Conference sketches

One of the highlights of this past month was attending the NCDD (National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation) conference in San Francisco. It was a brilliant conference – well-organized, exciting, thought-provoking, inspiring – chock-full of excellent workshops and presentations, amazing people, and of course, great conversation from dawn to dusk! I'd be hard pressed to pinpoint what I liked best, since I felt like a kid in a candy shop the whole time. But some highlights were: a day-long training in Compassionate Listening, a soulful and moving workshop on "Story" as an entry to sustained dialogue, and a D&D Methods Showcase featuring, among other things, a session on Graphic Capture by two of the stars in the field, Nancy Margulies and Christine Valenza.

I was thrilled to meet Nancy and Christine because I've admired their work for a long time. I wondered what they would think of my efforts – so I decided to ask them. You see, instead of bringing a notebook to the conference, I decided I'd take visual notes, as though I were doing graphic recording for a meeting. So I sketched madly away whenever I could, and thought my drawings were not too bad. But would they measure up in the eyes of the masters?

I spotted Christine and Nancy in the foyer during a quiet moment and asked them if they would look at – and comment on – my sketchbook. They graciously agreed, and after their session was over I presented myself with my sketchbook and waited for their response. Much to my delight, their response was great! They were most encouraging of my efforts, and told me I was well on my way and could declare myself as a practitioner in the field without hesitation.

So without further delay, I, Avril Orloff, officially declare myself as a graphic facilitator/graphic recorder – no longer "I want to be", but "I am"! Here are a few pages from my sketchbook.