Regular OS meetings

[romy shovelton]

Jimbo

a few thoughts:


>1.  In the past, getting from the opening to the first session takes about
an hour (we have two languages to go through, English and Chinese).  That
seems quite long for a regular meeting, particularly one that we should be
shooting for about 2 hours max for the time "when it's over..."  What are
some ways of shortening the opening, without sacrificing too much of the
spirit of the event?  I WOULD IMAGINE THAT THE FIRST ONE (OR POSSIBLY TWO)
MIGHT TAKE A LITTLE LONGER WITH  THE OPENING EXPLANATIONS AND THAT AFTER
THAT EVERYONE WOULD BE FAMILIAR WITH THE PRINCIPLES ETC AND COULD MOVE
STRAIGHT TO POSTING ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION. When I have used OS in a regular
meeting context the opening piece can move really quite quickly without
sacrificing spirit. It's as if everyone begins to operate daily with the
principles in mind, so a meeting simply becomes one moment in OS time.


2.  What do you do with announcements that everyone needs to hear?  If it
is just a session, then some may miss out.  My thought is to do that at the
beginning before opening the space ("Are there any matters of importance
that effect us all that need to be announced before we begin?").<  WHY NOT
SEND THESE OUT BY EMAIL BEFORE THE MEETING - OR HAVE THEM ON THE WALLS AT
THE MEETING OR PRINTED TO GIVE TO PEOPLE.  I find that there are a whole
range of ways of giving information to people, and that rarely is it
actually 'everyone' who needs or want to hear. If you use some method other
than one person talking at the rest, this usually gives the listeners more
choice and more ownership.


A VERY LITTLE CASE STUDY: using Open Space in a ONE hour meeting -
(Harrison you might be horrified.! - I hope not)
My sister who runs a group of libraries in Western Australia was obliged to
attend a meeting each month with a State-wide group of country librarians.
The meetings had been declared to be deathly dull - so much so that the
more interesting people were finding all kinds of excuses not to
come.......  So...... I said "how about we try some Open Space?" . Well....
the agenda for the next meeting had already been set - and sent round to
everyone.  All traditional stuff, with AOB at the end etc.  Never daunted,
we found 'alternative' ways of handing each of the items that "had" to be
on the agenda (eg. putting things on the walls and putting the minutes to
one side for people to sign and comment if necessary, rather than having
that process spoken etc etc etc ).... and releasing the bulk of the time
for Open Space.

Believe it or not, I seemed to manage to give sufficient understanding of
the spirit of Open Space, that the whole meeting was soon in animated
conversation with even time for some bumblebees to buzz from conversation
to conversation.

Actually, it was great just seeing the folks walk into the room and see the
circle. After the enormous suprise, their eyes lit up and they were clearly
ready to move into a new way of doing things.

By the end of the meeting, it was automatically assumed that the coming
ones would be based on Open Space, with there being ways of handling the
'must dos' of the meetings.  I'm copying this to my sister, to see if there
is an update on what happened as time went by.  I did give the group a
gentle warning that OS is deceptively simple and that there is much to
learn to really grow with the power of it.


hope these thoughts help a little

good luck and have fun


Romy