fremy's and my colleague, steven werlin, wrote an article about the open
space on open space haiti gathering and other interesting stuff. here it is
with a link to the rest of it:
Life Goes On: Part Two
Life goes on in the midst of the current difficulties in Haiti, for better
and for worse. Last weekend, I got a heavy dose of the better and it seems
worth sharing.
I spent most of the weekend at the Villa Ormiso. Its a guesthouse run by
conservative Protestant missionaries, here in Haiti to convert the masses.
They would not normally be my cup of tea, but the guesthouse they run is
valuable to us as a pleasant and accessible place where we can organize
inexpensive meetings that last several days. Last weekend, more than forty
of us gathered there for the fourth annual meeting of the Haitian Open Space
Institute. I missed last years meeting, but had attended the others, so I
was anxious to attend this years as well.
Open Space meetings are something special. They were designed around the
notion that the most productive time that groups spend together is often the
unscheduled time: the coffee breaks, the lunches, the unforeseen delays in
otherwise tight agendas. Those are the times during which meeting
participants talk with the people they want to talk with, and talk to them
about the things that are important to them.
At an Open Space gathering, the participants create an agenda for the a
meeting ours was to be two-and-a-half days long during its first few
minutes. The agenda consists of a schedule of group discussions running
parallel to one another on themes chosen by the participants who propose
them. Each participant then chooses the small group discussions he or she
wants to attend. The guiding principle is that you should not be part of
anything youre not interested in. The underlying assumption is that, given
the freedom to do so, people will make good decisions about how to use their
time.
For me, the most important thing about the structure of these meetings is
that it allows me to find time to meet individually with various people I
want to talk with. I find that I dont often attend many of the scheduled
conversations, but that I get a lot accomplished nonetheless, much more than
I could accomplish if we were all following a carefully planned schedule.
I was especially grateful this year for the opportunity to meet with people
on the edge of the meeting because I was actually able to attend rather
little of it. Life goes on here in Haiti even as the political situation
seems to spin into chaos, and that means work goes on as well. I had a busy
schedule of meetings to attend in various places as the large Open Space
meeting at the Villa Ormiso was going on.
We arrived at the Ormiso on Thursday afternoon. Its located in Bizoton, a
neighborhood on the road from Pòtoprens into Kafou, its overcrowded southern
suburb. The opening ceremony was Thursday evening, and it was unforgettable.
My partner Frémy used the meeting as the occasion to get married.
click here to continue:
http://www.apprenticeshipineducation.com/ow.asp?LifeGoesOn2
http://JohnEngle.net
email: j...@johnengle.net
P.O. Box 337
Hershey, Pennsylvania 17033
tel. 202-236-6532
From: Judi Richardson <ju...@accesswave.ca>
Reply-To: OSLIST <osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu>
To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu
Subject: Re: What has been your biggest surprise in an Open Space annual
meeting?
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:25:10 -0300
Fremy -- wow, I am deeply touched at the image of the wedding rings being
passed around the circle -- how brilliant you are to tap into that level of
wisdom in the group -- to hang out in the realm of all possibility.
I send you my ha, my breath, the gift of life -- many blessings,
Judi
__________________________________________________________
Judith Richardson, MA
Pono Consultants International
Consulting and Executive Coaching
Optimizing Performance, Potential and Profitability
Winner -- International Coach of the Year!
www.ponoconsultants.com
www.emergentfeminine.com
Subscribe to our newsletter at www.emergentfeminine.com
Nova Scotia, Canada
Phone: (902) 434-6695 Facsimile: (902) 435-1085 E-mail: ju...@accesswave.ca
If you live your life as gracefully as you know how, as playfully as you
know how, as kindly as you know how, as joyfully as you know how, you are
bound to influence, inspire and uplift others by your example.
-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu]On Behalf Of fremy
cesar
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2005 2:41 PM
To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu
Subject: What has been your biggest surprise in an Open Space annual
meeting?
Dear Open Space collegues,
In the fourth annual Open Space on Open Space meeting in Haiti, everyone
received a big surprise. My wife and I were married during the first day of
the meeting. Nobody knew ahead af time that this was going to happen. After
I opend the first session on the first day of the three-day meeting, as
co.coordinator, I turned the coordination over to one of my collegues.
Then
he annouced that there was a surprise, which began the wedding celebretion.
We passed the wedding rings around the circle and each person expressed
their thoughts and wishes for my wife and me. Then we were married in a
brief service.
Thank you all.
Fremy Cesar
Aprenticeship in Alternative Education
Tel: (509) 409-0192
E-mail : fremyce...@hotmail.com
http://www.aprenceshipineducation.com
http://www.eksperyansla.info
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