What happened in South Bend... [long]

Douglas D. Germann, Sr. 76066.515 at compuserve.com
Wed Mar 16 14:51:54 PST 2005


Hi--

What happened in South Bend...


February 4, 5 and 6, 2005, South Bend, Indiana:
The Doers Conference: Opening Space for Making a Greater difference.


22 people attended, posting 22 topics in 2 1/2 days of Open Space.


Here for you are my notes, questions, and ruminations:


February 4, 10:46 am: In the midst of the Doers Conference. There are about
19 people here with another 2 expected after lunch. We were actually into the
marketplace by 9:45, although the first session was set for 10:30. Folks
didn't actually move to their sessions till about 10:20. Interesting.
Whenever it starts is the right time.


They stood around conversing in small groups. What was that all about? Making
connections, for sure, but was there something else going on? Perhaps they
found that the more different we are the more we are alike--our differences
point out our shared essences like a river recognizing its kinship to the sea.


There is one group to my right talking about schools and health and physical
fitness; and one to my left talking about youth and physical fitness. There
are 5 groups going just now.


***


This is a serious group of people, typified in my mind by one young man with
his intensity, litheness and quiet humor. They are good people, with a
variety of personalities and backgrounds and intellectualities. They want
very much to make something happen, to make good on this time together.


I want very much for them to accomplish this. I want to see their work
continue, to bear fruit. But in one way, it matters not what they do here for
they make a great difference simply by their trying. The system, the
establishment, momentum, slow natural decay all contribute to nothing
happening in motion and in human spirit. But these people by their daring and
doing are reversing both the spirit and the motion. This is their primal,
seminal contribution to our community.


***


February 7: they want to continue the work. 3 meetings have been set up.
People stood and talked for 20 minutes or more after. There was a great
spirit in the room all three days.


Who are these people? They are white, black, brown. They are visibly and
not visibly disabled. They are Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists,
Quakers, Egyptians. They are in their twenties and in their 70s. They are
self-employed, government-employed, corporation employed, unemployed,
retired, and employed again because they couldn't stand to be retired. They
are home-schoolers, school board candidates and thorns in the sides of
school boards. They are ordained ministers and ex-priests.


Their passions are even more varied: toilet paper, senior citizens, youth,
young unmarried women, alcoholism among youth, disabled living centers, GLBT
rights, getting more young men into the priesthood, improving the public
schools, creating a water park to rejuvenate people's interests in the river,
helping ex-prisoners rejoin society, introducing youngsters ages 10 to 14
from crack households to a wholesome environment, helping professionals ages
20 to 39 find a reason to engage in their community, developing community
vegetable gardens in vacant city lots, helping the mentally disabled to be
productive, protecting foster children from the system, meeting the needs of
grandparents called upon to parent their grandchildren, AIDS education,
justice for Hispanics, providing inner city youth with wilderness adventures,
and creating a wisdom culture.


Are they revolutionaries? You'd hardly think so to look at them. They were
dressed casually, they are fat and thin, old and young, just an average crew
of people. But....


But they sat around for 2 1/2 days talking. Animatedly. Deeply engaged in
hearing, not just speaking. Popping ideas. Getting practical.


More than that. Many observed that there were no turf wars, there was a real
sharing. There was a palpable attempt to lift each other up.


More even than that. These people are working on projects that are not at the
top of people's minds. Their work is for the little ones, those daily facing
injustice or illness or wrongs or hopelessness or loss of their personhood.
They need to butt heads with traditional ways of thinking. They need to
confront the system. They need to dig deep and find the cultural taboos that
keep people hemmed in.


Not only did they have the need, they worked on solving it. This was a doing
session. It was time to settle in, sit back and look at root causes and find
ways to work on them. And that they did. In session after session. There were
literally as many sessions they worked in as there were people there. Each
session was someone's passion and they took responsibility for making
something happen about it.


One session had nearly half the people in it. It was a practical hands-on
learning session on how to get the word out. There was someone there who knew
a lot about the print media and she was questioned in depth about how to
enlist the aid of the media. There were others who had had experience working
with the media, and others with experiences in getting the word out in
several other more one-on-one and even mass means.


They wanted to learn how to be rebels with a way that works.


***


I have learned a valuable technique: open space lunching with diverse groups
of people.


How did we gather them together? No press releases, no mailings. We simply
invited the Doers themselves to lunch: 3, 4 or 5 at a time.


No attention was paid to try to get compatible people together, nor were they
told who the others were who were invited. Often people would cancel at the
last moment, or just not show up, but that did not affect the quality of the
conversation.


No sales pitch, just a "We would like you to come," followed by a description
of the theme and then "Will you come?" This seemed effective.


We had lunches with and invited probably 60 people. Ultimately 22 came to the
conference. The lunches taught us something: that this is a good way to get
people together and to open space for growth and conversation.


Facilitating the conference is the easy part of course. Getting people
there, the right people, is the key. In a sense I took too long getting it
going, getting people there. The people I talked to early did not in the main
come. The people I talked to last came in higher per centages. Yet it is also
true that over time my stories got better (some of which was because I had
more good ones from more people) and my invitations more inviting. It would
have been good to have had a lot of people inviting, instead of just a few.
More people could have been invited more quickly. We could have had meetings
of inviters to share the stories and the ways we were inviting people, and
that could have sped up our learning and improved our effectiveness.


***


What happened in South Bend? 22 topics were posted by the 22 people who
attended.


Some of their topics were specific to the projects these Doers had, such as
community gardens and ownership of the St. Joseph River, establishing
independent living centers, teens reaching out to seniors, getting the public
involved in public education, preventing child abuse, helping children in the
foster care system, promoting physical fitness and health, dealing with
underage drinking.

Some were more general: promoting dialogue on difficult issues; justice
issues; helping women who want to cross thresholds in their lives and fulfill
their dreams; helping newly single people transition to singlehood; bringing
diverse groups together; gold in the shadow; retaining and obtaining
volunteers; how do we effect change?; how do we start more good
conversations?; sustainability and the city.


There were sessions on helping each other, getting to know each other's
projects.


In the evening news the first evening, after some nervousness with empty open
spaces, there were several periods of silence. About two thirds of the way
through, someone asked that we all identify ourselves and our passions and
projects, and everyone did. This generated a kind of collective awe. There is
good getting done in this community. There is hope.


One man who could have been bitter with his 20+ years in a wheelchair was our
point of uplift: he was excited about life, about the people he was among,
about the things that are possible. What was the force that drew these people
to each other in these few moments? It is beyond my ability to put into words
just now, but it was palpable.


And then it was over for the evening.


***


And the butterfly teaches. That is a wonder. What does the butterfly teach?


***


Another event that stood out: one group was convened around the topic
"Promoting thought and dialogue on issues that are challenging and difficult:
The ISMs." This attracted a large and diverse group. While it was going on I
was in another room and from time to time heard voices from this group. At
the Evening News circle at the end of the day, one woman suggested that it
would have been helpful if I had given people guidelines for how to act
during the sessions.

This raised my curiosity, so over the next two days I asked others who had
been involved in the session. It seems that the conversation had made its way
around to gay and lesbian issues, and one man in a wheel chair said that this
kind of conduct was distasteful, and a tall, forceful woman whose husband is
a preacher in a traditional church could hardly contain herself in her seat
to express her opinion that it was a sin. She was seated right next to a
small woman (the one who made the suggestion in the Evening News circle)
whose major work is to open minds and hearts to people with different sexual
orientations.


At first I thought that these two had almost come to blows. But others who
were there, including the woman who had convened the group, said that it was
but a good expression of diverse opinions in a passionate manner and that
there was no bodily harm intended by anyone.


Still, one lady was disconcerted enough by it to make a public statement
about it. I said nothing in response to her in the Evening News, but I did
give her my eyes for her full statement.


What would you have done, if anything, differently, either in the breakout
group or in the circle or at another time?


***


There was a magic not captured (perhaps it is not possible to capture such
magic in words?) in the reports that were prepared. (The reports are at
http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com --go to the bottom of the page and click
on The Doers Conference.)


Of necessity, the reports were brief notes, and perhaps in asking for
"Summary of conversation, conclusions, and next steps" we directed the report
too much toward "Just the facts, Ma'am." Perhaps in the future I will remove
the word "summary" and replace it with something more open, like "sense" or
"heart" or "center" or "substance" or "essence."


Yet there was magic there. The conversations were lively; there was banter
and laughter and earnestness. The conversants were engaged, leaning forward
in their chairs toward one another. Notes were being taken. Excitement was
evident. And on the final day when we opened space for action, they wanted,
perhaps needed, to stay as one group and talk about what "we" could do to
stay together as a group.


***


My reflections on the Doers Conference, today: People get excited by the
magic they perform. Magic in this sense means that something happens that was
not conscious before but is now. That something comes about through the
medium of conversation. Jokingly we say "How can I know what I think until I
hear what I say?" Yet there is truth in that.


Our projects are on our hearts and minds but there are precious few with whom
we can puzzle out what we next need or want to do, let alone share our dreams
and hopes. When we do start exploring, and people explore with us, we are
taken to places we want to go, to thoughts we have subconsciously started to
open, to conjunctions and confluences of ideas we had never sparked against
each other. There is a conscious recognition of each other and of ourselves
which cannot happen except in such a fertile environment.


One woman said, "I could not imagine that sitting around talking was working.
But I have been getting work done."


This work is ordinary magic. This magic brings to light the magic of people.
New things are created; rabbits are pulled out of mouths.


And ears. And hearts. From where else can they come? Of course they multiply:
that is the work of rabbits. What are rabbits? Ideas and ideals, work and
help. Work is movement, herein of self and others and hearts and minds. When
these all bounce wonderfully and intimately with each other, more rabbits are
the inevitable result.


Are these merely poetic ways to describe an ordinary conference? I suspect
not. For how often from a professional conference do 40% of the people meet
again and again to carry on what they started there? Not only that but show
up to help each other on their heart's projects? No, something larger than
the norm happened in South Bend. Something larger than the people who were
there. Something good. Something of power.

                              :-Doug. Germann
                              Seeking people making community change.

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