Reviving a Facilitator's Passion

[Elena A. Marchuk]

Dear Martin and all interested and helping...

I know the feeling and I wrote you about this, when the process is ...
dieing...
so I have to think over the questions many of you sent me and decided, that
it was true, no big inspiration, though some, but a good chance for showing
'democratic' way of doing things in OS...
so it worked as the only way it could, and there were the results people
were ready to achieve, so .. .it worked,

but now, reding Martin's poster I'm reviewing the OS I just came from, where
I facilitated the group of "Open World" Program of US Library of Congress
(those who visited US in search for your way of doing things in market
economy several years ago). IREX does try to keep follow-ups for them and
gather them for some workshops

but they are from different industries, sphares of business and social lives

this is the most difficult cast to facilitate, when the topic is a sort of
general, no passion in the group and no common interests

even when in the case of Martin there should be some, it is still more
'theoretical' then passionate

is it?

the mixed group are really hard to motivate, when they have no idea for the
possible results,

but

or

and

the group in Yakutsk (that is nearly the Polar circle in Russia, though much
souther), in - 34 C cold weather did show up. there were about 40 people and
they came for a topic "From team to effective organization". don't ask me
what the organizers mean by this and me, agreeing to do this, but I thought
it could be the same question for people who will come, when interested, or
inspired.

this time we had time from 10 am to 4 pm. so we had ful 3 sessions of 1
hour - 2 before a half hour lunch and one - after with some time to type the
reports and an hour for closing session which was nearly the same ful and
very much attentive listening, though we had constructers, medical people.
touristic companies, educators and a lot of mix, including Rotary members...

they said that THAT NEVER WORK SO HARD ON THEIR WORKING PLACES
and that
I (!) OVERLOADED THEM!

they really had a good conversation learning from each other and from
different sphares of work, how people do the work with people. there were
recruiting questions, inspiration and punishment and a lot of special
questions - 19 of them but

they enjoyed the whole process, being very simple and goodwilling which they
rearly met and some said that they expect the siting and listening and even
took some papers with them... to read, what they couldn't do ofcourse... so
it was good communication, which everybody mentioned and a lot of findings
for them - new people, new telephones, new partners, new ideas and warmth of
people in the cold weather

So thank you for sharing your thoughts, I see it took you 2 weeks to come to
this, and may be there should be some more in the topic for gathering. like
new program... or whatever the sponsors could want. do you think?

organizers did think that the best time for people should be Saterday... so
they would not run to their offices and so on, but the other thing was that
in such a cold weather people would prefer to stay at home near their TVs
and beds...

but they did come and said. that they were LIKE IN AMERICA! as the process
was very democratic but intensive and overloading

OK - my two sents, though a little bigger then nessessary, may be...

BEST WISHES TO YOU

take care

Elena Marchuk from Siberia, Novosibirsk, Russia


----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Giannini" <mlg2010 at yahoo.com>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2002 3:02 AM
Subject: Reviving a Facilitator's Passion


> Dear 'Spacers':
>
> I facilitated two weeks ago for an Irish (community - government
> Partnership) organisation trying to discover from community members what
> their adult education needs are.  The attendance was good but no one
wanted
> to post for the afternoon.  After lunch, half of the folks left and the
> rest just wanted to re-hash what had happened in the groups during the
> morning.  So they did.  I felt that what ensued was a lot of
> bickering.  And I could not help to feel that as facilitator, I was being
> expected to "produce" a lot more, to get people " on task"... you know...
> that whole dilemma.  Nonetheless, the closing circle was filled with
praise
> for the process.  And yet I was disappointed and disenchanted.
>
> So i ask....   How do I get over this and on to the next one with more of
> my own passion intact?  And how do I respond to the sponsor who has indeed
> come back with reservations about the whole thing since she really could
> not produce much of a "result" out of her findings?
>
> Argh!  Thanks for listening!  Happy Joyous Holidays!!!
>
> Marty Giannini in Ravensdale, Co. Louth, Ireland
>
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