about the middle (and a note about replying)

[koos de heer]

To my surprise, the following message got sent to Thomas'
personal email box in stead of to the list. Apparently
some messages from the list have a "reply-to" address
that points to the original sender, while most messages
have a "reply-to" address that points to the list itself.
That means it is good to check the address of a reply
that one makes to a message on the list, as the effect
of the reply button is ambiguous.

Hi Thomas

I do not put a table in the middle, I feel it would be in the way and
interfere with the openness of the circle.
My experience is that people do gather in the middle, even when the
stuff is on the ground. I decorate the middle section with a nice
piece of cloth and a bunch of flowers and arrange all the practical
stuff on the cloth around the flowers.

There might be one or more tables at the wall where people also
get together and exchange takes place. That's OK too.

Good luck

Koos

------------
koos de heer
auryn management advies
utrecht, netherlands
mailto:koosdhr at auryn.nl
http://www.auryn.nl/

>From  Wed Mar 10 13:49:34 1999
Message-Id: <WED.10.MAR.1999.134934.0600.>
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 13:49:34 -0600
Reply-To: dwcox at pawnee.astate.edu
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: David Cox <dwcox at pawnee.astate.edu>
Subject: Theme Suggestions?
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

I'd like some help coming up with the appropriate wording for an OS
theme.  What I have coming up is a high stakes event.  The
precise theme wording is critical (at least I think it is).

First I need to give some background.  I am a member of a College
of Education at a university.  We are undergoing massive teacher
education redesign.  We are under a state mandate to get a new
program in place by Fall 99.  We have a month and a half left in
this academic year. Failure to come up with a new curriculum is
simply not an option. A key group of ten faculty (10 PhD ego's) are
working on  a new "Core Curriculum."  Deliberations have broken
down over philosophical issues, content issues, generalist vs
specialist teacher issues, number of hours, etc., etc. In short
conversations have become very contentious and heated.  The
group is going in circles and a couple of people have resigned.
Emotions are high and acrimony is rampant.  The group is getting
frustrated, exhausted, and burned out on every-other-day meetings.
To me the situation meets perfectly the criteria for an OS event:
high levels of complexity, high levels of diversity, high levels of
conflict, and a decision is needed yesterday.

I volunteered to hold an OS event with this group. The group may
be expanded in size somewhat.  I'm going to guess that 15 to 20
people would voluntarily come together if they believed real
progress could be made.

I would GREATLY APPRECIATE any suggestions anyone on this
list might have for the wording of a theme to focus this group.
Something like "issues and opportunities facing the College of
Education" just seems too generic for this particular situation,
which I might go so far as to describe as a crisis.

Thanks  VERY MUCH for your help!!!