brief notes from N. Ireland

romy shovelton romys at compuserve.com
Thu Mar 1 08:55:29 PST 2001


Dear all

thought I'd copy the notes I just wrote in reponse to an email from
Birgitt.  Many of you sent such supportive thoughts to me/ us and I am
hugely grateful.  I really felt you with us.

Birgitt wrote: I am thinking about you as you set off for your work in
Ireland and hope
very much that it is both successful and joyfilled for you and that the
results are lasting for the people.<

xxxxxxxxxxxxx  thanks so much for that.  The young person's event went
really well this week - especially the storytelling on the evening before
the Open Space Technology meeting - it was very moving - and probably could
have gone on longer once they got going.  We also came up with a rather
lovely process for involving them from moment one and making the space
theirs : I put a series of flipchart sheets around a wonderful flower
display in the centre of the circle - the sheets made a kind of hexagon
looking shape (if you can imagine it).  Into the inside of the sheets I
layed all the wonderful stones that had been collected from a local beach -
all kinds of beautiful shapes and colours - ready for the young people to
choose to prompt their storytelling.  Then I asked the young people to
think about why they came and what they want to get out of being at the
event and to 'go for it' and write their thoughts on the sheets in the
centre.  There was a big rush and lots of wonderful things written - about
peace and making change etc - as well as "getting out of school!" - this
was added to next day and during the time together.    We also had an
absolutely huge Graffitti Wall that was completely filled with thoughts.

The Open Space time was somewhat chaotic and rather difficult to keep the
attention of some of them through three one hour sessions (one before lunch
and two afterwards) - and I wondered if 45 min sessions might have been
better. On the other hand some of them wanted to talk for more than an hour
(and of course could have done even if we'd created Post-Its of 45 mins).

Whatever the timing issues, on the whole they all dived into conversations
with energy and really thought hard about what they wanted for the future.
It was sufficiently enjoyable and they found the whole time valuable enough
that lots of them are saying that they are going to attend the next event
(8/9th March)- for community and business people (and primarily adults) - I
am really thrilled at this, as it's one of the reasons we put on the young
person's event first....  and .... now they are coming. It's so good.  We
also really emphasised the importance of the young people taking things
forward themselves and continuing to be involved (with support) rather than
just giving their thoughts and then getting disappointed that "the Council"
and others don't seem to listen or do anything.  So... it will be great to
have young people putting up their issues while the adults are there next
week.

so... thanks for keeping us in your thoughts.....

Romy

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