The Bluestone Group » Meet the Bluestone Group

Listen to an Introduction

Kai Degner — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:47:22 +0000

We begun posting better meeting ideas, success stories, and profiles of our roster. Now hear a 90-second introduction to The Bluestone Group:

Please let us know if we can be of service!

If you prefer to read the script, it is here:

Business and community leaders don’t have time to waste. Long, inefficient meetings aren’t only a waste of time – they cost money and motivation. It can be difficult for a leader to plan and organize a meeting, create a thoughtful agenda, moderate the meeting, participate freely, make sure everyone else can participate, stay on track, and then record what happened.

The Bluestone Group is here to help leaders have great meetings. Perhaps your organization needs to brainstorm new directions, decide on next steps, review the strategic plan, or discuss a conflict or miscommunication. Maybe you would like to host a retreat, or a networking event.

The Bluestone Group is a network of professional facilitators who help businesses and groups meet their goals efficiently and creatively.

We are practical, professional, and affordable.

The Bluestone Group is at your service for planning meetings, retreats, conferences and strategic planning processes for businesses, organizations, teams, and communities. Because The Bluestone Group is a service of the Community Mediation Center in Harrisonburg, VA, we have expertise in developing grievance procedures, resolving costly conflict and miscommunication, and offering a range of professional development training.

Bluestone facilitators have extensive experience working with groups of varying sizes, in different contexts, with diverse objectives.

The Bluestone Group is headquartered in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley. The service area covers the central Valley, the rest of Virginia, and Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Washington DC, and North Carolina. Other locations are also possible, as Bluestone facilitators have offered training in the midwestern states and in Europe.

Visit our website at www.BluestoneGroup.org or contact us for more information – make your next meeting effective, efficient, and creative.

See the Bluestone Group Flyer

Kai Degner — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:38:14 +0000

Take a look at the Bluestone Group flyer! PDF: Bluestone Group Flyer

Introducing BluestoneGroup.org

Kai Degner — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:07:08 +0000

The Community Mediation Center in Harrisonburg, VA, is proud to introduce the Bluestone Group, a network of professional facilitators who are adept at working with businesses and groups to make meetings effective, efficient, creative, and participatory.

BluestoneGroup.org will catalog innovative meeting techniques. Content will be provided by authors from the Bluestone Group. Over time, this website will become a resource for people and organizations interested in exploring ways to make their organizations thrive with successful events.

The Bluestone Group is also at your service for planning creative, effective, and efficient meetings, retreats, and planning processes for businesses, organizations, teams, and communities.

Meet Timothy J. Ruebke

Kai Degner — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 21:00:35 +0000

Timothy J. Ruebke

Timothy J. Ruebke
Facilitator, Host, Mediator, Moderator, Guide, Event Planner, Listener

Tim’s facilitation experience includes local government, university, and neighborhood relations; nonprofit and for-profit strategic planning; workplace conflict resolution; one-day or two-day retreats; large group dialogues, debates, and forums; team-building; and more. Tim is currently the Executive Director at the Community Mediation Center in Harrisonburg, VA. Currently certified to mentor-mediate civil and family circuit court cases, Tim has worked at CMC since 1992 and has completed 1400 cases in general, family, criminal, and complex organizational /multi-party issues. He is also a certified trainer and has taught ADR courses for James Madison University and Eastern Mennonite University as an adjunct faculty member. He is an advanced practitioner member of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) and a previous board member of the Virginia Mediation Network (VMN) and of the Restorative Justice Association of Virginia (RJAV). Tim has a BS in Social Work and an MA in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University.

Meet Kai Degner

Kai Degner — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 21:14:47 +0000

Kai

Kai Degner
Kai serves as the Director of Organizational Communication at the Community Mediation Center in Harrisonburg, VA, which houses the Bluestone Group. He currently serves as mayor and city council-member in Harrisonburg, VA.

He brings experience with community dialogues and forums, debates, strategic planning facilitation, retreat and conference design, moderating/emceeing, and using innovative self-organization methods. He was on the steering committee for the 2006 National Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation. He is founder of The OrangeBand Initiative, an event begun at James Madison University to promote civil discourse about issues that matter. He has coordinated over 300 community dialogues and forums, including one on C-SPAN.

Kai is skilled in applying a combination of innovative meeting and conference techniques designed to allow for rich participation, creative exploration, and effective decision-making. These include Open Space Technology, World Cafe, Dynamic Facilitation, and more. He has an undergraduate degree in Integrated Science and Technology and a Masters in Business Administration from James Madison University.