Desperately seeking...

Mon Jun 20 11:59:29 PDT 2005

Thanks, Lisa for your encouragement to work with what "has been given".  

Claudia

On Mon, 20 Jun 2005 10:32:55 -0700 Lisa Heft <lisaheft at openingspace.net>
writes:
Claudia – 

You wrote about your upcoming OS with 300 people in a fan-shaped room:
Has anybody ever had a similar situation?  What are your thoughts?  The
space appears to be so awkward and unaccommodating for open space, with
stairs and railings, and limited opportunity to actually create something
that resembles circles.  Maybe I just worry too much about the space and
the right people will come (and stay?!) and make a circle?  Maybe it is
really important to have circles and “fan-shaped” just isn’t going to
work? 

I’m guessing you tried and tried to get it in another space but this is
the one you have been given.

I seem to remember …Brian Bainbridge, was it?  who spoke of a great OS in
a room with theatre seating (chairs attached to the floor) and a little
tiny flat space up front for an agenda wall?  And…Bernd Weber, was it? 
who spoke of a great OS in a room filled with one incredibly large table
and people seated all around it and not much additional room?  

And I myself had an experience with a room that was actually not a
meeting room but an exhibit hallway, l-o-n-g and narrow.  And when I put
chairs in sort of an arc facing a wall (with many ‘concentric’ rows out
to the sides) the fire marshals came in and said that all my chairs had
to be locked together.

In each of these cases, the Open Space went beautifully.  I am sure in
all our cases we ‘fought’ like crazy to get a better room, but these were
the rooms we were given.  And so I’m sure that in each of our cases we
thought very carefully about the design, and adjusted in the most
creative ways, and carried intention and vision, and imagined and
indicated a circle even when there may not have been one (it helps to put
the signs all around the room and to indicate them as you explain
principles and law to further the circle feeling even in a long space, I
have found).   

And in each of these cases, people got themselves to the location that
was created for them to write and announce their topics, they got to
wherever the agenda wall was set up to post their topics, and they held
their discussions all around the room – amazingly, clustering up in
little circles even in locked-down chairs – it’s a natural way to
converse, in circles.

So I say just do all the things you know to do, think of the best way
possible to use the space you have, and then enjoy all that Open Space…

Lisa

___________________________
L i s a   H e f t
Consultant, Facilitator, Educator
O p e n i n g  S p a c e
2325 Oregon
Berkeley, California
94705-1106   USA
+01 510 548-8449
lisaheft at openingspace.net
www.openingspace.net 

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Claudia
Haack
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 8:46 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Desperately seeking...

Desperately seeking…

….a solution to a space issue. 

Here is the situation:

We are planning a one day Open Space event for about 300 people.  
To imagine the setting – imagine classical ballroom, very large oval,
with a terrace going around the edge.  Then divide the room in thirds,
keeping a central almost square area and two fan-shaped edge rooms.  One
of which is ours (with a total capacity of  750 people theatre style)
with these challenges:
§         It is shaped like a fan.
§         The “outer” rim of approximately 44 feed across is about 2 
feet higher than the “inner” fan.
§         The “outer” rim is separated  from the lower space by a metal
and glass railing. 
§         While the inner space has a very high ceiling, the outer/upper
space does not. 
If an open space of at least 35 to 40 feet is created on the lower part
(the only part where you could create an open space) only about 2
concentric circles can be created accommodating about 120 people.  The
remainder of the rows would be only half-circles or half-ovals, following
the shape of the terrace. 

Has anybody ever had a similar situation?  What are your thoughts?  The
space appears to be so awkward and unaccommodating for open space, with
stairs and railings, and limited opportunity to actually create something
that resembles circles.  Maybe I just worry too much about the space and
the right people will come (and stay?!) and make a circle?  Maybe it is
really important to have circles and “fan-shaped” just isn’t going to
work? 

Thanks for any suggestions. 

Claudia

Triune Milagro – Madison
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