Reopening space for convergence

Joelle Lyons Everett JLEShelton at aol.com
Sun Dec 15 09:59:50 PST 2002


Viv, Michael--

I had an experience recently of being asked to co-facilitate a very short
Open Space in the regular meeting of a professional organization that wanted
to do some forward planning, and urgently needed to have some members step
forward to take responsibility.  The time was 2 hours, and the actual OS time
more like an hour and a half.

After much hard thinking, and three requests from the president for different
themes, we decided on opening the space for one round of posted sessions,
then reopening for action steps.  Even though the time was unreasonably
short, the group worked well, future meetings were set up, and it appeared
that a few members were willing to take some leadership.  We closed with a
talking circle, and participants expressed deep gratitude for the chance to
get to know each other on a deeper level.

I was pleased with the evening's work, and look forward to see what action
comes out of it.

And I also agree with Michael that the process is enhanced by having an
overnight, so that the ideas from the first sessions can incubate and expand!
 But in the spirit of opening space "whenever you can, wherever you can,"
this experience encourages me to try the "re-opening" idea again, even when
the time is short.

Joelle

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