Compassionate Cities League... Game on!
Dear Charter for Compassion Organizations Near and Wide:
As you know the Charter is closely aligned with one of our strategic partners, the Compassion Games. Great things have been happening with the Games and we are hoping that in the second half of 2017 even bigger advancements will be made. While many cities, communities, villages and hamlets have played the games, we are hoping that this number will increase substantially over the next months and years. Wouldn’t it be exciting to say that the Games helped strengthen our community initiative and helped center on our action plan, or that they introduced adjoining communities to become part of the Charter for Compassion; or even more importantly, that the Games helped to substantially relieve the pain and suffering of people in a country like Yemen. Think about the collective power the Games can have when people are all working for one cause—to get millions of people to commit to compassionate action and to live the tagline of the Charter—Peace starts here.
A message from Jon Ramer, the founder of the Compassion Games appears below. It is a request, and in many ways it is an invitation for your community to become a significant part of a unique group, the Compassionate Cities League. You don’t have to be a full-fledged city to play—you can be a small town or village, a township or province—all are welcome to join in. Most importantly, use this league to strengthen or expand what you are already doing, or to recommit to compassion by using the Cities League as a tool to reignite passion to your compassion movement. Don’t be put back by all of the text that follows—read on—it might actually bond, recreate and redesign your compassion initiative. I hope to see many of you on the score board working for a more peaceful world.
With kind regards,
Marilyn
Greetings,
I hope this finds you well and in good spirits. I'm writing to invite you to a Zoom call for people interested in organizing the Compassionate Cities League as part of the Compassion Games: Survival of the Kindest. The Compassionate Cities League welcomes teams that are interested in challenging each other to work and play together in the context of growth, expansion, collaboration and compassion. Check out the Doodle poll and your availability here. Once we confirm a time for this week; I'll send out a link to the Zoom room.
The first step in organizing the Compassionate Cities League is to form an "Organizing Committee" whose focus is on bringing the league into form. This follows a similar form to how we have grown the Compassion Games. We have attached a summary document that outlines the overall design process as well.
Who is this for?
Although this conversation has been going on for some time, I want to be sensitive and make sure that no one feels left out. So if there is someone that you feel should be invited please know you're welcome to extend the invitation. All are welcome. If you have felt excluded in any way up until now please know it was never our intention.
What is the call about?
We're organizing a group of global cities to challenge each other and establish the Compassionate Cities League as part of the upcoming Global Unity Compassion Games taking place in September 2017.
When is this Organizers Conversation Taking Place?
Here is a link to a doodle poll that has a few dates and time for THIS week.
Where?
We are inviting cities from all over the world to participate in the league. This Zoom call for this week can take place on your phone or computer.
Why?
This Compassionate Cities League builds upon the work of many people from all over the world that have been doing the work on the ground to create just and lasting change through compassionate action. In order to respond to the urgent complex challenges of our time, we need our projects/models/teams to scale. We think that by working and playing together we can deepen the impact that we're having and get to scale faster.
Our aim is a sustainable impact at scale. We are looking to link innovation, learning and the process of scaling up.
Our goal is to have the Compassion Games become a "self-replicating participatory activity" that communities embrace and expand upon. We know that we’re not there yet. Having served over 5,000,000 people we can easily imagine millions of teams around the world, serving a billion people, and learning from and supporting each other on how to improve the quality of life within each of our communities.
How do we organize this committee?
I've attached a draft of the scope and definition of the league and how we thinkin it will work. Take a look and please make your comments in anticipation of the call. We knowingly invite “the good, the bad, and the ugly”. Let's see if we can make this vision and the document a lot better.
FYI: OpenIDEO
The Compassion Games is participating in a "Bridgebuilder" challenge put forward by OpenIDEO. The Charter for Compassion is partnering with them in this effort. This has been a transforming experience. Not only are we growing and expanding the Games, we're growing and expanding our capacity to collaborate in the process. The BridgeBuilder challenge question is:
There were over 650 submissions and we made the shortlist of 100. Here's our idea: https://challenges.openideo.
We have included the idea of the Compassionate Cities League as part of building a bridge connecting to prosperity.
We are requesting your input! Please click on the link above and take a look at the submission. We hope that you will scroll to the bottom of the page and enter a comment. The comment can include constructive feedback as to what works, what could be improved, and suggestions for improvement. Also, if you are supportive, please "applaud" the proposal by clicking on the "heart" symbol. To comment, you will need to "Sign In" to OpenIDEO.
**Please make your comments this week!
We look forward to taking this next step together. Game on! Be together soon!
In community,
Jon and the Compassion Games Leadership Team
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