On the Beach!

[Kim Martens]

I have never facilitated Open Space on the beach but have facilitated a
Future Search in India by the Ganges in an open air structure.  It was an
amazingly beautiful location in a wildlife park.  The things that affected
work were rain - even though we were basically protected, the noise from the
rain hitting the tin roof drowned out any possibility of communication even
within the small groups.  Wind - again, it's amazing how hard and exhausting
it is to communicate when you get a good wind blowing.  Water - the sound of
rushing water in the far distance is soothing but when it's real close it
affects how much you can hear (I expect waves would have a similar effect).
Temperature - it was "unseasonably" hot and by 2:00 in the afternoon,
unbearable for doing much of anything except sweat and dehydrate.  Although
people were thrilled with the idea of our location and plans prior to the
event, they were unanimous in that they did not want to try to hold such an
event outdoors again.

The other stuff, like where to hang things and how to identify where the
breakout groups have gone are all manageable compared to "mother nature."

You may want to consider having an indoor room with tons of patio doors that
lead to the beach so that you can access the best of both worlds <g>.

Good luck.

Kim