Opening Space "in house"

[kerry napuk]

Dear Birgitt

I seem to have mislead you.  The language used in 98% of the event was the
language native to the country, which in this case was Romanian.
Facilitation was in English and held to a minimum of 35 minutes over 1.5
days and translated into Romanian.

If you have multiple languages at an event, there may be a way around this
by allowing separate or parallel sessions in different languages and they
are brought together at the action priority voting stage in different
versions.  It takes longer but at least everyone knows and understands.  We
have a big problem in Europe because non English speakers are tired of
straining to understand English.  This is a possible way around the problem.

As far as issues go, we do not use post-its but ask people to come forward
and speak to the Community about their burning concerns.  In this way,
people "feel" the issue more and establish at least one face which will
appear at the session.  We have had people propelled forward, shaking
before their first crowd, but compelled by their passion.

Follow-up to our one day events rests on volunteers to sign-up for a
steering group(s) to implement priorities post event.  Our experience shows
a low of 22% to a high of 95%!  What happens afterwards varies considerably
from group to group and sponsor to sponsor.

Hope this sheds some light.

Cheers

Kerry Napuk
Open Futures Ltd.
Edinburgh
United Kingdom

website: <www.openfutures.com>