Story of a recent 2.5 day OST

[Alan Stewart]

What a vivid description of spontaneous organisation at play.

And what a wonderful gift to be able to participate from a distance and even
to be able to listen to key sessions.

Nicely done, Chris and Laurel and Gabriel and all co-creators.

Good to converse, with love

Alan
Aussie Rogue


----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Corrigan" <corcom at INTERCHANGE.UBC.CA>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2001 4:39 PM
Subject: Story of a recent 2.5 day OST


> Colleagues:
>
> I opened the space the other day for about 70 people here in Vancouver.
> Just thought I'd let you know how it went.
>
> These folks were a motley collection of rubes, rogues and spirited
> tricksters, dopplegangers, shapshifters and ghosts.  Some were old, and
> some were very young.  Some were sick and some were tired and some were
> infected with enthusiasm that made me reel with giddiness when I was in
> their prescence.
>
> They had nothing in common with each other, which was kind of cool.
>
> As the vast majority of them were OST facilitators, it felt to me a
> little like telling jokes to comedians.  In some ways it was the hardest
> OST I have ever done and in other ways it was easy.
>
> We gathered in the Sty-Wet-Tan Great Hall at the First Nations longhouse
> at the University of British Columbia.  The theme of the gathering was
> "Improving our practice of OST" or something like that.  The 70 folks
> who were there came from Canada, America, Taiwan, Australia, Denmark,
> Germany, Sweden, Russia, Israel, Belgium, Portugal, and Haiti.  There
> were tranplanted Americans from Taiwan, a transplanted Turk from
> Germany, a transplanted Australian from America, a transplanted Pole
> from America and a transplanted Ojibway from Bowen Island....that's me.
> It was a decently eclectic crew.
>
> Walking the circle was not too hard, and I managed to remember pretty
> much everything I needed to say.  Folks were polite in that they didn't
> rush into the middle too fast, but they didn't hang back so long that I
> broke into a sweat.
>
> We had lots and lots of sessions proposed for the 2.5 day meeting, and
> it took a while to get everything up on the wall. In retrospect i
> probably should have allowed for more time for the posting, but as each
> session was 1.5 hours long, shaving a half hour off the first one was no
> big deal.  We had lunch breaks of one hour scheduled from 12:30 to 1:30
> which was a good move I think.
>
> Holding the space was harder than I expected, partly due to the fact
> that I had a migraine and a nauseous stomach (Caused by?  Chicken and
> egg?  You be the judge...).  For the first time in my life, I took a nap
> during an OS meeting, over the lunch break, which worked out fine except
> that I missed out on a feast of alder-smoked salmon and bannock.  Rats.
>
> I felt better after that and after the eight hours of shut eye I had
> overnight.  My colleague Laurel Doersam (whose name means "breath of
> fresh air, bringer of light and saver of bacon" in my own private
> language) did the morning and evening news sessions both days.  On the
> second day, morning news went on and on and on with lots of interesting
> material, but the cool thing was that it ended itself.  People just
> collectively realized that they had two feet and they put them to use.
>
> Some of the participants remarked on how much more silence there was and
> attributed this to the fact that we had a much more diverse
> international crowd, a large part of which may be used to silence.
> Other remarked that the silences were too short, so I guess the
> observation was right!
>
> The closing circle was a very profound experience for me, listening to
> people talk about their experience of this particular OST meeting.  Many
> people talked about the depth of discussions, the solid friendships made
> over 2.5 days, the unwillingness to leave, and the generosity of spirit
> that pervaded the room.  i was in a kind of grief during the whole
> closing circle, becasue as a facilitator, I had really not experienced
> the event in the same way.  I was privately mourning my inability to
> have connected in that way, and in some small way secretly regretting
> that I had volunteered to be the one person in the room who was not
> available for that kind of experience.  That was hard.
>
> I felt, as my dear partner/teacher Caitlin said when she was in labour,
> like a ghost, living between two worlds.  I felt like an actor finding
> his way through the darkness of the wings, or like a goalie whose team
> is scoring goals at the other end of the rink all night.  Sure I was a
> part of it, but in a different way.
>
> I ended by giving away a few things: the talking stick that we had
> acquired for the event, carved by a Nisga'a carver, a carved wolf plaque
> to our silent partner Gabriel Shirley for his help in putting our
> conference online, and my small bag of tobacco, with which I had been
> making offerings for success, to my colleague Laurel Doersam (whose name
> means "spirit buttress, one who cradles and nutures the soul, strength
> of ages" if you say it differently).  This confirmed my hunch that to
> have a successful OST meeting, you have to give away
> something...something really meanigful.  There is an element of
> sacrifice that is not in the User's Guide, or on Michael Herman's
> website or in any of the training that I have ever taken.  And yet it is
> known by all OST facilitators after they do their first one.
>
> Anyway, it worked out pretty well in the end, and next year it seems
> like this gathering will be repeated in Australia, which is great news.
> If you want to read to proceedings, they are onlilne at
> http://catalyst.bigmindmedia.com/osonoslogin.html or at
> http://www.openspaceworld.org in the near future.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chris
>
>
> --
> CHRIS CORRIGAN
> Consultation - Facilitation
> Open Space Technology
>
> http://www.chriscorrigan.com
> corcom at interchange.ubc.ca
>
> RR 1 E-3
> 1172 Miller Road
> Bowen Island, BC
> Canada, V0N 1G0
>
> phone (604) 947-9236
> fax (604) 947-9238
>
> *
> *
> ==========================================================
> OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> ------------------------------
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
> view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu,
> Visit:
>
> http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
>

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu,
Visit:

http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html