Thornhill Campus Meeting, Hosted By Hesperus

07 Jun Thornhill Campus Meeting, Hosted By Hesperus

– by Doug Wylie

The 10 organizations residing on Thornhill campus met on May 6, 2010 to explore how we might collaborate more. This was a meeting that had been talked about for years and it certainly felt long overdue. Thanks to Pina Corigliano who carefully crafted and arranged the meeting and to Gord Collins who wonderfully facilitated the conversations.
Representatives from each organization gave a brief history and then spoke about their vision of the future of their particular organization. I was very impressed with the extensive activities going on and how very richly endowed we are to have such powerful and wonderful organizations in one area.
From each of the talks, a brief time was spent pulling together common themes and possible ways the organizations could collaborate and work together. They were listed as follows at the end of the meeting:
• Collaborative outreach into the greater community
• Shared administration
• Shared festivals
• Branding and promoting the campus as a whole
• Shared fund raising
• Cultivating the common thread of Anthroposophy.
• Coordinating resources
• Understanding the soul needs of our community
• Positively promoting each other culturally
• Creating a form for collaboration and to create a regularly held forum to cultivate collaboration as a campus entity.
There was a warm and enlivened feeling at the end of the meeting and I heard many saying that a longer meeting would be very beneficial. This first meeting was one really to get to encounter each other in one room and to get a sense of the overall campus organism. Some discussion of a “name” took place and I’m sure more discussion will come. There was also a recognition that we also relate to other Anthroposophical organizations in the broader area. The Toronto Waldorf School offered to host the next Campus meeting in the fall.