When Chuck Dahlke-Butler, 39, attended his first Community Weaving dinner, he met other men at a crossroads.

“Many of us were in a transitional period in our lives where we have done all the club stuff, and we don’t want to really be in the clubs, and there aren’t really any other avenues for us to connect as gay men,” said Dahlke-Butler, who attended four of the weavings, gatherings for GBT men to talk about the creativity, vitality and strength of the community.

The weavings, a part of The Center’s program Changing the Dialogue, shift the focus from issues that are often seen as characterizing the community – clubs, addiction, sex, and HIV/AIDS – to more positive aspects.

Now, The Center is recording, transcribing and analyzing participants’ conversations to use for focus groups and a planned Men’s Summit next year.

“Often times, the dialogue in the community is dominated by public health, particularly with diseases such as HIV/AIDS and crystal methamphetamine, and what gets crowded out are the amazing accomplishments of the men in our community,” said Patrick Loose, The Center’s director of programming and operations. “What we wanted to insert is something into the dialogue that creates the space to talk about the strength of men where their creativity would be celebrated.

“Most people agree that human beings all have one thing in common – the desire to connect. It can be to your family, culture, gender, education, sexuality, partner or profession. This desire transcends traditional barriers of income, social standing, education, gender and ethnicity.”

The program brings eight to a dozen men together for dinners at one of the participants’ homes. Called “Community Weavings,” the dinners include “facilitated, two-hour conversations about the things the men value and the principles that are important to them,” said David Contois, a local community member who pitched the idea for the project, which is funded strictly through member donations, to The Center a little more than a year ago.

“[The idea of the program] is not seeing the community as having problems to be solved, but it is seeing it for what possibilities there are,” Contois said, adding that he hopes the weavings will change participants’ outlook from “reactionary to visionary.”

Contois, who is also the founder of KnowCrystal.org, an online source of information on crystal meth addiction and its dangers, conceived the idea for the project after attending a conference that focused on crystal meth addiction.

The organizational philosophy adapted to guide the program is called Appreciative Inquiry (AI), a method used to ask questions and envision the future in a collaborative, strengths-based approach to building community.

“It is typically a more motivating dynamic than other systems and people get very involved in the process,” Contois said. AI invites people to engage in building the kinds of organizations and communities that they want to work and live in, he explained. “Uncovering and supporting people’s passions, skills, knowledge, experience, and successes excites and mobilizes them to implement innovations they never before thought possible. AI recognizes that human systems are constructions of the imagination and are, therefore, capable of change at the speed of imagination.”

The weavings are open to all ages, for men interested in sharing conversation.

“The weavings are a great step forward in helping us build community, even with people we don’t know, because we gain great appreciation for others’ past and it is through that appreciation that we build more positive relationships in the future,” said Bob Morris, 54, who hosted two community weavings in his home. “When first I came out, which was later in life, I was surprised that members of a persecuted minority were not more supportive of each other and there was not more of a sense of natural community. I just expected that wherever I turned there would be people willing to help me with the process and that wasn’t the case.”

The program focuses on the entire men’s community as opposed to the club and bar crowd many health-based programs target.

“It sounds kind of strange to some men because they are not used to being asked what is important in their life,” Loose said. “Part of the challenge is to get participants to trust the process and know that it is going to be beneficial, because almost every person who has attended a weaving has a really rewarding experience.”

He also explained that moving people into a problem-solving frame of mind can sometimes be difficult. “We are not saying that we shouldn’t be talking about the problems in the community, because there are some real problems. What we are trying to do is give ourselves credit for having the ability to solve those problems.”

“Many people believe that they are the only person who has ever experienced a bad thing or that they are the only person who wants a good thing,” explained Connor Maddox, a transgender female-to-male participant, who said that he is extremely grateful that the dialogue is inclusive of all men. “Learning that other people have the same problems or hopes and that there is a commonality to what we all wanted out of life is a major part of the dialogue.”