This opening tool is very adaptable to the group. I've used it successfully in India, for example, where we named every ethnic group in the room (over 30 groups!). The point is to name the range of diversity and welcome it -- there's power in naming.

Our experience in using it is that people may feel like "this is hokey" at the beginning of it -- but after five or six rotations people tend to relax and begin to accept the welcoming.
- Daniel Hunter

I'd like to welcome… (and then facilitator names)

• Women, Men, Transgender People & Spirits
• Your bodies
• Specifically name states or provinces represented -- pause and invite more input
• Those living with a chronic medical condition, visible or invisible
• Dyslexic
• Your dreams and desires and passions
• Languages spoken by people here (try to know as many as possible ahead of time): Spanish, English, German . . .
• Survivors
• People of Hispanic descent, African descent, Asian descent, European descent
• gay, lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual, queer
• People who identify as activists, and people who don't
• Those in their teens-20s -30s - 40s - 50s - 60s- 70s - 80s (depending on group)
• Single, married, partnered, dating, celibate, sexually active
• Your emotions: joy & blissssssss, grief, rage, indignation, contentment, disappointment
• Those who support you to be here: Who make it possible
• Your families
• Mystics, seekers, believers of all kinds
• Those dear to us who have died
• Our elders: Those here in this room, in our lives, and those who have passed away
• The Spirits of the Delaware and Arrawak, the natives who lived in this area before the Europeans came (find out beforehand)
• Anyone else who would like to be welcomed?

this version is written by Matt Guynn