Sixty people took part in the Hatna'a process, some of them directors of community centers, and most of them staff from the IACC headquarters serving in key positions such as district managers, department heads, headquarters directors, community school instructors and so on. The assumption was that the IACC's ability to serve as a professional educational-social-cultural center with significant influence would be dependent to a great degree on the relevance of the steps with which it responded to the trends of the future. In this process an attempt was made to study and clarify the nature and character of these tasks in the form of future task statements to be accompanied by suggestions and operative actions. The participants formulated and answered some 386 questions in the first round. From their answers, 216 future task statements were formulated for the IACC. For each statement in the second round, participants were asked the following three questions:

For the third round, 114 statements that received a clear majority in the second round were selected, and the participants were asked the following three questions about them:

In all, each participant answered 1,376 questions in a dynamic, interactive group process.

The role of the facilitators (Dr. David Passig and his Research Assistant Meirav Gilad) and the steering team, consisting of ten of the participants, was to facilitate the working framework in such a way as to guide and empower ideas on the possible relevant and desirable future tasks of the Training Administration and the IACC.

The Hatna'a process is intended to encourage responsibility, to sharpen self-awareness, and to empower the future common language of those members who participated. The process was designed on the basis of three primary goals:

• Collection and analysis of a wide variety of future notions of the participants and the experts who encouraged the participants to produce these notions.
• Facilitating interaction between participants in such as way that they would succeed in reaching agreement regarding desirable, possible and relevant future tasks for the Training Administration.
• Providing the opportunity to generate ideas for educated initiatives that could be achieved and to promote the collective future task agreed by all.

Discussions revolved around six categories:

1. Social processes

2. Leisure

3. Technology

4. Values

5. Structural fabric

6. Community topography

• At the end of the process, the "community topography" category was divided among the other categories.

The following is a summary of the future mission statements. They are presented, along with their practical expression as derived from the ideas produced by the participants in the Hatna'a process.

Sincerely,

Dr. David Passig

The futurist aspiration of participants in the Hatna'a process is to see the IACC become the leading, central and primary body offering supplementary education and community services to Israeli society in the fields of culture and social education. In its new role, according to this concept, the IACC will also represent a professional body developing, shaping and creating new products in the fields of culture and social education, appropriate to future reality in an international perspective. This situation will make it possible to "bring the world" to the community centers. The participants want to see the IACC focus on the needs of Israeli society, and through them connect to the community centers.

Throughout the course of the Hatna'a process an apparent internal contradiction was reflected, according to which the IACC has two central tasks: one relating to the service provided by headquarters to local communities, and the second seeing the national, economic and social-educational goals of the Israeli community as a whole. The traditional approach identifies the task of the Association headquarters as providing an organizational umbrella for the community centers. According to this approach, the function of the headquarters is to nourish, support, train, foster, lead, promote and supplement the needs of the communities of the state of Israel, through its field agents, that is, the community centers distributed throughout the country. This task is still firmly entrenched in the organizational vision of the headquarters of the IACC. By contrast, a different futurist approach is gaining strength in the inner senses of the participants: this approach claims that the community centers have grown and become strong and from now on can operate in a more independent manner, and the Association itself has also matured and aspires to grow and spread, and therefore the community centers should be given options, new areas of operation and additional resources. This requires redefining the functions of the community centers and the Association headquarters, and the relationship between them.

The IACC headquarters is striving to become an exclusive body with a different task than the one it has traditionally undertaken. The headquarters seeks to define for itself primary national goals, economic goals and educational-social goals that will be expressed in the local communities, and will foster and promote these goals.

The participants want to see the future organization in the form of two bodies acting on planes and towards goals that are different and complementary, with their own living spaces, connected by many points of interface and intersections and, for the most part, working hand in hand. The future role of the Training Administration would be to shape these points of interface, to nourish them and develop them in new directions.

From our point of view the contribution made by the Hatna'a process was to provoke the participants into expressing these different aspirations out loud, and formulating them as a long and varied series of future task statements together making up a synthesis of the two vectors expressing the two approaches. These two vectors appear to be moving in different directions and therefore new definitions of the central task facing the organization are required, to help the organization move into the new reality in which the vectors will provide reciprocal fertilization and synergy enabling different and joint living spaces to be defined.

Below is a summary of future task statements that have been agreed on, together with a summary of the operative ideas for their realization:

The Hatna'a process revealed a clear aspiration to lead the IACC to a more wide-scale and significant degree of social involvement than that taking place today. In order to do so, clear social goals must be set, based on social values.

Alongside the intention that the community center represent a means of expressing the desires of the individual, there is also the significant need of each person to belong to a group, family, community, and to Israeli society as a whole.

The community centers themselves have to sharpen group perception from the pluralist viewpoint of individuals and groups within the community. Introduction of the community empowerment process requires a change in general perception, by providing community center employees with knowledge and tools and setting up appropriate frameworks (committees, start-up teams, action teams, task forces, volunteers, etc.). A training kit should be developed, to encourage key topics that are at the heart of public debate in Israel to be raised in the ccenter. Community figures will organize platforms for discussion of controversial questions of a humanist-social-ethical nature and help put across the community's message regarding these issues to the establishment.

Social values include the attitude to minority groups. A desire was expressed to enable a range of opinions to be heard, sharpening awareness of the inequality and lack of justice suffered by different minorities and ensuring affirmative action. Ongoing mapping must be carried out of the problems and issues of primary importance to different sectors of the Israeli public.

Ideological-ethical discussion should be developed, on the basis of which theories and work methods will be formulated for realizing ideas. Work with the different minority groups will be based on acceptance of the other, encouraging and reinforcing him according to his culture and perceptions. It is also important that Israeli society itself be ready to accept the significant cultural change of the minorities in its midst (for example, it is recommended that Arabic studies among Israelis be raised to a more intensive level by having an educational training team teaching Arabic).

The organization has knowledge of the different types of family patterns prevalent today and the directions expected in the future. The family will represent an island of support and stability in a changing and unstable society. Awareness of this must be nurtured in the communities by community center activists at different levels.

The increasing number of elderly people today, and even more so in the future, represents a key aspect of the demographic structure of the state of Israel. The level of physical and health-related functioning at an advanced age is improving and enables this sector to make a greater contribution to the population in general. Consideration must be given to this process and elderly people must be prepared for retirement and integrated in community life as equals. Encouraging them to act and influence community center institutions is likely to benefit both sides and the population as a whole.

The learning process represents a basis for coping with the never-ending processes of change that we are witnessing in the 21^st century. It should be seen as a compulsory subject that the community center must help to develop by providing a varied response to the process of learning through experience. Community center directors and employees must be persuaded of the importance of this community goal and the role of the community center in developing new educational programs and different channels of learning. It is important that this be carried out through dialogue with the formal education system and in conjunction with parents.

The perception of the basic community center community is a geographic one. In addition, there will be development of virtual and functional types of community. A dialogue must be developed around the issue of joint responsibility and multi-disciplinary models of activities spanning many age groups, to answer the range of needs in the community and contribute to the enrichment of community life. Openness and acceptance are the key to wider cooperation.

Democratic culture must be strengthened, established and developed through the permanent, open platforms in which children, young people and adults learn to express their attitudes and to listen to opposing opinions. The Training Administration should develop kits for teaching democratic community communication patterns.

The most important condition for realizing the values and aspirations mentioned above is a great investment in identifying, preparing and training professional directors and staff.

The IACC will change its criteria for evaluating community center directors and activities, placing greater emphasis on investments in social yield and less on "budgetary management" and "scale of activities." The types of community must be analyzed and the community center staff trained to set up different programs that are specifically appropriate to each community. At the same time it is important to foster ethical debate among directors and staff during training and in the course of their work. The headquarters training system must provide them with the knowledge and skills to implement the chosen ethical attitudes.

It will also be the community center directors who will lead their communities to influence social life in Israel.

The community center must act to realize the right and increase the legitimacy of leisure, by examining leisure models and options for every sector of the population.

The IACC should be identified as the most professional body in the public sector in the field of leisure, and even lead legislation and national deployment on this issue.

The community center must ensure that the right to leisure is brought about by setting up group and personal consulting programs through dialogue and listening to the preferences of the individual and the group.

The Training Administration will create the tools to help the community center to act as an advisory body on leisure, which will also operate through contact with other organizations. The community center must direct its staff and its clients towards correct use of information, through experience and sorting out orders of priority for choice. It must create a database of information and options for leisure activities for individuals and groups.

Leisure activity will be a lever for the development of people's own abilities and belief in themselves by offering tools for educated choice on the part of the individual and the society. Every program at the community center will enable the individual to get to know a different field and assess his personal ability in order to develop himself, at every age. The community center must encourage and train both its staff and its clients to be "perpetual students."

The IACC must undertake a role in the further development of the theory of leisure. The theory of leisure must be interdisciplinary. Its formulation requires collaboration with experts from different fields such as historians, futurists, economists, social workers, public figures, community figures and researchers. An internal and external multi-disciplinary forum should be set up to develop the theory of leisure and future programs in this field, to act on behalf of an "academic chair of leisure" and to accompany it with research, documentation and publicity.

The theory of leisure will develop from interdisciplinary dialogue. The IACC will contribute to this dialogue such principles as: self-management; free choice from a critical standpoint; moratorium as an opportunity for experimenting with expanding borders; and multi-dimensionality in experience.

The working programs of the community centers and the headquarters must be set up on the basis of realizing these goals, by clarifying the language to the community center teams from the level of headquarters personnel right through to instructors and staff in the field.

The dialogue approach represents a basic principle in the relationship with the community and in formulating its leisure theory. The dialogue concept must be presented as a world view by means of staff training. Teaching this concept in dialogue programs with the residents should be reinforced by practicing and internalizing the position directly through different contents and subjects.

The Association should recruit resources for research and development, to formulate strategy and develop programs for leisure time use. It must also train field and headquarters staff and directors of multi-disciplinary forums who will develop and initiate leisure programs.

The role of the community center has three aspects: creating leisure programs, encouraging use of leisure time and supply of leisure programs. The community center wibe included among the prestigious leisure service providers, and at the same time will allow for flexibility in the case of those of limited means. A variety of methods should be developed for including those of limited means in every community center program and resources must be recruited to make this possible.

Alongside expanding existing activities, the community center of the future must undertake to initiate new tasks such as:

• Community information and guidance center
• Communications center
• Workstations for individuals in the community
• Learning and training center and setting up a channel for providing virtual services
• Virtual community center

The Training Administration and the community must help realize these ideas by the following means:

• Developing training programs in preparation for the technological changes of the future
• Providing budgetary assistance to introduce advanced technology
• Placing emphasis on weak population groups
• Fostering cooperation between different population groups
• Maintaining direct, personal contact with the community to prevent social alienation as a result of the increasing use of technology
• Providing tools for coping with the "information explosion" and "future shock"

On the basis of a belief in the multi-cultural approach which holds that equal opportunities are to be given for the unique cultural expression of each group in the community, and on the basis of the need to internalize its principles and values in the continuum of activities in the community center, the Training Administration must teach and impart its central characteristics:

It is important to note that the multi-cultural principles are noticeable at the declarative level but are less well expressed in the actual programs put into practice.

Translating this approach from theory into practice is very important and must be done on the basis of the following points:

• Defining central concepts such as "multi-cultural" and "melting pot" in a clear manner, making it possible to hold a focused discussion of the subject based on a common language.
• Using clear definitions, it is important to understand the conflict inherent in the multi-cultural society and cooperation among its different sectors. These conflicts should be set out in a structured manner and support given to solutions that provide the maximum response for the people involved. Man's need for a personal and collective identity is obvious and legitimate.
• The value of multi-culturalism should be based on common values. Multi-culturalism should be fostered in the context of a shared Israeli culture.
• Not everything has to come about through dialogue. Certain instructions such as activities with the disabled population should filter down from the headquarters to the field.
• Directors should be compensated not only on the basis of the size of the population involved in community center activities, but also on the basis of the ethical approach accompanying the professional activities. The IACC should reward directors so as to structure those things which are important to it in terms of values.
• The community center should be an initiator and leader, and not only respond after the event.

The community center of the future will have autonomous areas of activity and will be able to contract with external organizations with similar content. It is important to find the right combination between preserving its identity, and openness and expansion.

The community center must prepare to provide a variety of short-term services to temporary clients as well as work with permanent clients.

Only by turning the community center into a social/cultural center for the region/community of its clients can its survival as a relevant body be ensured. Logistic planning of the design of modern work environments at the initiative of the Training Administration can help bring about this process.

The trend should be towards developing services based on the social mission of the community center. Maintaining its unaffiliated status, its independence with regard to the local establishment, while developing a professional and advisory identity for the non-political social movements is of the greatest importance.

The community center organization of the future must be based on professional personnel with leadership qualities, managerial ability, higher education, sensitivity and flexibility in order to carry out the changes arising from the organizational environment while adapting to expected future patterns. The Training Administration must develop professional training programs for academics in the community field. It must also design a classification system appropriate to the spirit of the times and the relevant tasks. Periodic courses will be set up for all the community center staff, to increase professionalism, keep up to date, refresh their knowledge and continue learning as part of the accelerated processes of change.

The actions taken must recognize that the employee is the most valuable resource of the system and must avoid situations whereby the community center organization fosters a conflict of interests between the IACC in general and the individual employee. Nurturing the employee's personal-family-professional skills will enrich his work and his contribution to the organization.