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registering or celebrating the extraodinary accomplishments of our first decade. Will we, she wondered, replicate this success and point to similar or greater accomplishments when we celebrate our twentieth anniversary? It is clear to Candace how much we care about this organization and each other. She also perceives the degree to which our craft is congruent with our lives, which is both blessing and curse in that we find it difficult to separate ourselves from our very meaningful work to conduct private and personal lives.

Candace proposed herself as navigator of our ship, which is embarking on a new voyage. The ship is ours but she will keep an eye on the horizon and steer us toward our destination. Since, as she stated, some people need agendas, she sketched a simple one on a flip chart (communication, past challenges, accomplishments, creating, mental models, a 2005 vision, and planning with a vengeance), stating that without looking at the bedrock of the past we can't plan or even foresee the future.

Having drawn us in, Candace changed the pace by handing out cloth bandannas for blindfolds. She asked that we don them and take hold of a rope placed in our hands. The rope was one very long one and our task was to untangle it and move into a square formation. Although blindfolded, we were allowed to talk. What a verbal melee ensued! Many individuals spoke simultaneously. Suggestions were made, half carried out, and abandoned. Plans were formulated and never carried out. The extroverts pushed for action and the introverts listened, waited quietly, gathered information and began to effect change by working with their neighbors on either side. Finally Candace called a halt, inviting us to open our eyes and behold the relatively creditable square we had created, albeit with oblique angles and haphazard spacing. Candace invited us to react to the experience, and as we did so with some frustration it became apparent that our communication skills needed an overhaul. Despite the tension and frustration experienced by some in this exercise, Candace cautioned us against being an organization "in violent agreement," a tendency she had picked up on in our questionnaires and her observations of

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our interaction thus far. With Candace leading and prodding our thinking we agreed on the following ground rules for interaction: seek first to understand, THEN to be understood, assume innocent motives, listen, listen actively without preconceived notions, define task, stay on task, complete task, and focus on outcome. Thus armed, we broke into five groups to pinpoint the many challenges VASTA has faced during the last ten years and to write down each of these on an index card. We were off.

The groups brainstormed and came up with scores of challenges from VASTA's past. Candace taped each of the cards on the wall, and we confronted the enormity of such challenges as defining our mission, incorporating, earning recognition in the profession and the academy, acknowledging the validity of diverse teaching methods, communicating with each other, and developing a financial base. The small groups went on to list VASTA's accomplishments of the last ten years, following the same procedure. With Candace's help we grouped these and the four following categories emerged: 1) annual conferences and training, 2) professional validity, 3) publications and 4) the humanity, strength and diversity of our membership. This last notion particularly caught hold and we repeatedly referred to it as "we, the people" and "united we stand." In naming VASTA's myriad challenges and concrete accomplishments it was hard NOT to feel a sense of pride. Candace concluded this segment of the retreat by declaring that we had indeed discovered the bedrock on which we rest. She proceeded to display and demonstrate her cache of craft supplies, including buttons, feathers, spray foam, glitter and pipe cleaners, and requested each group to collaborate on a visual representation of each of the accomplishment categories. She allowed us a remaining half hour, the lunch break, and an additional half-hour after lunch, inviting us to plan verbally but to carry out the actual creation in silence.

Four vivid and strongly symbolic con-structions emerged. For "Annual Conferences and Training" a blossoming and nurturing VASTA "tree," created with a coffee table, flip chart, brochure rack and scraps of 1" by 2" salvaged from the scene shop,

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