for Birgitt Williams

Fri Mar 10 05:40:27 PST 2006

Birgitt,

I have been trying to send you the following message, it kept bouncing
back.sorry for the delay. 
Thanks again! 

Filiz Telek
Buğday Derneği
www.bugday.org
tel: +90 212 252 52 55

"life is transformation"
  _____  

Kimden: Filiz Telek [mailto:filiz at bugday.org] 
Tarih: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 15:22
Kime: 'birgitt at dalarinternational.com'
Konu: ILT: whatever one says,people do whatever they want to do anyway

Dear Birgitt,
Thank you for your response and the questions.I tried to answer them below.
My struggle is more with the attitude of people it seems.using the
technology in a more complete way, we might have had some different results
yet I still wouldn't know how to behave when people simply don't listen,
respect and follow each other. That is my main issue. 
Thank you for your care, I appreciate it.

f i l i z 
approach love and cooking with reckless abundance!
 <http://www.barakam.blogspot.com/> www.barakam.blogspot.com
 <http://www.bugday.org/> www.bugday.org 
  _____  

Kimden: Birgitt Williams [mailto:birgitt at dalarinternational.com] 
Tarih: Monday, March 06, 2006 15:52
Kime: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Konu: Re: whatever one says,people do whatever they want to do anyway

Hi Filiz,
In order to be able to assist you in your thinking, and you have said you
wish practical help, there is more information that I would like to have
from you.

1.	What was the role of the sponsor? The sponsor actually opens the
space for the facilitator to facilitate the OST meeting, so was there
something that could have been different in what the sponsor said in the
invitation, in the opening, in the 'givens' for the meeting.
[filiz] the sponsors were the leading people in this movement who initiated
the whole thing and cultivated the group with their energy. They sent out
the invitation to the group as well as to some local NGOs.so because the
sponsor did not know OS well, he did not refer to the method or givens for
the meeting. He simply welcomed people and read out the invitation theme.

2.	Did you have an outline (agenda) that people could see for the
meeting...either as handouts in their chairs, or up on a wall? This of
course does not have agenda items but has the outline indicating things like
session times, time for action planning and so on.
[filiz] Yes, we did have an outline that was posted at the door. But we did
not go over it in a spoken way in the beginning of the meeting. 

3.	Did you use two different report forms? One for capturing the
discussion from the OS sessions and one for the action planning?
[filiz] yes, we did have two different forms.but the form for action
planning part was not used because we couldn't do that part.

4.	Did Funda, in her opening, outline the process for the whole time
that gave validation to the action planning and why?
[filiz] I believe she didn't outline the whole process 

5.	How much time did you allow for the action planning part?
[filiz] it was an hour

6.	Did they have a book of proceedings to do the action planning from?
[filiz] the book of proceedings were only given to participants at the very
end of the meeting. 

If you would kindly answer the above, I am willing to make some suggestions.
In the corporate world particularly, having a clear action plan coming out
of investing in a meeting is seen as critical. And yes, although we cannot
nor would we want to affect the content, there are simple things to do to
increase the success of action planning.

Having said this, everything is as it should be....so there is nothing that
you did wrong. Whatever happens...

Blessings,
Birgitt

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Filiz
Telek
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 2:47 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: whatever one says,people do whatever they want to do anyway

This is the newest principle for OS that Funda and I are proposing.after our
experience in OS yesterday :-)

Ok, just around the days when we have been contemplating on "whatever
happens is the only thing that could have", I will share with you a brief
reflection on this open space we experienced, a first for me, Funda and for
all who attended.and perhaps dwell a little bit on what could we have done
different or what can we do different in the future.

Funda Oral, whom you know from this list, facilitated this meeting and I
tried to support her to my capability. This was the first time we opened
space together in Turkey, so it was quite a historical day for all of us,
considering the work Funda has done in the last years to invite people to
open space in Turkey.

Today we co-hosted a group of people who are passionate about improving the
public transport in Istanbul. Their immediate focus was saving the
traditional ferryboats of Istanbul which are one of the important symbols of
Istanbul that reflects the spirit of this city. Saving because the
municipality wanted to get rid of them to bring in new and fast sea buses.
So by taking a stand on the maintenance of these ferries, this group
actually is one of the real citizens' movements in Turkey that has some
effect on local decision making.the theme of today's meeting was to come up
with activities for 2006 to improve sea transport and saving the ferries.

All in all it went well with a little more chaos than usual.groups were
formed, exciting conversations were held, actions were proposed.and Funda
did a great job in opening the space.
However convergence was a little disaster in my view, and good news is that
I was hosting it :-)  there could be many reasons for this but I tend to
blame myself or the group for the outcome. When it was convergence time, we
re-opened space where I invited people to announce the actions they want to
take. By the time I could finish my sentence, some people had left the room,
some wondering around, some chatting to the person next to them, two people
shouting at each other.I invited the group about 3 times and nothing
changed. At the end, someone read some proposed actions from the previous
session, put them on the floor and people who were interested signed up. By
that time half of the group had left already. Unfortunately we didn't even
have a closing, because we couldn't maintain the energy of the group
anymore. The meeting finished an hour earlier than the proposed time.

Now, whatever happens is the only thing that could have. But for my own
sanity, I need some practical help here. Because this seems to be the
general group dynamics over here and I am having a hard time as a
facilitator to deal with it. Not only it makes me feel incompetent, it makes
me also lose hope at certain points about being able to do any useful work
over here.
My main challenges are that people don't listen well, they don't concentrate
during a meeting, so they miss and don't follow the instructions and the
groups are not able to converge. In all of the meetings I attended so far, I
found myself watching in awe how people disappear before we are able to say,
so this meeting is finished. And naturally there is no conclusion. I then
feel all the energy that was built up during a meeting gets wasted before we
could channel it into something constructive.

I have been told that being young and female does not help in Turkish
culture. I do not accept this as an explanation. 
I would like to know whether any of you worked in a similar cultural setting
where it was difficult to shift the group energy beyond the individual to
the collective, where listening and focusing was a challenge.and people
proceeded the way they wanted to. To which degree do you or do you not
interfere? What do you do, when you propose a step and one (or more)
participant suggests something else before your next step? (this happens so
often here, drives me crazy, even if you say no, we cant really do that,
people go ahead anyway) What are the conditions for being able to converge a
group whose energy is all over the place?

I am really interested in improving the flow under the conditions I
described above and I am asking for practical suggestions.
Thank you! 

f i l i z 
approach love and cooking with reckless abundance!
 <http://www.barakam.blogspot.com/> www.barakam.blogspot.com
 <http://www.bugday.org/> www.bugday.org 

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