How do you know when it has gone well?

Jim Metcalf jim9654 at altelco.net
Mon May 6 03:17:53 PDT 2002


It sounds to me like the group had a beautiful experience. In all things
give thanks.

Best wishes always,

Jim


-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of
Douglas D. Germann, Sr.
Sent: Sunday, May 05, 2002 11:56 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: How do you know when it has gone well?

To my good friends--

Wanted to report on my latest OST on Saturday. It was a one-day event,
from
9:00 am to 4:00 pm. 12 people were invited, 8 attended. My sponsor, the
employer of all of them, was disappointed--one had a garage sale,
another was
babysitting. I of course told her "whoever comes...."

Eleven topics were posted. We had 3 blocks of time, 70 minutes each.
There
were 4 session the first time slot, 3 the second, 4 the third. They
combined two topics in the second slot, and the proposer withdrew one
topic
in the third slot.

The first slot ended up with two people in one location, three in
another,
only one in one. So what happened was that one of the groups finished
early,
went in to the one with one person, they finished early, and then went
to the
group with only two, and everybody ended up there.

I think they did much the same in the other two time slots, although
they met
in different rooms and kept moving about.

We had 9 reports in our book--which we did on a photocopier, since the
handwritten notes were all legible.

The convergence produced 4 top issues, and they did come up with some
next
steps they felt were viable.

Lots of tears in the closing circle: one lady said that she really
achieved
an aha (even though she earlier had not wanted to come), and that she
was now
closer to everybody than she had been. Simple, elegant language. The
next
woman said "What is it about this stick?!" They were passing it with a
roll
of toilet paper--we could not find any tissues.

This morning I wrote this poem in response to that question--wish I had
had
the words to share (and a tape recorder for some of their comments!)
when it
first came up.

What is it...?

What is it about this stick?
It goes to the roots
Of ourselves
And our lives where they touch.
The word we have for root-ical is radical
So it is a revolution
A stirring
You have felt.
You have seen a new way of living;
And with it something passes away.
So in the days ahead expect
To grieve:
To cling, to bargain, to anger, to question.
To question is the beginning of the end of the old;
To question is the beginning of the beginning;
For from gathering to gathering the question is:
How do we choose to live our lives?

Which brings me to a question for all of you--how do you know when an
OST has
gone well?

I did not feel it appropriate to pass around an evaluation sheet to all
the
participants. And I stayed out of the meetings (there aren't many coffee
cups
to pick up after 8 people!).

Does the volume of tears reflect anything to you? How about the depth of
the
comments in the closing circle?

                              :-Doug. Germann

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