July 14 – Strategic Planning Priorities

Our July Conversation Group theme brings together a number of related topics from past Conversation Groups, our 2016 Visitation Card, and Abbot’s Council meetings. This month we are taking the input from those sources to move into the initial activities to produce a strategic plan for New Melleray Abbey. In this first stage we are trying to identify the major priorities for our community in the next three to five years.

We were all invited to identify two or three “major priorities” for New Melleray at this time and in five years to come. We were asked explain our reasons for selecting these items and to indicate how each priority relates to our Core Values.

After sharing our major priorities, we were then asked to share what we believed to be the strengths and opportunities that will help us address them as well as any weaknesses or threats that might work against us or limit our effectiveness.

Conversation Groups (CG)

The purpose of the CGs is to provide a forum where the brothers “come together to listen to the Spirit speaking through one another,” to foster skills of good communication that will promote mutual understanding and trust (Gdlns 2), and to provide the superior with the data he needs for taking decisions with foresight and fairness by the brothers humbly and honestly expressing their views (RB 3)