open space with political party in Sweden

[Michael M Pannwitz]

Dear friends and colleagues,
I asked Eiwor Backelund whether she would like to have her story
distributed to the oslist. She told me to go ahead adding that she
had learned a lot lurking and reading stories on os in the list.
It is these kinds of stories that I feel the open
space-community thrives on. One day soon it will be commonplace
everywhere to hold party meetings and conferences in open space.
Imagine the six world summits on the evironment had used open
space-technology.... I am sure just a couple would have produced more
tangible results than what the Bonn summit finally agreed upon.
Hugs and greetings from summer days at the Baltic Sea
michael


On Wed, 18 Jul 2001 12:03:17 -0700, Eiwor Backelund wrote:

>Dear Friends,
>Here is the story of the big meeting I facilitated right after our
>training in Berlin. I wrote down my thoughts right afterwards but then I
>left it for some time to think it over again. One thing I thought of is
>that this process is so strong that it works even when the cirkumstances
>are not the best. It is like making a cake, the first time you follow the
>recipe very carefully but after some times you know where you can´t make
>shortcuts and where you can. I think one thing of great importance is,
>like we talked of in Berlin, the facilitator´s state of mind, that your
>selflove is bigger than your selfcriticism, that you as a facilitator can
>see the competence and knowledge in every participator and that you have
>love for other people and want to share it with them. So here is my story
>to share if you like. I also want to share with you a book I got the other
>day from my special friend Sharon in Saskatchewan. It is Soul Stories by
>Gary Zukav. It gave to me many insights about myself.
>Hope you have a great time.
>With love.
>Eiwor
>
>
>The OST meeting with the Centre Party in Sweden.
>
>The Centre Party, one of Sweden´s smallest political parties, had been
>working with their party policy for almost two years. They had used
>different unconventional methods and about 12.000 members had
>participated. Now, at their annual congress in June 2001 they were ready
>to decide about their new policy. Still they wanted to give their members
>one last chance to change things. And they wanted a method so all members
>visiting the congress could participate if they wanted to. Noone could
>tell in advance what issues the participants wanted to discuss so the
>OST-method was the only one I could think of that didn´t control the
>issues.
>
>My purpose was to get many people in touch with the method and let them
>feel that they were taken seriously. The givens were that the decisions on
>the changes had to be made the usual way. So the reports were handed over
>to 5 groups, one for each chapter in the policy. Their job was to write
>the changes into the policy. Then the party committee took over and
>decided what changes they could agree with and presented them to the
>congress. This is the usual way decisions on the congress has to go and I
>don´t think anyone disagreed with that.
>
>We started on Saturday evening at 6pm. It had been a long day, we always
>march in a parade at noon, listen to some speaches and gather with
>friends. At 5 pm was the opening of the annual congress with some speaches
>of the party leader and others and some entertainment. We were sitting in
>a sports hall. All the chairs were placed around the scene, but more
>square than in circle due to the fire department that had their rules and
>I didn´t dare risk anything with so many people´s lives. Then, because of
>one orchestra playing in the beginning they had put up a scene, about 50
>cm high in the middle and metal pillars in the corners of it to support
>the spot light and the sound. And lots of flowers in large pots and a
>table to hold the papers the speakers brought with them. In advance we had
>planned to have computers and let the groups write the reports into them
>but it was not so simple to do that so I choose to let go of it all and
>just let people put up handwrited reports. I thought that if they wanted
>their rep
>orts to be read they would choose a secretary in the group, whose
>handwriting was readable.
>
>So how did it work?
>About 1000 people came to the opening of the congress. I think 400 left
>directly after that including some of the party committee but the party
>leader stayed in her place. I had told her that was necessary but had
>forgot to tell the others in the committée. We had to remove everything on
>the scene and that took about 5 minutes. During that time the Party Leader
>tried to get people to stay in their places but nobody was listening to
>her, lots of people walked around talking to each other and I thought it
>was no use trying to talk them calm. So when the area was cleared I just
>started the process, first going to the middle of the stage, then walking
>first the scene and then the floor around it. Everything calmed down and
>people sat down and started to listen. Suddenly when I was halfways a
>small boy, maybe 6, jumped onto the scene. I was a little disturbed and
>tried to get hold on him but realized that would be more disturbing than
>to let him be. He was lighthaired and smiling and had great fun. He had
>Downs s
>yndrom. So he sat down in the middle and started to pile my papers and
>markers properly and I told the audience I had got someone to help me.
>Everything went on and when I had finished and only just sat down on my
>place the first person was already writing an issue. There were about 30
>issues posted that night and a few next morning. I thing about 300 people
>participated the whole time. The evening and morning news didn´t catch so
>many people but I think they were all there during the closing circle. We
>couldn´t remove the chairs before everything was finished so there were
>too many chairs in the closing circle and the people decided to sit in
>groups here and there. So when the microphone was sent around I had to
>follow it to do the circle and it worked. Many people, mostly the older
>ones, took the opportunity to speak. One old man, about 70 I think, was
>eager to get the mic, but not to talk in it. He had been planning exactly
>what way he should go to get it over to next person in the circle and so
>he did.
>
>
>There were also other things that happened around the OST meeting, that I
>think was influenced of the process. Some of the staff that were to take
>care of the reports had not got any intructions so they came to me. I told
>them that was not exactly my business but of course we had to take care of
>that. I told them what I knew about the decisions that had been made in
>the party committée and asked them what they thought was the best way to
>do it. So they gathered everybody in charge of that issue and solved it.
>The party committee was really careful with the reports. When they had
>made their decisions the Party Secretary told the audience which
>propositions they had agreed with and which they had not and why.
>
>After the OST, at 3pm Sunday afternoon, the congress started again with
>giving some old members a reward for their work. They also showed a film,
>10 minutes, with pictures from the nature, flowers, lakes and someone read
>a poem. After that I handed over the reports to our Party Leader and had
>some minutes to talk about the whole method so they should be aware of
>that this was only a small part of something much bigger. And that it was
>more a way to live and an attitude to other people than just a working
>method.
>
>My personal thoughts about this:
>I was never nervous, as I knew I had your support and just before I went
>into the middle of the circle I felt your presence like many hands holding
>my back up straight. It was like a large warm hug and I thank you all for
>being with me in that moment.
>
>I tried to show with my hands and my words (ie ”look around on the
>others in the circle” - and they all giggled somewhat embarrassed
>but still looked around) and my way of walking, that we were in a circle
>and one person I asked said he was never aware of anything but the circle
>form. I also tried to take down the scene by walking on and off and
>around, sometimes on the scene, sometimes on the floor, and saying
>”You are invited in to the middle of the circle” instead of up
>on the scene.
>The boy was sent by someone to help. When I was talking about Whatever
>happens… , about taking care of the small surprises as well as the
>big ones, he was walking the circle with me and I hold my hand on his
>lighthaired head.
>It is marvellous how well the process worked and I think it must be a very
>strong process as it started and went on through this whole chaos and with
>so much against it. We didn´t get many reports but then I was never
>attached to the outcome and afterwards I think we did a good job these
>last two years so most of the issues were already discussed and the
>members were quite happy with the party policy as it was.
>
>Many persons came to me during the meeting and afterwards and said they
>had been so happy to join and that their groups had had such good
>discussions. And in the discussions during the following days, many people
>got up on the stage and said things like: I had the favour of taking part
>in a discussion… We had a really large group and such a good
>discussion….. In the group I joined we agreed on this…..We met
>in a group on Saturday but were not finished so we moved our issue to
>Sunday and put on another post-it and got on with our meeting on Sunday
>morning until it was over… and so on.
>
>This was quite an experience, not a world record and I was never attached
>to that either. My purpose was to get people in touch with Open Space and
>so I had to deal with that amount of people because these are almost
>always coming to the party congress. It was a long journey making space
>for Open Space but it was worth it and many people will never forget and
>some will make new contact with the method as it fits with their own
>believes. I am really happy the way the party committee took care of the
>reports. They honoured the knowledge of their members as they mentioned
>every report and why they had agreed or disagreed. And that´s it.
>





Michael M Pannwitz
Draisweg 1
12209 Berlin, Germany
FON +49 - 30-772 8000     FAX +49 - 30-773 92 464
www.michaelMpannwitz.de

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