The Ripple Effect

The Voice of TEAM  Number 22  Spring 2003

Click on each article's title below to display article:


In this issue:

The Ripple Effect is published by the Health & Physical Education Department, in co-operation with the College of Education, Northeastern Illinois University: Dr. Nan Giblin, Dean, College of Education

 Departments:

     

Our Mission

Teachers of Experiential and Adventure Methodology (T.E.A.M.) is an organization dedicated to promoting and supporting the process of experiential and adventure based learning. Through the sharing of a progression  of ideas, skills, and curricula, TEAM provides individuals and organizations in the areas of education and community service with professional, cross-cultural, and personal growth opportunities.
 

Our mission is accomplished through an annual conference, The Ripple Effect Newsletter, and our web site (www.neiu.edu/~team).

Newsletter Committee (service years):
Dan Creely Jr.(1991-current)
Rory Donnelly (1999-current)
Sylvia Dresser (1991-2002)
Keith Jacobs (2001- 2002)
Terry Kimura (1991-2002)
James Ryan (2002-current)
Gus Pausz (1991-2002)
Design: David M. Stephens (1999-current)
Printing: NEIU Printing Svs.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Blessings and Balance to All...

Welcome to the Spring 2003 issue of The Ripple Effect, this time in electronic format only. The Fall 2003 issue will be available in both print and electronically. Check our Home Page here on the web for release date (as well as for updates at T.E.A.M.) 

The Fall issue will be sent out to those who have added their names to our mailing list. If you would like to be added, please e-mail us with your request at team@neiu.edu. 

Here, at T.E.A.M., we are always looking for ideas and suggestions. Please e-mail them to us at team@neiu.edu. Here is what we are looking for:

  • If you have an article you would like published in The Ripple Effect, please send it to us.
  • If there is a topic you would like to see covered in The Ripple Effect, please let us know.
  • If you have a suggestion for a Conference workshop, please send it.
  • If you have any suggestions for our Conference, please let us know.
  • If you have attended our Conference and have any evaluation you would like to share with us, please send it.
  • Is our website helpful to you? What do you think we should add to the T.E.A.M. website?
  • Do you have a valuable link covering Experiential & Adventure Methodology that we should add to our Links page? Please send the URL and a brief description.
Let us hear your Voice.

My name is Jim Ryan and I am the current website contact. Dan Creely, myself, and the T.E.A.M. committee are dedicated to making this website a network for communication amongst those who are dedicated to Experiential & Adventure Methodology.

Our next projects for this site include:

  • Adding more past issues of The Ripple Effect newsletter available electronically.
  • Providing an INDEX to the newsletter by author, title, and topic (with article synopsis).
There is a wealth of valuable content that has been published in The Ripple Effect through the years. Several people have commented that they cannot find their past issues, or have misfiled current issues. Well, here is the solution! One-third of the articles are now available in our newsletter Archives section. More past issues will be added, as well as the index, over the summer months.

Also, please do not forget to check out our Links section. So far, we have added several invaluable sources for more information regarding Experiential , Adventure, and Challenge Methodology.

A few of the items waiting for you within this issue of The Ripple Effect are a couple of articles about Teambuilding, another item for your Bag of Tricks, and a dreamy poem full of Self-Esteem by TEAM committee member Sue New (located below on this page under "Quotes"). Read them all! Share them with others!

Most of all, don't worry if you forget what issue a useful article was in. You can recover it online here at OUR TEAM WEBSITE. Yes, OUR WEBSITE--this includes YOU! We want to make this a Forum to share methodology information. YOU are a part of it, as well--whether sending articles, or sending feedback, or sharing this site with others. We ALL build TEAMBUILDERS together.

Let's hear from you.

All of my best, to you and yours,
--Jim Ryan
T.E.A.M. Webdesigner and Committee Member
 

The Ripple Effect

Do you want to be a positive influence in the world?

First, get your own life in order. Ground yourself in the single principle so that your behavior is wholesome and effective. If you do that, you will earn respect and be a powerful influence.

Your behavior influences others through a ripple effect.  A ripple effect works because everyone influences everyone else. Powerful people are powerful influences.

If your life works, you influence your family. If your family works, your family influences the community.

If your community works, your community influences the nation. If your nation works, your nation influences the world. If the world works, the ripple effect spreads throughout the cosmos.

Remember that your influence begins with you and ripples outward. So be sure that your influence is both potent and wholesome.

How do I know that this works? All growth spreads outward from a fertile and potent nucleus.

You are a nucleus.
Quote:

"Heart Song":
a poem by Sue New
from her recent collection Soulstice (2003)

Pick it up and put it away.
The end has come to another day.

How did you greet it
and how did it flow?
Did you receive love or did you let it go?

Were you inspired?
Were you in awe?
Or did you take it for granted and
not notice at all?

Did you feel the hunger in your soul?
Is your plate empty or is it full?

Did you follow or did you lead?
Were your motives good hearted
or filled with greed?

What makes you live?
What makes you breathe?
What fills your hunger?
What fills your need?

Close
your eyes
and feel your heart.
Feel it beating
your life song's part.

The message it gives is simple and true.
Follow your heart
with whatever you do.

If you follow where it leads,
you will get whatever it needs.
to keep pumping and moving on,
to keep on playing your life's song.

Sue New has been  a member ot the T.E.A.M. committee for 7 years. Her recent collection of poetry is entitled Soulstice. Ms. New's poetry is fresh and life affirming. She evokes our collective experiences. Her insightful writing is able to elicit each reader's experience because Sue, too, has been where the reader has journeyed. She declares, "Please remember that I am a gift and / I will remember that you are a gift, too." (from "I Am A Gift").

To contact Sue New, please e-mail her at: 

mysticalwordweaver@hotmail.com

Peace.