Hi Barb, 

This newsletter is more personal than most. I've been on Sabbatical since mid-April, traveling, gardening, and resting.

In April and early May, I went to France and Germany with friends I met through facilitation trainings in Madison, Wisconsin 10 years ago. 

The "Intrepid Travelers" in the Orsay Museum in Paris

After 9 days in Paris, some of us continued to Normandy to see the D-Day sights, and to Cologne, Remagen and Berlin, Germany.  

Barb wanders through a community of summer cottages in Berlin, Germany

In Cologne, I met Birgit Nieschalk, one of two authors of a new book about Liberating Structures -- a book that includes a story by me.

Birgit Nieschalk and me in Cologne, Germany

I also met the LS book’s other author, Anja Ebers, but I failed to get a photo of us together. 

Upon returning home, I madly planted flowers and did outdoor projects for two weeks before having a surgery.

Barb fixing tarps in her back yard

Now I’m on enforced rest!   

While resting, I have realized...

• It's more fun to travel and work TOGETHER. I do too much alone!
• I need to volunteer LESS so I can exercise, declutter, and spend time with friends MORE.

Speaking of spending time with friends, let’s talk!

Please send me an email to let me know how you are doing, what you're working on and how we might support one another.  

Have a great summer!

Warmly,

Explore these new Liberating Structures resources

Liberating Structures Stories from the Field  (Ebers and Nieschalk) compiles 39 inspiring stories of how people have used LS worldwide. I contributed a story about using "15% Solutions" for the first time. 

Learn more: https://montagshappen-verlag.de/produkt/liberating-structures 

Unpacking the new LS book

The Liberating Structures Fieldbook (McCandless and White) updates and expands the LS repertoire first published in the book 'the Surprising Power of Liberating Structures (Lipmanowicz and McCandless). It includes some new LS and guidance for using LS online.

Visit https://www.liberatingstructures.com/2026-fieldbook  to find out how to obtain this new book.

The Liberating Structures website has been updated and is well worth a look! 

The URL is the same: https://www.liberatingstructures.com 

Accomplish More AND Rest More in Your Meetings

Many meetings drain people. Do yours?  It's unintentional, I'm sure! 

But long presentations, crowded agendas, and back-to-back discussions can leave participants exhausted while accomplishing less than the group hoped.

A wicked question I continue to explore is:

• How can we accomplish more in meetings while also providing rest for participants?

Liberating Structures offers one answer. By distributing participation, using short interaction cycles, and allowing people to think, listen, move, and contribute in different ways, meetings can become both more productive and less exhausting.

The next time you design a meeting, look for one small opportunity to create both accomplishment and renewal. A few minutes of reflection, a paired conversation, or a brief moment of silence may help participants leave with more energy than they brought into the room.

Read previous newsletters in the Newsletter Archive. 

Want even more tips? Access Ten Tips to Foster Online Engagement.

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Photo Credits: Barb Bickford