WEb-sites for the Open Space Institutes

Larry Peterson lpasoc at inforamp.net
Tue Feb 24 16:47:21 PST 1998


Barry:

Your work has been marvelous and I do have a bunch of stuff to send from OSI
Canada---soon. I have been Opening some Space lately and still havn't gotten
to the Workshop finances and receipts. I see a bit of clearing over the next
few days and hope to catch up, a bit.

Yesterday, On Monday, I Opened the Space with a theme "Creating Welcoming
Communities". This small group is focused on enabling communities to welcome
the "disabled" and for communities to discover their ability to foster deep
relationships and real community. After an hour of context setting by the
group, which they and I thought was required with a group of largely
strangers, I Opened the Space for 4 hours. They jumped up, discovered new
connections and community emerged there. They had gathered bankers,
community workers, agendy staff, TV producers, academics, retired CEO's,
existing CEO's, most of whom have some link, through personal experience or
children, with what is called "disability". They found the stories they told
each other energizing. They were surprised at their own community in the
closing. They were taught lessons by one woman with only the use of her head
(quite proficient at directing her wheelchair with her mouthpiece). She
knows real community cannot be controlled. She has learned deeply how to
"let go".

I then spent 3.5 hours the next day (today) enabling a small group (4) to
converging the reports into a proposal to go to funders. By the end of that
time, we had the basic elements of the next funding proposal outlined using
the Open Space reports as much of the data. After reviewing the reports as
to where the energy lay for future work, we framed the outline of the
proposal and set the priority reports in that context. We explored each of
the top reports and developed them into proposals, with elements of the
strategy and cost projections. Continuing the conversation with more Open
Space was a top priority. One member of the group will complete the
wordsmithing for first presentation on Saturday.  The two days went beyond
her expectations--and mine. The energy stayed high.

Larry




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