brief notes from N. Ireland

Thu Mar 1 18:11:36 PST 2001

Dear Romy,
Unless someone has seen you work, they can't truly imagine how well you set
up a room to make it inviting from the moment that people enter. I have had
that privilege and so I can imagine how you set things up for the young
people and why they engaged from the beginning.

I hope many of these young people end up at the adult events. I have had a
number of occasions to have young people attend Open Space Technology
meetings that were originally intended for adults. Every time, they became
the difference that made a difference.

I will tell my favorite young people story. A personal one.On one occasion,
one of those young people was my then 13 year old daughter Rachel, who came
to an Open Space Technology meeting at the town hall. I have told this story
often, because she caused great laughter when I started to do the opening
and she said in a loud voice "not the bells mom, not the bells!". I think at
the time she was embarrassed that I would use them in public. It was her
first large OST meeting. Anyway, she and her sister and a number of their
friends were at the meeting along with Town Council and many others, leaders
of the community. I remember Rachel posting a topic about the Law. Many
adults, including just about the whole Town Council, attended this session.
they were very interested in the subject of The Law, with the intention of
creating more Law to bring young people under control. Of course, Rachel's
intention with her topic was just the opposite. Session times were 1 1/2
hours. Not a single one of those adults or Town Council members left the
session. They told me later that they didn't dare to leave because it was
led by a young person who had the courage to post the topic and speak her
mind. The Mayor, who was a friend, as he walked past me, simply said "your
daughter hmmm....". I'm not sure if he spoke this as compliment or
fear...but he stayed for every word of it. And future discussions in the
community were more balanced.

Romy----you are doing fabulous work. I wish you much success with the next
bits.
Birgitt

Birgitt Williams of Dalar International Consultancy
Mentoring for Organizational Effectiveness
*********************************************************
For ongoing professional development, join us for training in the Genuine
Contact Program for exceptional results in organizational effectiveness.
Training dates for 2001 are noted below. Training can also be brought into
an organization at other times.

Those completing all four components of the Genuine Contact Program meet the
requirements to attend the "train the trainer" session of four days,
resulting in authorization to use the Genuine Contact Program for "in-house"
training of teams.

The Genuine Contact program is a program for building skill and capacity
within the organization, for working with change. It is designed to keep
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mentoring work only, so that working with change is led from within the
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an operating system in which business is conducted with genuine contact at
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during and following the initial training, a consultant to the organization
coaches and mentors this "in-house" team as the "in-house" team leads the
change process for its own organization.

Training components of the Genuine Contact  Program are 1. Working with Open
Space Technology (4 days); 2. Working with Whole Brain Process Facilitation
(2 days); 3. Working with Cross Cultural Conflict Resolution (2 days); 4.
Advanced Work in Open Space Technology focusing on the Open Space
Organization (4 days); and 5. Train the trainer in the Genuine Contact
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Detailed information is available on our website at
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Prices noted below are the usual price for a training session but prices
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Training dates for 2001:
Session One: Working with Open Space Technology ($600US): Vancouver, British
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Session Two: Working with whole brain Process Facilitation ($300
US):Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Mar 26-27; Seattle, Washington, USA
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Canada May 22-23; Sweden May 29-30; Raleigh, North Carolina, USA: Sept 17-18
Session Three: Working with Cross Cultural Conflict Resolution
($300US):Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Mar 28-29;  Seattle, Washington
USA April 11-12; Niagara, Ontario, Canada April 19-20; Sweden May 31-June 1;
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA Sept 19-20
Session Four: Advanced Work in Open Space Technology focusing on the Open
Space Organization ($800US):Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Feb 2-4; San
Francisco, California, USA April 28-May 1; Niagara, Ontario, Canada May 3-6;
Berlin, Germany June 13-15; Raleigh, North Carolina, USA Nov 1-4
Train the Trainer ($1500US): Raleigh,North Carolina, USA Sept 21,22,23,24

We invite you to the first conference of the International Alliance for
Mentoring, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA Sept. 25-26
Fee $100 US.

"Dalar International Consultancy offers you the opportunity to achieve
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Birgitt and Ward Williams

 - we create opportunities

for Genuine Contact for higher consciousness

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]On Behalf Of romy
shovelton
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2001 11:55 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: brief notes from N. Ireland

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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