OS with large youth group: seeking advice

Susan Partnow susan4ps at HOME.COM
Fri Nov 24 13:42:11 PST 2000


Larry's response came to me directly -- but I think it has great value to
others working with youth and so we have agreed to post it here.

"I have led a number of youth OS
events.  For 3-500 a half-day event is pretty tight.  It is doable, but the
results could be mixed (or amazing) depending on the sponsor's and your
ability to open a space for which the youth have a passion.  The risk is
higher.  I recently led an event for 100 youth in Chicago.  Some had
difficulty with the freedom in Open Space and chose not to take initiative.
The theme was about planning the future of their church organization and
some youth on the large board really were not that interested and were
frightened at not being told what to do.  However, that was a small
minority.  It took the evening news and morning news for them to get
involved, but they did.

Other events with youth have had clearer themes and more powerful
participation.  Certainly Open Space can create the conditions for youth to
take power, if they choose to.  Logistics are the biggest issue for a group
that size.  For 500 youth you will need 25 breakout spaces for meetings and
a main room that can accommodate twice that many.  (I've used gyms or
banquet halls for that large a group.)

In the time frame you have, you will need to have the sponsors set the
context and the theme, open the space and close the space.  3 - one-hour
sessions will be busy in that time frame, I hunch 2 at 1hr 15 min would work
better.  It takes a while for that large a group to do anything.

Are you going to do computer recording or hand written?

As for closing, I suggest that you carry around the talking piece rather
than pass it around.  Make eye contact with those who want to say something
like Opra.  This works better with large groups in short time frames.

The events with youth can work fine if they have a passion for the theme.
It is theirs and not the adults.  If adults are in the room, they are
participants like everybody else.  I just led an event on safe schools,
adults led some sessions, kids led others, even some 6th graders.  There was
lots of trust in the group and we had an evening and a morning.

Once did an open space with some students and teachers for 600 in three
hours.  There were three facilitators and three groups of 200 to maximize
the time.  Two 45 minute sessions.  People liked it.  I'm not sure I'd do it
again.  The sponsor wanted this to lead to internet discussions but that
didn't happen.  Not enough time to develop relationships.

Hope this helps.

Larry

Larry Peterson
Associates in Transformation
41 Appleton Ave., Toronto, ON,
Canada, M6E 3A4
Tel:/Fax: 416-653-4829

lpasoc at inforamp.net
http://www.inforamp.net/~lpasoc

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