Valentine Fairies

I just had to get this post up before the end of February. It's been almost a year since I've blogged, which seems unbelievable. Yet when I cast my gaze over my shoulder at the past twelve months I am amazed at the distance I've traveled given the difficult path I was on. It feels wonderful to be centred in the present, with such an exciting and hopeful future. One thing is certain though, I would not have survived without the kindness of friends and family. I was literally saturated with kindness and support. So thank-you to my amazing sister and her family, my parents who are always 'there for me', and my dear friends - you know who you are.

There are so many things to share. Firstly, and not necessarily related to dakbands, although people's feedback has certainly been kind! I have launched my new coaching website. Please take a moment to have a look.

Perhaps most importantly we have made some awesome programming changes to our website making it SO much easier for you to look for any stories associated with your dakband, and now you can share your story in just a few clicks. And you can share your story to all your favourite social media sites!! Imagine sharing your dakband story to Twitter and Facebook! And we have more changes coming!

I wanted to leave you with an inspiring story of kindness that manifested on Valentine's Day in Vancouver. My dearest friend Ainslie (of AinslieWear Fame), and a couple of her friends dressed up as Valentines Fairies and visited St. Paul's Hospital to cheer up the patients. Wow. (Ainslie is in the red scarf). I'll have to send some dakbands to those girls :)

It's good to be back. 
Be kind today!

Walking The Labyrinth

As promised, I'll continue my post from yesterday about my New Year's experience at The Sisterhood of St. John the Divine convent.

Here is the program we followed:
Friday, December 31
9:00 am Registration, refreshments
10:00 am First Retreat Session: Celebrating the Past - A Blessed History
12:00 noon Eucharist followed by silent dinner
3:00 pm Second Retreat Session: Visioning the Future - Your New Year
5:00 pm Silent Supper
7:00 pm New Year's Eve Vigil
7:30 pm Third Retreat Session: Finding your symbol in the Labyrinth
9:00 pm New Year's Eve refreshments

Saturday, January 1
8 - 9:00 am Silent Breakfast
9:00 am Morning Prayer
10:00 am Final Retreat Session: Sharing the Light
11:30 am Eucharist followed by talking dinner
1:30 pm departures

General Retreat Rules:
- there is no obligation to participate in any of agenda items
- no cell phones, alcohol, drugs or smoking in the Guest House
- silence in all sleeping areas
- spirit of quiet throughout the building
- Talking in the Conference Room, sitting rooms (with door closed), or outdoors
- meals are silent except for New Year's Day dinner

The balance of silence and talking was perfect. I'd never participated in a silent meal before, and it is quite a unique experience. I found it forced me to eat more consciously. At the end of the meal one of the sisters rings a bell, as a signal that the meal is finished. Everyone stands and says a brief thanksgiving. It was just one of the many enlightenments I enjoyed.

One of the highlights for me was walking the Labyrinth on New Year's Eve. The convent has a beautiful, eleven sided, stone Labyrinth modeled after the labyrinth at Chartres. Each stone in the labybrinth was laid with prayer and the sacredness can be felt upon approach. Before we entered the labyrinth, C.J. (our retreat leader) gave us all some notes on how to use the labyrinth prayerfully, meditatively. Unlike a maze, a labyrinth has no dead ends. There is one path into and out of the center. As you walk the path, you move closer to, and further away from the center. The center of the labyrinth can symbolize the goal of your life, God's heart, the center of the world - anything you want it to. Once you reach the center, you can stay there for as long as is needed. It is a place to focus, savour, release, connect with all of your senses, receive grace and enlightenment. The inward path and the outward path are opportunities of reflection. It is a personal journey. Some questions we were encouraged to ask ourselves as we made the journey included: What am I thankful for, what do I bring with me to the labybrinth, what am I leaving at the center, what am I taking away with me, what causes me to alter my path, is there a symbol that might represent this journey?

Despite the rain, almost everyone at the Retreat walked the Labyrinth. The following day, New Year's Day, we shared our experiences during the last session. The stories were profoundly moving. Some people created artwork that represented the symbol they received during their journey. Each piece of art and story was a gift of inspiration.

The opening of the New Year was kind and gentle to us all.

Beginnings: Part Three

It wasn't long after that Oprah show - thankfully it was a mild winter - that the concept worked itself out for me.

I knew that an individual would begin with a number of bands, wearing them like bangles, and that they would give two bands away to someone they witnessed being kind to someone else. (Although I began with a focus on sportsmanship I quickly realized that any gadget I created to reward sportsmanship could be applied in a much broader context, so I began to think much bigger, in terms of community - knowing that we could customize the project for sport.) The person receiving those two bands could keep one, and pass the other along to someone else they witnessed being kind. Then I realized it would be really neat if every single band had a unique number so it could be tracked on a live interactive map. We could ALL witness the ripple effects of kindness as our bands traveled through community and around the world.

The name of the project came to me during a workshop I was leading for sport administrators. I was explaining how important it is for members of a group or organization to define their understanding of certain words and concepts (character, community, citizenship, team....) in order to minimize misunderstandings and conflict. I was using the word random as an example because it is such a common slang word for youth these days. Random means without definite aim, reason or purpose. So why, I asked the group, do we celebrate random acts of kindness? And as the words came out of mouth I knew the name of our project would become Deliberate Acts of Kindness, and our bands would become dakbands.

My next post will discuss in greater detail my intention regarding the choice of 'Deliberate'.

Again, please don't forget to go to our first post and leave a comment so you have the opportunity to win some dakbands!

Please go to our trak your dak page on our website and check out band #19754.

Beginnigs: Part Two

In the spring of the new year, 2006, I created a not for profit organization called Civic Sport Group (CSG). This organization would be the vehicle for all our community building initiatives, as well as, any grant and research projects. We received a grant from the Communities in Action Fund that permitted us to partner with a local university to examine bullying in youth hockey and build a new coach education model that we called the Coaching Connection. I promised myself that I would have a 'tool' by the time the grant project was due to finish in the spring of 2007.

All winter, as I ran through slush and snow (running is my processing/thinking time), I sorted out the details: purpose, procedure, outcomes. The purpose was fairly simple, it had to encourage sportsmanship and community. The outcome was even simpler, personal development and community transformation. But the procedure eluded me....the awareness band phenomena had really come and gone - aside from a few key colours it was difficult to know what they were meant to support. I liked the concept of the awareness band despite it's ubiquitary nature, however I always felt like there was a piece missing to that puzzel. They were too passive. Then one afternoon while watching the Oprah show - yes, I love Oprah - it all clicked!

Her guest was a pastor who had created an awareness band for his congregation. He challenged his congreation to go 21 days (the amount of time it generally takes to develop a new 'habit')without complaining, and every time that you did complain you had to switch your band to the opposite wrist and start your 21 days over. Here was the missing piece to the awareness band puzzel that eluded me - an action, switching the bands from wrist to wrist. However, the more I thought about it the more frustrated I became because as an observer I could never know at which point in the 21 days anyone was at. If I met you on the street and saw the band on your right wrist, you could have switched it five minutes ago, or 20 days ago....so it was back into my thermal underwear, and reflective outerwear, as I tried to figure out how to modify this concept. I felt like there was something really big and exciting waiting to be discovered, I knew I was close. (I am aware that by over analyzing the procedure I was missing the point. And I definitely would have had to switch wrists!)

Please don't forget to go to our first post and leave a comment so you have the opportunity to win some dakbands!

Please go to our trak your dak page on our website http://www.deliberateactsofkindness.com/track/index.html and check out band #6997.

Beginnings: Part One

We are so excited about the dakband project, the reception it is receiving from individuals, corporate organizations, fundraising initiatives and especially schools. In fact we have been invited to present the dakband project at the Be the Change Youth Leadership and Action Day, on November 21, for the Halton Catholic School Board.

However, as promised, I’ll resume the story of the dakband genesis….A couple of years ago I was invited to speak at the inaugural conference of the ‘Church and Sport’ a new sector of the Roman Catholic Church. The conference was hosted by the Vatican and I was one of fifty people from around the world invited to participate, and only one of 10 invited to actually speak! I was also the only non- catholic participant. It was literally one of my life’s highlights, and yes, I did meet Pope Benedict! The invitation arose from work and research of my other company, Justplay Sports Services, www.wejustplay.com. The significance being, that it was this event that eventually inspired the development of the dakband project.

At one point, near the end of the conference, one of the Bishops asked my panel of speakers if there was any hope that we, as a global community, could salvage or restore the domain of sport to its virtuous or Olympic origins (each of the four panel members had unfortunately just painted a rather dismal picture of the state of youth and professional sports). I responded with a verse from the bible that tells us perseverance produces character, and character, hope. And inspired by that hope I left the conference with a mission to create a tool that would help reestablish the community building virtues of sport.

Stay tuned for Part two……

Please don't forget our give away (see our first post). Leave a comment about an act of kindness that touched you!

At the end of each blog I am going suggest tracking a particular dakband. So please check out band # 31621 at our website tracking page www.deliberateactsofkindness.com/track/index.html

Welcome

Welcome to our daklife blog.

My partner Kara Hawke and I will be posting regularly about the Deliberate Acts of Kindness project: musings, observations, developments, contests, interviews, and from time to time perhaps even a rant or two! We hope you’ll visit often, become part of our global community, share your comments and acts of kindness that touch and change your life.

Our story

I created the dakband concept over the period of about year. (I’ll post a story about that creative process in the near future). Once I had some samples in hand, I invited a friend for lunch hoping that her reaction to the concept would give me the approval encouragement I needed to take the next steps. By the end of lunch (I’m not sure we even ordered any food!), Kara and I were partners. (We could probably write a bestseller called the Dak Diet)

As the V.P. of a boutique advertising firm, the mother of six, and an inherently kind soul, I knew Kara was the perfect partner. Her company (www.emersondesign.com) did all the fabulous design and logo work for the project. And within a few weeks Kara made our first custom sales (see Transitions Group and CBIC Run for the Cure). Her passion for the project combined with her networking skills continue to open doors that would make even Monty Hall jealous!

Although the project had a soft launch in the New Year, we are sending our ‘official media release’ out into the world next week. Emerson Group has created an awesome package that will go out to newspapers, magazines, organizations, and important individuals around the world so keep your eyes and ears open – or simply visit here to learn about all the latest developments and reactions to the project.

In honor of our official blog launch our first give away will be 3 sets of dakbands drawn at random from everyone who leaves a comment about an act of kindness that inspired them. The contest will close at midnight Friday the 24th.

I look forward to sharing with you all.
Yours kindly,