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Dear everyone Twenty-six years ago, in 1994, I was a student on an MSc programme on digital networking, a field that was just about to dramatically change many aspects of the way we live. Two of my course supervisors were active contributors to the M-BONE, an early pioneering project which demonstrated the possibility of streaming video over the internet for the first time. It was hard to see, from there, just how radically the technologies we were studying would change the world in which we live. Computer Science turned out, for me, to be a path that was intellectually interesting but far from the longings of my own heart. It took a wise, caring and attentive teacher to point out to me at the end of the course that even though I was very good at the subject, I was probably looking in the wrong place for a way to have a fulfilling life. He was a man with a capacity for seeing the whole person each of his students was, and for being able to tell the truth with deep care and sensitivity - a combination of qualities that can be a real gift to any of us who is lucky enough to know people who will treat us this way. You can hear more about this story on Laura Janner-Klausner's podcast interview with me here. I think in many ways it was his guidance at a crucial moment that turned me towards coaching in the way we understand it at Thirdspace, and I'm grateful that this moment in our collective history gives me the opportunity to bring together my computer science background with coaching as we work out together how to teach, learn, and support others with ever more skill and care using the extraordinary video technologies that were only just being born when I was a student. This month, for the first time, we began our Professional Coaching Course (PCC) completely online, with 18 participants from the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Singapore, Taiwan, and India - and we learned a lot in doing so. We learned: that human connection does not rely only on bodily closeness
to one another; that intimacy, deep trust and openness are quickly possible even when the window between us is a glass screen, if we consciously attend to it and adopt practices that can support us; that it is not only possible but deeply fulfilling to make community together across space and time; that there is something very beautiful about meeting one another from our homes; and that the available energy and attention for learning together is amplified when we don't have to travel by car, train or plane to be together.
In other words, Session 1 of the PCC was every bit as powerful, moving and profound as we've come to expect and - in many ways - the power of the programme was deepened by this way of doing things. We're tremendously excited about the new possibilities that gathering and learning this way are bringing. And so, to mark our 10th year of bringing integral coaching to people, we are absolutely thrilled to be beginning a second completely online Professional Coaching Course in 2020, starting in September, as well as the two-day introductory online Foundations of Coaching programme in July. Here are the dates: Foundations of Coaching Professional Coaching Course Session I: 24-27 September 2020 Session II: 6-10 January 2021 Session III: 29 April-2 May 2021 Session IV: 23-26 September 2021
We'll be thrilled to meet some of you there. Warmly
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