os journeyn (LONG)

[Elena A. Marchuk]

Dear Nuran and Audrey and All,

Next stop in Novosibirsk?!

How do you think?

Hope for the best in the new world and would try to be shorter.

and thank you very much for all friends who took care of me and send me
letters about the new awful catastrophy with the Novosibirs plane of the
airline "Siberia" was occured. They still think it is because of the gun
training in the Ukraine, but no exact answer yet. I don't know anybody
(yet), who was on this plane, but know some friends of mine do have
relatives coming to Novosibirsk from Izrael, one of them was the
granddaughter of the dieing grandfather, she wanted to visit him... and left
this world sooner, then he, another was the girl, going to her wedding, so
she will be buried in her wedding dress... there are so many heart-breaks
here too now, so we need to try to make our world harmonic,

that is what we were trying to do with our workshops and trainings (for my
FSC's friends - there is some additional words in Open Space technology
meeting description) :

Marina and me, we just returned yesterday from Khabarovsk (four hours
flight to the Far East from Novosibirsk - the middle of Russia), where we
supposed to provide the 5 day workshop on "Effective Communication of
Organizations", where we decide to go away though not totally from usual
playing-games-exercises and having just fun and new fun and new.... that is
also
good, but not all, what we need. So we decided to present new approaches in
communication for our country:  Story telling, Appreciative Inquiry, Open
Space and Future Search Conference - as the dessert and as an Effective
Methods of Communication, the definition of which I prefer as "coordination
between alive organizms" by Maturana from the New Science.

The problem for us with presenting methods, and especially Future Search
Conference in this case  is that people want to take a plan of a workshop
and try it. So we urge them at least to participate at one and better to go
through learning workshop.

And here is the next problemm, they are ready to go through learning
workshop, .... but for free.... so we need to learn, how to do this, to
invite good trainers, and still to let them pay at least part of the
expances.
People should learn to do this. yes, we have low salary, but when not
payed - no responsibility. ... (sorry, that is more for me! - to be
pursuadive)

we learn there, that the plane of Novosibirsk Airline "Siberia" was shoot by
Ukranian military forces guns on a training (probably. not officially answer
yet)... there were former Russian people leaving in Izrael now and Russians,
who visited Izrael, coming home.

sorry...

So the world is small and nobody knows who will be next touched, and we need
to work more on peaceful methods to make our life more harmonic.

and that was our idea on the workshop.

the people were very angry with us not playing much with them and asking
them, what they want really.... but the Future Search materials: 2 reports
of 44 and 60 pages with pictures and peoples thoughts from the FSCs
"Women-Leaders of Siberia: Strategies for Collaboration" and "Rubtovsk in
2005: Search for Future and the Strategies of Development" together with the
film materials, (you remember, probably, that I also made filming on the
learning workshop in Berling in September, 1999 (Hi, everybody!) which I
keep for me.... ) - gave them the idea, what we wanted to do. We want to
initiate (I don't like this word, but don't know which is better - "let
people", " help them to understand"....) people, that their life is in their
hands, and only when we stop waiting for somebody to lead us, facilitate us,
we  will understand that we need to do things ourselves, and Future Search
Conference is the WONDERFUL METHOD to do this as well as the Open Space and
others.

We do need Story Telling! To give people possibility to learn to talk and to
talk, to express their feelings and stories! And I need to learn more what
to do next in this method?

We do need Appreciative Inquiry to help people think positively (and I need
to learn more about this method as well, as we do use 4D in Institutional
Development (of Organizations) workshops and I need to learn, what is the
more specific part in AI except what I learn - to make positive interviews
and make a story of organization?

We need Open Space for learning to find our what we really want, and to
"post"
the issues and possibilities on the wall, and to sign our names there,
and for other people to sign there names for choosing (though it is not
really nessassary for work, but that gives next step of responsibility - to
choose and to sign and to go to ONE group, - our people say we don't want to
separate, lets go through all topics together (and we usually have few
time... you know, no big OSs yet).

And we need Future Search - to give people a simple questions to be
answered, leading them to doing... I LOVE that!

The angry part of the participants was showing that they are upset and some
of them don't like OST , but others were coming and saying, that they never
saw anything like we did on the workshop , so we decide to proceed. and when
we gave exercise, which some of people "know", they behave not the way NGOs
should do, so it was still a lot of material to discuss with them,
especially to keep silence and to listen each other!

And as there were a lot of people from Centers of NGO Support, and they were
trying to do the NET, we asked them to try to find out critical topics for
the net (as the "old" method first), they work OK, but there were more upset
faces - you know.... but also on the second evening they were working on the
foundation of the new organization of Consaltants and Trainers "C and T",
what in Russian make "Whale", so when we proposed to make OS on the topic of
"Effective Organization" the person, who was always upset, put there the
topic "Whale: next steps".... and on Session 2 "Whale: next steps" - Part 2.
But there were also other topics like 10 of them and we had 5 reports at the
end, typed and posted on the wall with NEWs. and still there were several
people saying that there is nothing new in the method and it did not impress
them...  I asked them if they forgot, that there is one more morning session
tomorrow and I see the nice results - 5 Report Forms on the wall, so we do
have more time to work tomorrow! and on evening news there were a lot of
questions of people who interested in the method, and it's limits and
advanteges, so it was a good discussion.

It was supposed to have a "party" dinner in the evening, so several people
came to call for us, as we were puting things together and cleaning the
stage for tomorrow... and there was music and talks and some films, we
brought with us, so it looked like as some people did start to understand
what we were doing...

then the next morning after morning news, there was the task to make
convergence and a plan for next steps and the "Whale" topic was the first
voting, though I said, that it doesnt' mean that other topics are less
important, and people can still work on other next two, or others, so I
proposed people to start working on the topic and found out that all of them
were working together, so it was some more new steps (though I did ask some
question, to find out what they mean and how they think to do it - sorry)
and they did answer on 6Ws Questions, and I aske them if they want to
proceed or they want to go further, to FSC? They did!
So we made closing session and made the break for the lunch and preparing
the room for us, so we nearly missed the lunch, and they were worried, if we
can do it first before we start working.

after intruduction of principals of FSC, we did simulation on the Steering
Commettee for the FSC on topics which they choose "The "Future of Whale" and
"The Support Centers' NET of Far East", so they did learn from each other
how to do it and then we did the Mind Map on trends, which are influencing
for appearence and development of "Whale", so it looks like very optimistic
as they still think more of Future,... so we did make voting on important
trends and "closed the day of FSC" and of our workshop with rainbow colors
Threat WEB to feel the connection, so that was our closing session. looks
like a great work, going through great feelings. We do think we changed
their attitude to all methods we talk about and with there understanding of
what and where to use, so hope we did new level of communication.
***
tomorrow we are heading to my well (not totally) known city Nojabrsk, in
Yamalo-Nenetz autonomious region on the North of West Siberia (2,000 miles
from Novosibirsk to the North) to provide together with my partner Marina a
workshop "Communal Service: development, quality and effectivenes", where
there will be city Administration, city Counsil, NGOs, Municipal service
organizations, citizens... and we shall see who else, as in Russia you never
know who will come among who agree...

I proposed the same topic like in Rubtsovsk - "Nojabrsk in 2005 (or 2010)",
but the Mayor of the city wanted to discuss a more concrete question -
"Communal Service"!

I think he is a good mayor, brave and challenging, so we shall see, what
will happened next.

And we agreed in Khabarovsk, as there are also the problem with uniting NGOs
and they work on coalition for 2 years and nothing happened, ... to provide
a FSC on the "3rd Sector of Far East", so we will use the results of
simulation the work of Steering Commeettee, on who can be our stakeholders
to invite them on such a conference. It needs some more work, but the
beginning was done!

this is the Russian way of doing things, and I hope we move FORWARD

So, wish us good luck for tomorrow start, as we shall again work "from
wheels", arriving in the morning at 10 am and starting our FSC at 13:30
tomorrow, and the whole day after tomorrow and a half day the next day, as
Flights to Nojabrsk and back are only on Tuesdays and Fridays mornings...


And wish us good weather as well, ... and no forest fires and ....and
no...no...
They say, that only Russians are flying the same way as before, (may be they
bought tickets, which are usually not refundable???), though flights all
over the world are less 70%...

take care

I wish you all good luck
and will write you later about the results

best wishes to you

elena marchuk, Ph.D.
director of the Region Development Center "Ceres"


----- Original Message -----
From: "Audrey Coward" <abc at INTERLOG.COM>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2001 5:41 AM
Subject: Re: os journey


> Dear Nuran. I don't know if you remember me . I was at the Osonos in
Berlin and
> Van. I would love to see you. My phone # is 416-22596215
> Audrey Coward
> Ps I know Lisa.
>
> Nuran Yigit wrote:
>
> > selam friends,
> > i feel a bit bad, because i haven't wrote a long time and i know that
some
> > people are wondering, how i am doing here especially after the attack.
here
> > are some news. after the 11th of september everything what i planned
> > changed. i was in san fransisco at that time with lisa heft(she is a
great
> > woman, believe me!). my boyfriend and me wanted to meet in that week in
new
> > york to spend some travelling time together, but my arrival from san
> > fransisco and his flight from berlin was impossible. i was very confused
and
> > scared about the situation, so we decided that my boyfriend should not
come
> > anymore and i was thinking of going back to germany. but this thought
gave
> > me a bad feeling, because i didn't wanted to leave, i wanted to keep on
my
> > travelling and to speak to the people, to share their feelings and
thoughts,
> > so i decided to stay. what happened was, that my boyfriend didn't wanted
me
> > to leave alone here (i already arrived in new york), and he surprised me
and
> > flew to new york. so, now he is here and we travelled already to
philadephia
> > (we had the chance to participate at the annual meeting of beyond
borders in
> > open space, which is the organisation where john engle is working in
> > haitii), washington and now we are in toronto staying with friends. it
is so
> > interesting to be here in canada after the attak and to discuss with
people
> > here. they seemed to be so much more sensitive and critical than people
in
> > the states (this is just my impression...).
> > our next travelstop after toronto (hello to everybody in toronto!!!)
will be
> > montreal and quebec. if anybody would like to meet us, we would be very
> > happy to meet  you.
> >
> > love and peace,
> > nuran
> >

*
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