The Pulse is a monthly newsletter with updates on recent work from Illuman's governing bodies, operations councils, and local chapters. You can also find it on the Council Leaders Corner of the Illuman website (password: councils2022).
Please submit your Council or Chapter's monthly report via this form.
Happy New Year!
There is much to look back on with pride from this past year of our work with Illuman. In 2022, we:
- Hosted more MROPs than ever before, with six in the US and four more internationally, including the first-ever Latvian MROP.
- Returned to meeting in person for both Oracle and Soularize after three years of being kept apart by COVID. Both gatherings were powerful experiences for the men who attended.
- Hosted several very well-received rounds of the Father for Gen Alpha cohort for new or expecting fathers.
- Launched a new Passion Circles initiative to provide opportunities for men to meet in council around specific interests or experiences.
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Saw Illuman en Español bear amazing fruit through a first-ever in-person retreat entirely in Spanish, an Umbrales in Texas, and the emergence of a new Illuman group in Brazil, alongside their ongoing Concilio Virtual Internacional.
- Saw the formation of the East Coast Collective, creating a new regional structure to help multiply Illuman's work up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
- Launched the Reweaving Council to help Illuman continue to reevaluate and reimagine our structures and practices as we head into our second decade.
- Clarified charters and responsibilities for Illuman's operational councils, and developed new nominations processes for Illuman leadership groups.
- Selected and began implementing new member management database software - the culmination of a several years of hard work by men on the Communications and Technology Councils. These new tools will help us connect with men (and men to connect with one another) even more effectively in 2023, and provide new resources and options for Chapters as well.
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Created new resource pages for both Chapter and national leaders, making information and tools more readily accessible to any who need them. (Passwords are conveners2022 and councils2022 respectively).
- Created a new Donor Relations Team to help deepen our connections and show appreciation to men who give of their financial resources in support of Illuman.
- Turned a projected deficit of over $50,000 into a surplus of $5,500 through effective fundraising and responsible financial management.
- Improved internal communication among Illuman leadership both through the publication of this new monthly Pulse newsletter, and by setting up team hubs on our Illuman Basecamp software for any councils or chapters who want one.
And that just scratches the surface of what we all accomplished this year through our dedication and hard work. Well done and keep it up! I look forward to even more good things for and through Illuman in 2023.
With Gratitude,
Mike Clawson
Illuman Administrator
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- Board of Directors
- Communications Council
- Community of Conveners
- Curricula Council
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- Technology Council
- Virtual Council Guiding Circle
- Wisdom Elders
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Charters, responsibilities, and contacts for each of Illuman's Operations Councils can be found here.
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Board of Directors - December 15, 2022
Contact: board@illuman.org
Members Present: Steve Hicken, Ned Abenroth, Terry Symens-Bucher, Jamey Bontrager-Singer, Chris de Lastic, Tim Callan, Mark Funkhauser, Juan Hinojosa, Mike Anderer, Tom Reid, Mike Clawson
- Reviewed and discussed the proposed Delegation of Operational Responsibilities and assignments of Board Members to their operational areas.
- Still needed assignments for Radical Belonging, Global Wisdom Council, and Illuman en Espanol. Also need a temporary working group to give attention to questions of risk management and insurance.
- Ned Abenroth will be overseeing operational alignment for all of the various areas in his new role as Vice Chair.
- Identified a group of men to continue driving the re-examination of Illuman rituals and practices in light of the concerns raised by the SPIRIT organization regarding the Mankind Project.
- Briefly reviewed the regionalization proposal discussed at the Conveners meeting. Determined that discussion should continue next among the Reweaving Council.
- Update on Soularize income: Fire Stoker Campaign - $42,234 in one-time gifts + $649/month in recurring gifts; Net Event Revenue - $25,800.
- A three-hour online Board retreat was planned for January 14.
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Communications Council
Contact: communications@illuman.org
The Communication Council did not meet in December. However, Council chair Jim Burns did develop this document outlining the Council's Strategic Priorities for 2023.
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Community of Conveners - December 14, 2022
Contact: conveners@illuman.org
The Conveners considered a proposal (by NorCal Convener Joe Gabaeff) to re-organize Illuman's chapter structure. The proposed model would organize Illuman into four or five geographic regions (e.g. Northwest, Southwest, Great Lakes, East Coast, and, possibly, South-Central). Each region would be a collaboration among existing chapters who could pool resources and manpower to host one MROP in that region each year. Regions could also serve as an organizational umbrella to provide oversight and guidance for any new emerging chapters in their area. The proposal also offered suggestions for restructuring Illuman US leadership bodies to include representatives from each region, though we did not have time to discuss these details.
In general, the idea of creating regions landed favorably with most. However, some were uncertain as to the need for such reorganization, and a few advocated for letting it happen organically as chapters reach out to one another for cooperation and collaboration. Joe's hope was that these ideas might spark inspiration on what the next evolution of Illuman's structure could look like. Next steps might be for the Reweaving Council to take up consideration of this proposal as part of their work and eventually develop a more refined proposal to offer to the Board and Chapters for consideration.
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Curricula Council - December 5, 2022
Contact: curricula@illuman.org
Members Present: Dan Dolquist, Jim Taylor, John Lew, Mark Funkhouser, Ned Abenroth
- Opened with a poem by Mary Oliver - At the threshold or crossroads, “All ritual is just melodrama” or this is “where the inner work and the outer work meets.”
- Ned Abenroth gave an update on the Illuman Board restructuring appointing Board member liaisons to the Councils, including Program, Curricula, and Virtual Council.
- Discussed how to maintain various programs and whether Curricula Council need new members, and, if so, how many?
- Expanded discussion on programs like Liberty and Justice and Choosing Presence: how to maintain and sustain programs, and which ones. We also have Howling Cohorts and Journey to the Deep Masculine kicking off in January, along with the Intro to the Journey of Illumination still in development. How do we make sure that good programs don't disappear when the person or people developing them step back? How do we develop programs without doing it all? Stoker development, Washington, Virtual Council, and globally.
- It was suggested that we could recruit men to develop curriculum without necessarily sitting on the Curricula Council.
- We also need to create an online calendar of offerings showing dates and the recommended order of the cohort offerings (e.g., beginner, intermediate, advanced) for men at various stages of their own spiritual Journey.
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Virtual Council Guiding Circle - December 7, 2022
Contact: cc-team@illuman.org
Discussed and refined prompts for our on-going series on women mystics in preparation for our December 10th Virtual Council meetings.
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Technology Council - December 14, 2022
Contact: it@illuman.org
Members Present: Andy Gray, Anthony Monticchio, Brian Mueller, Jared Adams, Mike Clawson, Tim Sullivan
We discussed the following agenda items:
- Website transfer to MemberLeap platform: Reviewed the homepage clone that MemberLeap has built.
- MemberLeap data conversation update: We will address this in a rolling wave style and work largely from recent data, moving backwards. We also discussed field options for profiles and what should make up the core data.
- Budget: We reviewed all current software subscriptions, domain names, extensions and renewal dates and potential domains for deletion and/or use.
- Google for Nonprofits: We have not yet been able to set up Google Workspace for Nonprofits since our EIN is already currently associated with the Illuman of Oregon domain and Google support has not been able to sort it out for us. In the meantime, they have waived the fee for our ongoing subscription to the business version of Google Workspace.
- Zoom Translated real time captions: In response to a request from men in Brazil, we experimented with best practices and options for translating and transcribing Watering Holes and other online events into other languages. We found that Zoom was able to translate captions into Portuguese (and a dozen other languages) in real time, thereby making these events accessible to men from other countries and language groups.
- Online Programs page: Jared Adams and Mike Clawson are working to consolidate the Illuman Passion Circles, Cohorts and Virtual Council offerings into a single "Online Programs" landing page.
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Wisdom Elders - December 19, 2022
Contact: wisdomelders@illuman.org
Members Present: Ned Abenroth, Giovanni Perez, Terry Frisbie, Steve Hicken, Belden Lane, Richard Fay, Bob Juarez
- Richard Fay (Wisdom Elder from Australia) is stepping down. He gave a heart-felt sharing of gratitude and hope for Illuman’s future. He expressed his joy in the work of Illuman, and that he will continue to help it grow in his side of the world. Giovanni led us in a “decommissioning” of Richard during which all present share the gifts he gave us and expressed the blessing we wished to give him. We also reminded him of his continued status as “emeritus”.
- Ned Abenroth gave an update on the Board's delegation of operational duties to individual board members, as well as the current status of the engagement with the concerns raised by the SPIRIT organization. There was some discussion among the Wisdom Elders about the latter. A number of men from both the Board and the WE have been identified to move the conversation forward.
- Discussed a question from a man in Wisconsin regarding the lack of reference to Spirit or Creator in the Illuman Welcome statement. Noted hat common Illuman phrases like "a power greater than ourselves" and "more than human world," are nods to Spirit/Creator/God without giving a specific name that might be divisive. Men should come to use their own language for God.
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Didn't see an update for your Council?
To ensure your Council is included in the next edition of The Illuman Pulse, please assign a member to write a short summary following your next meeting and submit it via the form below.
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“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
― Rob Siltanen (shared at an Illuman Board Meeting)
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