Well Done! Not that I would expect anything less from Jo. But it is always such a remarkable pleasure to hear of exploits in lands where space doesn't get opened very often. The Human Spirit is indeed a remarkable critter. It seems that the more it is repressed the more impressive and luxuriant the blossoms. Hardly poetic, but seems to be true. And Jo -- I am glad they let you in. I think that may have been a mistake. :-)
Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, Maryland 20854 Phone 301-365-2093 Skype hhowen Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website www.ho-image.com OSLIST: To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit: www.listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jo Toepfer Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2006 5:06 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Belarus Dear colleagues, after 5 years of being 'persona non grata' I got a visa again and was able to travel to Minsk where I arrived last Saturday (the same day as the president of the country was swearing in to his third term in office after the criticized elections last month). I came here not only to work with Open Space but to conduct an Open Space training for some 30 folks from different walks of life interested in the method. First surprise: It happened that I met Sergey here in Minsk. He is working with OS since some years. He read all Harrison's books, has facilitated some 10 events in different areas, is in contact with Raffi and plans to come to Moscow. He helped me very much with the training and helped to facilitate and sometimes translate some bits. We worked together in a brilliant way. Clearly a person that one would not expect to meet with in Belarus. The training did what you may expect - it worked: spirit showed up, went on a journey through confusion, conflict and chaos and arrived at peace. Here some milestones of the journey: morning day 1 break, welcome by the sponsor, planning meeting for the first OS with creating the theme and finding the sponsor. The theme "How can we organize seminars and trainings more effectively?" afternoon day 1 Complete Open Space with welcome by the sponsor, introduction (my part in 16 minutes in Russian), 3 break-out sessions, evening news. We saw 27 issues posted, 16 reports made it into the book. morning day 2 Break, morning news, reading the book, outlook, action planing, closing circle. 10 action steps were designed. afternoon day 2 Open Space on Open Space with welcome by the sponsor (one of the wonderful ladies from the group), introduction by Sergey, 2 break-out session, reading the reports at the gallery (and later this afternoon copied as part two of the book) and closing circle. 10 issues posted and 7 reports were created. The training was wrapped up with a little conversation in the circle called "press conference". The opportunity to clarify remaining questions. I assume the intention of this exercise was to reduce confusion but the opposite happened :-) The whole training activity was accompanied with: OS library, cinema, audio station, cyber space, self-organized Questions & Answer wall. What I understood here in Belarus is that we all can learn a great lesson in "Muddling through" from the people here. It is amazing how people navigate their organizations through the mess of bureaucratic and political barricades and are still alive and even enjoying this. Regardless to the very unfavorable political climate for any kind of self-organized citizen initiative people are doing it anyway. greetings from Belarus Jo Jo Toepfer, boscop eg Dolziger Str. 40, 10247 Berlin ++49-30-42018000 www.boscop.de www.joconsult.de * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
