Hi folks I've been absent a bit due to a fun time with Kidney Stones. I do not wish them on anyone. One week of pain emergency room, passing and vomiting (nice). Two weeks of slow recovery of energy. But, recovery is now mostly complete. I missed Marquis' posting about the OS French Network but was happy to read about the progress in that group and the Francophone community. I was great to see that the group has decided to stay connected to OSI Canada - and we are working, albeit slowly, to improve the quality of the supports available. Living in Canada has convinced me of the value of the different experience people have when working in their primary language and of the communication between cultures that enhances all. My recovery journey also included a trip to British Columbia and a two day Open Space with the College of Nurses. (I had earlier suggested BC facilitation, but the sponsor experienced my work in Saskatchewan 5 years ago and had to have me.) I was not sure I would have enough energy. I and Open Space did. I'm glad I went. The six months of telephone preparation session (3 extended calls), initial slide set to help the conversations and then sending materials and guides for preparation worked pretty well. They did not understand the grid, so we did that together on the day before the event for 130. I love Harrison's idea of making squiggly lines on purpose so there is no need to try to make straight ones - so did they. They didn't quite get the second principle and tried to change it. Got that fixed. I felt a bit spacey in the opening, and it was a bit slower than an Ontario pace and it worked extremely well. Folks jumping up. Topics that seemed quite profound. Great energy and discussion for 1.5 days. Evening and morning news do help to stimulate thinking and attention to dreams. I want to thank my colleague Diane Gibeault. When some form of voting is what the sponsor wants she has improved on an approach that I initially suggested. We both put 81/2 x 11 manila folder under the reports to allow for ticket voting. She has developed a short process for combining topics to ease the minds of those who do believe their topic reports are identical in content. As people read the topic reports to begin to develop their own priorities that are also asked to look for those that are identical. It is then up to the initiators of those topic reports to decide if they could be combined. With good instructions this happened in a bit less than a half-hour with 3 being combined. The voting then went very fast. The closing was special, as it often is. Most people stayed despite warnings of impending disaster - snow, rain, floods. (Seattle got the worst rain. But the snow and flooding on Vancouver Island cancelled my planned visit there.) One woman got a marvellous inspiration and wrote a six stanza poem that brought tears to eyes around the room. Then in a surprising reversal (maybe not in OS) her name was drawn from the rotating barrel to get the gift from the Hotel. She gave a wonderful gift to the group and by chance the universe (and the hotel) gave her a gift right back. It doesn't usually happen that way and was stunning. This was an OST event with the next steps to be taken by the College or by individuals at home. I think some ripples will certainly manifest and given the board's active involvement (they loved it) some will affect the College. Again, OS was healing for me as well as the group. What a wonderful thing Harrison has gotten us into. Larry Larry Peterson Associates in Transformation Toronto, ON, Canada 416.653.4829 <mailto:la...@spiritedorg.com> la...@spiritedorg.com <http://www.spiritedorg.com> www.spiritedorg.com
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