About Us
Terry Sterrenberg & Laurie Simons
We are pretty ordinary people, actually, except for a few interesting facts. We've been married for 44 years, we are getting older every day, and we are still determined, like the heroine of our screenplay The Gatherings to make the world a better place for everyone. We invite you to join us!
Laurie Simons M.A. L.M.H.C.
I have had a long and satisfying career as a counselor and parent educator with an emphasis on understanding unique individual needs, honing listening and communication skills, and collaborating to find solutions that work for everyone in the family. Around 2004 I went back to school to learn video and TV production, and, along with Terry, have since made several documentary and educational films. In addition to filmmaking, I have always been a creator, including writing programs and manuals for teachers and parents, inventing a cooperative board game about creating community wealth, and co-writing the screenplay "The Gatherings".
All my life I have been committed to helping people open up new spaces through social work, couples counseling, and more recently, with Laurie, producing documentary films. Together, we designed and produced the Community Wealth Board game and most recently we have co-authored The Gatherings as a fictional demonstration of social change. In the screenplay, Gatherings become ubiquitous, create a listening culture, and lead to a positive future for everyone. I believe listening is transformative. When a person feels truly heard, it opens the space for personal and social change
Terry Sterrenberg M.Div. M.S.W.
Our Advisors
Rosa Zubizarreta-Ada is trained as an organization development consultant, and is the author of From Conflict to Creative Collaboration: A User's Guide to Dynamic Facilitation. She teaches this collaborative sense-making process internationally.
Rosa explores the intersection of group facilitation and social transformation in her occasional blog The Listening Arts.
Her most recent writings are accessible through her Link Tree.
Rosa Zubizarreta-Ada
Advisor
Tom Atlee
Advisor
Tom Atlee is founder and research director for the Co-Intelligence Institute in Eugene, Oregon, and author of The Tao of Democracy.
For the last four decades he’s researched approaches to generating collective wisdom, mostly involving special forms of conversation and a broad view of wholeness.
He wonders about the place of his work, AI, and Indigenous understandings in meeting the global metacrisis we’re all engaged in.