About the 3-week Senior OST

[Douglas D. Germann, Sr.]

To my good friends--

For all of you who agonized with me over the
hand-wringing and the design of this event, here is the
report I am sending to those who participated.

In brief: as usual, it worked.

Also, are you this tired after each OST? I felt like I
had been run through an old-time wringer-washer each
night of the event!

                              :-Doug. Germann

PS: Pictures and the reports are up on my website in the
discussion forums at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

===clip

What happened at The Waterford?
The results: A community advocacy group was started, and
an organizational meeting was set for April 23, 2003,
from 3:00 to 5:00 pm at The Waterford; plans were made
for people to visit with seniors in one facility
locally, including having a young man come in to play
the piano regularly.

The event:

Seniors, doctors, nurses, nursing home administrators,
senior living complex executives, discharge planners,
bank trust officers, insurance executives, hospital and
home care administrators, home care givers, lawyers,
senior service agency executives, CPAs, pharmacists,
care givers, and others who have a concern for seniors
were invited to The Waterford at Edison Lakes on
February 19, February 26, and March 5, 2003.

36 people came the first day, 18 the second, and 27 the
third, for these community Open Space forums.

10 break-out sessions were held the first day, 6 the
second. On the third day, 5 topics were posted, then
several combined and 2 groups met.

What happened:

Some controversy was raised at the first two sessions
and on the website for the meeting
( http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com ), yet the group
became closer and established new bonds and caring
networks across professional boundaries.

One man, new on the last day said that he was impressed
that this was taking place here and that he had not
heard of similar work in the community from which he had
come. Another participant said she had been all around
the country and had not seen anything similar anywhere
else.

Many people remarked that we need to continue to meet so
see the perspective of all the others, so we are not
working with blinders.

The sense of the final closing time was that people had
gotten a deeper sense of the needs and resources in our
community, that they had made new friends, and that they
wanted to continue to work together on these things for
the benefit of seniors.

Facilitator notes:

There were some remarkable things to me, as the
facilitator.

For one, it was surprising that we picked up four new
people at the last session, and although they had not
experienced the prior sessions, they seemed to have had
as profound experiences as those who attended all three
sessions; they felt right at home to add their
perspectives to the discussions.

For another, the group was anxious to get something
concrete to come out of the sessions. This is probably
not remarkable given that the Open Space format is
designed to encourage free thinking and positive action.
What other community meeting have you been to where
there was this quality of results?

As usual, the meeting format (Open Space) worked, and
worked well, although people worried it could not work.

Another observation was that the re-opening of the space
after the reports were read resulted in fewer posts than
in prior sessions, but the topics were very specific and
attracted much enthusiasm. It seems to me this was
because the general concerns were amply discussed in the
first two sessions. With the time in between to consider
the issues and opportunities, the members had a good
sense of what direction they wanted to go.

A comment was made afterwards that the meeting was
running out of things to discuss. But the fact that a
group was formed to continue the work suggests
otherwise. The group might have been running out of
steam to continue discussing the issues posted; but new
themes for the new group will be all that is needed to
continue the enthusiasm.

Should this new group revert to more "traditional"
meeting formats?

There is danger in doing that: after having tasted the
freedom to act on their passions and responsibilities,
if their choices are restricted the members might not
long sustain their enthusiasm.

I suggest the group continue the Open Space concepts
(the 4 principles and the Law of Two Feet) and
consciously choose to be open to whatever anyone brings
up--open both in attitude, and in meeting format. For
instance, open each meeting with an opportunity to post
topics for the agenda.

The meeting format is simple, and with a little coaching
members could rotate facilitating it.

===end

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