Hello, all - This is in response to Harrison's invitation to open a little more space 'hither and yon'. In my experience, meeting your colleagues - even some of them - face to face to stretch and learn and practice and eat and dance and puzzle and wonder and wander together is rich, deep learning which takes one from the text-based, word-based interchange to deeper ways of knowing and communicating. Even the reading of the notes later in a Book of Proceedings or on wiki during the event do not in my experience help me learn and practice and stretch in that same amazing way. So I am a big believer in in-person gatherings. And personally, I find that my deepest richest learning and stretching comes when I do these face-to-face gatherings with people who are very different from myself. If I only have so many resources and cannot choose everything, I will opt to go to an international gathering (whether it is in my own country or not) over a local one (and I find that just saying 'I will see you in.(Moscow, Denmark, wherever)' helps me to get there. If I do not have it in my vision and dream to go there, it is less likely.). And these international gatherings help us join together as representatives of different international Open Space Institutes and other important things. And yes, that historically has been the place where people step forward to say "I invite you to come to my country this/next/whatever year for a future OSonOS". This year in Halifax I invited the OSonOS to my own country (USA) in 2008 (2006 is Moscow and Tova invited the world to 2007 in Israel). And by the way this can happen whether or not you can come in person to that OSonOS - you can ask someone else who is going to invite for you, which has happened in the past (I and Brian Bainbridge invited the world to Goa, India because Janet Pinto could not attend OSonOS in "Swenmark". And I was not able to attend the Goa OSonOS but I got to support it in many ways). Usually I am an "Access Queen Asker". For those of you newer to the list, Access Queen is a way of supporting brave souls with limited resources to have the courage to define and ask others for what they need to get to these OSonOS gatherings. Access Queen also supports generous souls who have a little extra to share to step forward and donate what they can to help an Access Queen Asker (these are the Access Queen "Givers"). A little homestay here, a few dollars there, some frequent flyer air tickets or paying for two registrations instead of one can really make the difference in someone being able to join our OSonOSes. (OpenSpace Noses, is what that looks like to me - which is also about breathing, which is also about Open Space). It's the diversity I am most excited by in an international learning exchange, and in local ones (of any kind, Open Space or otherwise) I do not always experience that level of diversity. So I share the challenge with you to invite ourselves to work harder at not just welcoming people of different cultures and experiences, but actually doing what it takes for each person who we wish to invite to eliminate the barriers to their being able to come once invited. Some things that invite diversity are offering homestays, frequent flyer tickets, rides from the airport, sliding scale registrations, asking people who register if they can donate a little more for a colleague who may not have the funds, looking at our invitation lists to see if they are inclusive of people not like us, translating signs into many languages, raising money at the event to donate to the Access Queen or some other fund, helping people with official invitation letters for their visa applications, ensuring access for people with different physical abilities, including food for those with special dietary restrictions, and many more things I am sure that you, my creative and loving colleagues, can think of. Having said that, I do know that it is hard for so many of us to get to great OS gatherings, whether far across our own countries or in some other country. So I also love OSonOSs (local, regional, national, international) bringing people together all over the place. I also know that it is important for people in some countries to have international folks attend their events, to give them more visibility so more of their countrypeople will come. Which is very important. So I love OSonOSes happening all over the place and whoever comes .is fabulous (a new principle). I think there is room for all of these things. I do not hear anyone saying we will stop some having big annual international gatherings. Perhaps each of you who wishes to host an OSonOS, whether in your country or collaborating for a gathering in some other country, will think of including advance fundraising (from businesses? Your local community? Grant writing?) for Askers and also including invitations for people who are registering to share a bit more to help some Askers attend. Because some of us come from countries where the local currency is not as strong, comparatively, and even some of us from 'big fat countries' would love to join you to share and learn deeply, but in these fat countries are individuals of limited income. And in that way, more of us will be able to get to more of these near and far OSonOSes, and more noses, I mean OSonOSes will happen, and together we will experience yet another amazing way of weaving the world together. Or, speaking of noses, of breathing the world together. My two cents / rubles /rands, Lisa ___________________________ L i s a H e f t Consultant, Facilitator, Educator O p e n i n g S p a c e 2325 Oregon Berkeley, California 94705-1106 USA +01 510 548-8449 <mailto:lisah...@openingspace.net> lisah...@openingspace.net <http://www.openingspace.net> www.openingspace.net * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
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