The Institute Of Noetic Sciences (IONS) Community Group in Bellingham, Washington has been active for the past 20 plus years and has been guided by several different coordinators during this time.

Each of these leaders has brought their own vision and flavor to the community group and has moved the group in particular directions depending on their focus. However, the foundation of this community group has always been an alignment with the purpose, vision and mission of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), which is to explore consciousness for a world awakening through frontier science, personal inquiry and learning communities.

The Bellingham IONS community group is one of over 260 IONS community groups worldwide. Our vision states:

"We are a network of caring individuals from the larger Whatcom County community who support and inspire one another in our personal and collective search for and development of transformative values, deeper heart connection and conscious co-creation."

Our mission is to create a wisdom learning community within the larger global community, to find common ground while celebrating our diverse ideas and belief systems, to partner with other social change organizations and to serve as a center for life-enhancing resources.

BIONS is a loosely organized group with a Steering Committee who share the tasks of upholding our vision, purpose and mission through the application of the Acorn Model of shared leadership. We recently adopted this method as a means of dividing the responsibilities more equitably and allowing more of our members' voices to be heard, and we are experiencing great success with its application. We invite and encourage our program attendees to join our local group (membership dues are $20/year) and to become members of our parent organization - IONS. Our dues go towards special projects, special events, meeting space rental and refreshments at our monthly meetings which are held from 6:30 P.M. to 9:00 P.M. once a month at various venues, usually the WECU Educational Building next to Kinkos, or the Garden Street Family Center diagonal to Kinkos.

For the past few years we have focused on developing a wisdom community amongst our members. Our programs have reflected this focus by providing opportunities for deeper dialogue around important social and spiritual issues and deeper heart connection. A sub-committee of our community group dedicated their time over a two year period to the development of a community building process called the Open Question Approach (OQA) that is now being actively used in the larger Bellingham community and other areas around the world. Now in keeping with the shifting emphasis of IONS International, we are exploring and developing a commitment to spiritual activism. We are choosing presenters who represent Spiritual Activism in our community. We also explore on an ongoing basis new healing modalities, especially in the emerging field of Vibrational Medicine.

One of our goals has been to reach out into the larger community, to partner with other like-minded organizations, to share ideas and to explore the possibility of developing mutual programs and projects. As an example of this, in June of 2007 we partnered with Woodside Church, the local Association for Global New Thought (AGNT) affiliate, to create a program that allowed for a mutual sharing of ideas, dreams and goals in small circles of dialogue using the OQA. We received enthusiastic response to this endeavor from all those who participated.

We use an email list to notify our members of upcoming events including our regular monthly meetings - bellinghamions@yahoogroups.com.

Our parent organization is the Institute Of Noetic Sciences. Please visit www.noetic.org.