What Round Table members say about being in the Round Table…

“Fun, friends and a good laugh” (Companion, 13 yrs)

“I like going to the Round Table because I have friends there, I like doing the sport – it's fun.” (Companion, 11 yrs)

“A close, friendly and spiritual community, great for sharing ideas and thoughts on the Round Table itself and our lives in general and, if you have something to say, you are listened to, rather than shut out.” (Knight, 20s yrs)

“Relaxation, the opportunity to discuss ideas, fun and thought/reflection.” (Squire, 15 yrs)

“Family, time out, time to think, meeting people, getting to know people, getting to know yourself, trying new things, doing old things and once in a lifetime opportunities.” (Squire, 17 yrs)

 

Some of our thought processing.

May Discussion Camp 2007

Summary of a workshop led by Matthew Hancocks.

“Knowing self and others, succeed in all situations” -Sun Tzu

In May 2007, members attempted to explore the experience of transformation! However, rather than explore this in a dry theoretical discussion we took a risk and attempted to actually experience it by trying something practical: synergic inquiry or SI. SI is a way of investigating differences between people and transforming situations that have become ‘stuck’ in a bad place. It is a way of being together that encourages us in 4 stages:

• to understand ourselves better

• to understand others better

• to see and hold on to our differences and finally,

• to find ways to overcome or transcend these differences.

The first two stages are all about discovering our differences and the second two stages about finding ways of honouring these differences and then going beyond them. Each stage involves some action and some reflection, which is a posh way of saying some "doing" and some "sitting back and calmly thinking or even not thinking at all!"

It can involve just talking or even better, you can write descriptions, tell stories, paint, even dance – we chose to draw!

Stage I: Self-knowing

"The first thing in the world is knowing how to belong to oneself" -Michel de Montaigne

Our first step is an inward step aimed to learning more about ourselves. We asked the question, “What is your idea of the ideal camp? What would it look like? What would you do there?” Armed with coloured pens and papers, people took themselves to different corners of the cookhut to draw pictures of the ideal camp AS THEY PICTURED IT. A few brave folk even ventured out into the freezing May weather to work alone in the fresh (very fresh) air! Then we asked ourselves, having drawn this picture, “What have I learned about myself from this picture?”

Stage II: Other-Knowing

"Knowing others is wise" -Tao Te Ching

Now for the difficult step. Each person had to summarise for the group what someone had said about what they believed would be the ideal camp. Now we really learned something about our abilities to really listen to each other. Again, we asked ourselves, what we have learned about ourselves by trying to put ourselves in another’s shoes.

Stage III: Differences-Holding

"The sage harmonizes with both “right” and “wrong”… this is called walking two roads" -Chuang Tzu

Did we find any differences? Well, yes, unsurprisingly. One big difference was our attitude towards vegetarianism. Did you know there are no written rules about vegetarianism in the Round Table? Did you also know that some members believe passionately that vegetarianism is central to Round Table and yet others felt it was not? Could you also believe that some of the meat-eaters amongst us passionately believed that it should stay at the heart of what Round Table is about and that some life-long vegetarians believed it was neither here nor there? Our conversation stretched deep into the night until…

Stage IV: Differences Transcending

"In the cauldron things are cooked together, and out of the things strange to each other, irreconcilable, something new comes forth. This is obviously the answer to the paradox, the impossible impasse." -Jung

…until we began to sense an accommodation. The tension began to subside and it felt that all around the table were sensing a deep, mutual respect for our different attitudes, beliefs and opinions. We weren’t resolving the conflict but were instead transforming ourselves. “Right-wrong, either-or” thinking was giving way to “right-right, both-and”. Eating meat can work for some people, some of the time; not everyone, always. Vegetarianism is an important way of eating that encourages compassion and caring for the universe. RT camps can be places where for a few days everyone can experience the vegetarian lifestyle. Is that the final answer? Has the challenge gone away? Not entirely … but we had found a way of talking about an emotional and deep issue while loving and respecting each other and creating a practical way forward.

 
 
 

Live Pure, Speak True, Right Wrong, Follow the King.