosted events and wondered if we might crowd fund the space….Anyone have experience with that? I know two people who have done it rather successfully—one to fund dissertation research in Israel and one to publish upcoming books.
Bonnie and all, hi
First, Bonnie, great recap, and great mailing today! Very nicely done.
I just wanted to mention that, the more I think about the conference, the more my mind keeps circumambulating around the question: “What is the role of Depth Psychology in confronting evil in the contemporary world?” I don’t know if this is too negative an idea, or if it is just my own fixation, or if it is even close to what we would want to focus on, but I thought I would share it and see if it sparks any thoughts in anyone else.
My own feeling is that unconsciousness in the world today, in general, is like a pall of enchantment in a fairy tale. It is the thing that causes people to act instinctually and drives them to behave in violent (gun violence), greedy (Wall street, etc.), and grasping (materialism, consumerism) ways. My sense is that depth psychology in general is a key resource for confronting these issues. I don’t know if we could nuance this idea enough that it would appeal to both potential presenters and potential attendees, but this is where my thoughts keep going.
All the best,
James
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback, James. I hope other board members will jump in on this as well. Our topic could be critical to how many members we attract to the conference.
I agree completely with you about unconsciousness being the "evil" that is wreaking havoc on our planet and our individual and collective lives. Your examples above tell the story well. If we could find a way to word that without actually using the word "evil," I think it could be enticing. From a general use perspective, I feel "evil" might be a bit too complex (and may constellate quite a few complexes if you know what I mean).
The survey (taken by about 120 members) suggests people's first choice for a topic lies in the more traditional Jungian/depth modalities (i.e., dreams, active imagination, and other ways to "access" the unconscious). It would be interesting to structure the conference around how those different modalities can help combat unconsciousness (and/or stimulate/generate consciousness). We could also add in experiential sessions where people can do dreamwork, breathwork, somatic work, etc.
What do y'all think?
Bonnie, hi:
I know, using the word 'evil' is a marketer's nightmare (although, I do like it, precisely because it is so evocative of the repressed). 'Shadow,' of course, is another useful term for addressing unconsciousness.
In any case, I'm mainly hoping to point us in the direction of practical applications of Depth Psychology. If people do have a general idea about Depth Psychology, they tend to think of it as being impractical in terms of actual activities in the world (self absorbed, navel gazing, etc.). On the contrary, I think Depth Psychology (i.e. addressing the unconscious - both individually and in society) as being the most practical thing we can do. I would like to see the conference (and the DPA in general) focus on practical applications of Depth Psychology.
Best,
James