XIV Open Space on Open Space Moscow

[Raffi Aftandelian]

Dear colleagues,

A few weeks ago we posted the announcement of the 14th International
OSonOS scheduled for August 4-6 here.

This announcement is now at
http://www.openspaceworld.ru/ann-eng.html

Practical information about travel to Moscow and accommodation during
the OSonOS is at:
http://www.openspaceworld.ru/reg-eng.html

You can find registration payment information here:
http://www.openspaceworld.ru/pay-eng.html

Spring comes to Moscow suddenly and imperceptibly. Some days it is
below zero, on others in the high 60's. You can see ducks in Moscow's
embankments and ponds!

Last weekend conference co-sponsor Intertraining, a professional
association of trainers and consultants of the former Soviet Union,
conducted its annual training and consultant conference. A
mini-workshop on OST was allotted a small slot, 1.5 hours! Galina
Tsarkova and Mikhail Pronin were very successful in giving 20 people a
taste of OST and in generating interest in the OSonOS.

This conference was especially interesting in its diversity: trainers
and consultants from both business and the NGO sectors were
represented, from all over Russia (including Siberia and the Russia
Far East) and former Soviet Union.

On the first day of the conference,  I offered an evening of collective storytelling
explicitly using open space principles as a guide to the gathering's design
(whole person process facilitation). 50 of us explored the connection
between ourselves and our profession (HR managers, trainers, training
managers, consultants, and others were represented). People were
amazed to see that we went so deep so quickly. Two and a half hours
was just a warm-up, but unfortunately we had to end early, because
storytelling was followed by a late night watercolor painting workshop. More open
space! The person who conducted the painting workskhop, Vera
Vakulenko, has a curious connection to OST and os. More on that in
August.

At the conference we learned of OST's recent application with top
executives at Beeline, Russia's second largest cellular phone service
provider.

There are a number of clubs for corporate trainers and consultants,
several of which would like to conduct one of their club's meetings
using OST.

The Moscow OST Mentoring Circle (our local, more formal equivalent of a
stammtisch) will be meeting this weekend. We may even have someone
coming from Ukraine to participate!

People in Volgograd, where apparently OST was used for the first time
by two German practicioners, have expressed interest in creating their own mentoring circle.

We are warming up here in Moscow and we are pleased to have our
invitation ready now in a more readily accessible format.

On a more personal note, I'd like to share a poem and two quotes from an
Enlightenment-era openspacer (follows at the end of this message).

Warmly,
raffi

                  The School Boy
              I love to rise in a summer morn,
              When the birds sing on every tree;
              The distant huntsman winds his horn,
              And the sky-lark sings with me.
              O! what sweet company.
              But to go to school in a summer morn,
              O! it drives all joy away;
              Under a cruel eye outworn,
              The little ones spend the day,
              In sighing and dismay.
              Ah! then at times I drooping sit,
              And spend many an anxious hour,
              Nor in my book can I take delight,
              Nor sit in learnings bower,
              Worn thro' with the dreary shower.
              How can the bird that is born for joy,
              Sit in a cage and sing,
              How can a child when fears annoy.
              But droop his tender wing.
              And forget his youthful spring.
              O! father & mother, if buds are nip'd,
              And blossoms blown away,
              And if the tender plants are strip'd
              Of their joy in the springing day,
              By sorrow and cares dismay.
              How shall the summer arise in joy.
              Or the summer fruits appear,            (troy
              Or how shall we gather what griefs des
              Or bless the mellowing year.
              When the blasts of winter appear.

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to
man as it is, infinite."

"The imagination is not a State; it is the Human existence itself."
William Blake

---------------------------------------
Raffi Aftandelian
consultant trainer facilitator
essenceworks consulting group
organizational health and balance
Moscow
raffi at essenceworks.ru, raffi at bk.ru
+7 926 377 79 15

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