Fabulous Facilitators - stammtisch in San Francisco Bay Area (long)

Fri Jan 6 12:18:19 PST 2006

Hi, Marei and all –

(I have had an interesting time being able to access
and not
email in
the last two months – so here I am catching up on some older messages
you have sent
Yes, it is cute that Access Queen has trouble with
accessing email sometimes
but not being able to get or send emails for
periods of time is certainly a lovely reminder to spend more time with
loved ones
    ;o)

To refresh your memory, Marei asked:

<as I have let myself be inspired by so many of the things you shared I
am not astonished that I like the fabulous facilitators meeting very
much, too. My coming to San Francisco and join you there will take a
little longer. But I still have the intention !! In the meantime: Would
you be so kind to explain what "pot luck" means? Everybody brings what
they feel like and you eat what is on the table?
And are there any other suggestions and experiences in hosting this that
you feel like sharing out of your deep wisdom? Greetings from Bielefeld,
where next year a "fabulous facilitators breakfast" might take place
> 

Ms. Marei – I see you in our Fabulous Facilitators circle, even though
you cannot yet make it in person.  Elena Marchuk came to visit us once,
all the way from Siberia, as have other facilitators on their travels.
So there will always be a place for you.  (This month’s Fabulous
Facilitators breakfast meeting is Monday, January 23, 9:00am-11:00am.
If any of you reading this will be in the San Francisco Bay Area during
that time, do contact me directly and I will send you details of how to
drop in for the meeting.)

“Pot luck” means exactly what you thought it did (you are so amazing
with the US vernacular).  I provide coffee, tea, plates and napkins and
set up a circle of chairs and a large table for whatever food people
bring.  We had started in a café but that soon proved too difficult to
hear each other or to set up a circle – a long line of tables seems to
shift the dialogue into duos instead of full-group
conversation/listening.  So for the last few years the meetings have
been held in my home in Berkeley.  

The crazy thing about pot luck is that some Fabulous Facilitators
breakfast meetings all we have is yellow and white food (bread,
pastries, bagels, cheese).  One breakfast everyone arrived with either
cantaloupe (melon) or blueberries (!).  And some other times there is a
full complete breakfast-y meal.

The whole idea behind the design of these meetings is to be
non-burdensome (to me, to those attending).  So the food is what it is,
and nobody ‘rsvp’s’ to say whether they are coming or not (you just drop
in
or not).  I expect others to clean up after the meeting rather than
leave the burden to me.  

Other suggestions and experiences in hosting from my deep, deep,
said-with-a-twinkle-in-my-eye-as-Tree-says wisdom?

*	This group was established for *face-to-face* contact,
specifically.  So we have a Topica announce list (to make it easier for
me to post notes from our previous meetings or announce dates of next
meetings) but that is specifically not a conversation/discussion
listserv.  Other listservs exist for that. Fabulous Facilitators post
job, project or workshop announcements on our Topica list.  If somebody
has not shown up or contacted me behind-the-scenes in quite awhile, I
contact them to ask if they wish to remain on our list.  Because
face-to-face, connection and community is the cultural norm and
expectation of this group.

*	We meet Monday mornings because that seems to work for most
people.  These meetings are not held in Open Space, but are more of a
lightly facilitated conversation with topics generated as people feel
the passion – no pre-set agenda, it goes where it goes.  As the purpose
of this meeting is for deep conversation and sharing of thinking
regarding tools, approaches, design, puzzles, discoveries and challenges
around group process and facilitation, my light facilitation happens
when the topic goes away from the focus and purpose of our meeting.  To
assist with that, I have made little files of handouts to answer
questions that (for example) people new to the field of facilitation
always ask, including a list of some methods, some listservs, plus a
survey of some members to answer those questions of ‘how did you get
into the field, where did you learn what you know, do you have to have a
university degree, what books does a person new to facilitation read,
does being certificated get you jobs’ and so on.  Because we do not
learn new things if we start ‘making lists’ (of books, of schools, of
methods) instead of conversing.  I take notes during each meeting and
send out those notes to everyone.

*	We do not go around the circle for introductions (as doing this
can absorb most of our 2 hours together) but instead have nametags and
another handout lists contact information and self-descriptions.  As
someone talks you reach for the list to see more of what they do and how
to contact them for further conversation.  We reserve the last 10
minutes of our time for workshop or other announcements (again so we can
spend the most time in deeper-level conversations); people also bring
flyers announcing their workshops, and ideally they give discounts to
fellow Fabulous Facilitators.

*	The choice of location was to have a site easily accessible by
public transit and by car, for people from all across the San Francisco
Bay Area (people come from all directions).  Hence my home.  It is only
an inconvenience when I have a last-minute need to be elsewhere, in
which case some Fabulous Facilitator who I know very well continues the
meeting and cleans up / locks up my home after the meeting.

In this way, Fabulous Facilitators has been going strong since 2002.  It
is an amazing source of mutual support, potential collaborators,
learning, feedback and affirmation.  And what can I say?

It’s Fabulous.

Cheers from not-so-rainy-right-now Berkeley California USA,

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 

* * ==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU ------------------------------ To
subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of
oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about
OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20060106/6a18d413/attachment-0015.htm>