550 plus! Is it time for OS NOW?

[Elena A. Marchuk]

Hi J.Paul, and ALL!

Yesterday I was on a meeting, which was devoted to the NGO's FAIR in our
district of Novosibirsk -Akademgorodok, Soviet District (yes, the names are
the same....) but the idea is new (like only 5 years old), which started on
our one of the first JHU trained trainers in April 1996 with the name
"Social partership" where we invited first time NGOs' leaders and
representatives of local governments together for training....

and we discovered (for me it was not new, but for somebody - yes!) that we
are doing the same and need to find out how to coordinate our efforts. The
local government representatives said, that they don' know what NGOs are
doing.... so it came the idea of presentation of the work of NGOs in a form
of a FAIR.

Now the European regions make NGOs' Fairs around their territories, but they
even don't know (don't want to mention - this is also OK) where it was
started - from Siberia!

Akademgorodok is a scientific town, which was well known all around the
scientific world until it was somehow financed by the government. Today it
is a "sleeping" part of Novosibirsk, as some business people working in the
Center of Novosibirsk - 25 kms from Ak-dok, prefer to live in this quiet and
intellectual place.... but it is going old, altogether with the old not
convinient houses and service....

so the idea is to make a FAIR and the first what was said by the Local
Administration, that their calls for support from business people ended with
zero on the proposed bank account....


Well, there were two proposed before facilitators for round tables were like
very traditional ones and very "keeping nose on the wind" so when I was
invited to participate and to fill the questionary - I said: OK, again round
table with the same old traditions.... and the same people...

as I was busy with our trainings in Khabarovsk and Noyabrsk, I did mention
in my questionary in the place: what can you propose for this NGOs' Faie,
that I can propose OS on topic something like "Our Akademgorodok", but they
did not mention this on this pre-fair gathering, but they did mention, that
there are no money and there are no facilitators NOW....

I thought, is it a time for Open Space NOW?

so I did stand up and proposed again my services and they asked me what I
need for this?

well a spare big enough room.... and chairs in a circle.... and a wall,
where we can stick our topics....,

but also I thought that the program they distributed yesterday on a meeting
was on an other side of sheet of paper and if they do the other work like
this, it is no wonder, that there is no sponsors....
... though they proposed - I mean business people - to found the Association
of business people - OUR GORODOK ('Our Town') and the Administration proved
the room for this at the end of second day of a FAIR....

so today I got the idea how to do it, and thank you to my friend Jan, who
send me ( I think) the old article about Harrison Owen's meetings by Claudia
Deutch "Round-Table Meetings With No Agendas, No Tables" - Can I use this
idea? (Thank you Claudia, thank you Harrison Owen), I think I know, how to
make the invitation and to bring it to Administration - to promote the Fair
and the Open Space Technology Meeting "Akademgorodok - it is our HOME:
issues and opportunities" (thank you to Birgitt Williams for the end of the
name of the topic!!!)

How do you think?

again with our payment, ofcouse..... but this is our life!

best wishes to you

elena




----- Original Message -----
From: J. Paul Everett <JPESeeker at aol.com>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2001 9:29 AM
Subject: Re: 550 plus!


> In a message dated 10/24/01 5:34:02 PM, kenoli at igc.org writes:
>
> << In the work I do, which is often Future Search but sometimes OS (many
> of the same principles apply to both) we place great importance on
> the sponsor.  If you are the  sponsor, are you standing for the
> organization or community of people you are calling together?  If
> not, you might need to find the right sponsor.  You want a sponsor
> that has the credibility to put out an invitation and have it taken
> seriously. Then the sponsor has to invite a circle of stakeholders to
> act as a planning team.  By getting broad enough representation on
> the planning team, you have a broad enough representation of voices
> to reach out to the larger group you want to bring in as
> participants.  You can still open the event up to whoever wants to
> come, but by having the planning team get commitments from a core
> group, you make sure enough voices and the right voices are present.
> The criteria we us is anyone who is affected by or could affect the
> outcome of the conference and any voice that is necessary to address
> the question posed to the conference.
>
> Kenoli >>
>
> Kenoli:  Nice statement about reality.
>
> Paul
>
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