Dealing with New Entrants to OS sessions

[Stuart Worsley]

New Arrivals into OS sessions.

Yesterday, I completed a two day OS session with the council, executive 
and public stakeholders of the city of Eldoret in Kenya. We took the first 
day so seek and document the divergant views, and on the second day 
produced convergance and specific action plans. The group was a collection 
of hitherto conflicting parties, and this became the first time that they 
could sit together and dialogue. The event was highly energised and all 
participated fully. 

However, at the end of the first day, to close, I asked participants to 
throw a light ball to one another, and as they received it, to reflect one 
thing that they had learned. A couple of people stated that although they 
had really enjoyed the sessions, they felt aggrieved that others of their 
colleagues had collected council perdiem to attend, and had not shown up. 
Of course I reminded them of the principles - whoever comes are the right 
people.

Next morning, we started with convergance. Reports were given out and an 
hour allowed for reflection and voting. We used stickies to indicate votes 
on each issue. After we started, 5 new people arrived, grabbed a report 
found some stickies and started to vote with the group. These were the 
counsellors that were the subject of complaint the evening before. When  
the circle was reformed, in order to hold the space, I decided to welcome 
them in, and ask them to give their names and their expectations in 
attending - as all had done yesterday. They stood up, and gave names and 
sat down. From within the group, one vocal individual called out that they 
should give their expectations too, in light of the fact that they had not 
arrived until now. The new arrivals began to react demanding why they were 
being singled out for attention. Some of the group started to defend them 
saying that others were being too harsh, and the spirit of the circle 
quickly dissipated into partisan hostility.

At this point, I decided to intervene by stating that we only wished to 
welcome them in, and that we should move on to discuss the next stage of 
convergance. I explained the next steps to a restless group, and suggested 
that we all take some coffee. 

After reconvening to add up votes and form small groups on priority 
issues, things settled, and we returned to productive energised attention 
for the remainder. Some of the new arrivals did settle in, while others 
remained aloof, and even tried to leave the procedings, only to return 
later.

I would appreciate anyone's reflections on this specifically with respect 
to a) handling new arrivals to an OS session, and b) what experience is 
there in managing the balance between holding space, and letting the group 
degenerate into divisions.

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