multiple facilitator roles

Mon May 9 16:23:44 PDT 2005

Kathryn - Welcome from the Shadows of Lurkerdom! Sounds like you are hooked.
Just be careful it will only get worse. As for NYC contact Karen Davis (old
OSer and older friend) kdavis at concentric.net 

Harrison

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Drive

Potomac, Maryland   20845

Phone 301-365-2093

Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/>

Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org

Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm
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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Proteus
Communications
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 4:47 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: multiple facilitator roles

Hello Wendy and to everyone on the Open Space list.  My name is Kathryn
Thomson, and I too had a "conversion" experience with Chris Corrigan while
supporting him at an Open Space event in January. I have been offering
training and facilitation to organizations for years and years, and Open
Space is what I've been waiting for all my life.  I am in danger of becoming
altogether evangelical about its transformational potential.  I believe with
all my heart that this experience of OST is what is needed at this time, on
this planet, with all its dear inhabitants.  

One thing about using OST is how deeply it exposes me to myself.  My need to
"facilitate" to "do" something, to "be helpful"--all very fine qualities in
some circumstances, but so absolutely wrong in open space.  Chris had me go
to the wall and just observe my own responses to what unfolded there.  It
was so hard not to offer assistance, and I saw how much of my own ego is
invested in the idea of me being a "helpful" person.  I also saw how
important it was to let go of my attachment to this ego-idea.

Since then I have introduced OST in various organizations and witnessed the
"chaordic" magic of OST unfold before my eyes.  Once I described the process
to a colleague who had never seen it, but so clearly needed to use it. I
tried describing it, and  ended up using my young daughters stuffed animals
and kind of acted it out, so she could get the idea of what it looked like.
She used OST the next day--her client group had been struggling for over a
year with some difficult decisions and changes that needed to be made--and
they experienced major breakthroughs in all areas.  My colleague and her
client are now converts too.  

I am hoping to bring OST to the Island that I (and Chris) live on. There are
some urgent issues facing our residents and OST will be our way through.   I
think the time, the people and the need is ripe.  (How about it Chris?)

I thank each of you on this list for your generosity in sharing yourselves
and your OST experience so openly and helpfully.   I am learning so much
from each of you.  I really appreciated the conversations you had about
sexism and that poem.  I saw right down into the core of what it means to
honour each other in all of our humanity, in all of our brilliance, our
blind spots, our judgements, our deepest beliefs and deepest hopes.  I saw
you struggle with what it means to hold very different world views and to
hold on to your respect for each other as human beings.  It was a delicious,
enlivening, and heartening dialogue and I thank you for it.

Thank you too, to Harrison Owen for bringing OST to this planet, to all of
us, at this time, in this place of such great need.

Sincerely,

Kathryn Thomson on Bowen Island

(a hitherto invisible, appreciative  and grateful "lurker")

PS--Is there anyone practicing OST in New York that would be willing to meet
me (for a wee cup of tea and a chat about OST)  sometime the second week in
June??

  _____  

From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Wendy
Farmer-O'Neil
Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 11:57 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: multiple facilitator roles

Hi all,

Having just come from playing a support role in an OST event, the question
of co-facilitation was also in my mind.  I took on the support role with the
intention of service.  Service to the facilitator (Chris), to support him in
holding space, and service to the participants to support them in their
journey in Open Space.  With that experience behind me, as I contemplate
facilitating my first OST event (which is on the horizon), I find that I am
wanting to create a support team who understand Open Space and who will help
to maintain the continuum or field of experience for the participants.  I
understand that it is not necessary for successful OST facilitation, but I
am wondering if it is worth experimenting to see if there is a qualitative
difference for the participants and/or the facilitator--a deepening, I
suppose.  I guess I am seeing a tandem approach to facilitation, where one
facilitator takes on the "face time" as Harrison put it, while the other
provides support--at the wall, at the computer stations--wherever presence
can arise to open more space.    Thoughts?

Cheers,

Wendy

Wendy Farmer-O'Neil
Prospera Communications & Consulting Services
1.250.713.2351/1.800.713.2351
weblog: www.wordgravity.blogspot.com

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