Happily and healthily gay

[Chris Corrigan]

Congrats Catherine.  A great story, good advice and best wishes for the
follow up.  AND give our love to Florian.

Chris

On 5/29/06, Catherine Pfaehler <c.pfaehler at bluewin.ch> wrote:
>
>  Dear all
>
>
>
> Martin Leith once rather desperately asked in a European OT-conference:
> "How can I be myself and make money with it?" This question has been with me
> ever since. It has a lot to do with the ongoing strand on authenticity and
> self-discovery in Open Space.
>
>
>
> In our recent Swiss Open Space event "happily and healthily gay" in April,
> we used portrait sheets to facilitate post-conference exchange. They
> included address, things I do especially well, things I need support for,
> fields I would like to cooperate in with others, important life questions
> and your favourite quote or book. I repeated this question in my personal
> portrait sheet, under the topic of "important life questions". I was the
> facilitator of the conference, and it was my first OS-conference as a
> professional facilitator (even if I have lived with Open Space since 1989,
> co-organized several European OT-conferences and participated in more of
> them).
>
>
>
> By the time the conference was over, I knew the answer: In being a
> professional facilitator of Open Space conferences. I truly loved it.
> Whoever I may be, I could be me, fully and lovingly! I am very grateful to
> Lisa Heft for having asked, on this list, for a bilingual facilitator who
> would work in Switzerland, and to Florian Fischer for having passed on that
> mail to me and for having prepared the event with me. Unfortunately, due to
> illness, he has had to resign two days before the event – we were both very
> sad about this (but then, whatever happens…). Fortunately, Wolfgang Fänderl
> from Munich jumped in for the German-speaking part – he was on the team of
> assistants and has offered to do so. And thank you all who offered advice
> for community building on the first evening – playing typical or happy
> scenes of one's life as a gay man in groups of 10 proved to be a great
> door-opener to a wide range of topics, also intimate ones (36 issues
> addressed by a little over 100 participants, and 12 emerging ongoing
> projects).
>
>
>
> Lots of learning involved, too:
>
> Ÿ         Sleep enough.
>
> Ÿ         Ask for enough help.
>
> Ÿ         Talk about office work before with the sponsor, especially if
> the protocols are written on laptops and need to be perfect for the
> documentation (the perfectionism swallowed all the assistant capacities
> which I then didn't have to make changes in the room...), even if he wants
> to do the office work in his way and without your help.
>
> Ÿ         Coordinate well with the sponsor, also during the event, not
> only before, and even if he doesn't want you in the office!
>
> Ÿ         Bilingual events need a translator who is not the responsible
> facilitator. To do both is exhausting.
>
> Ÿ         Clarify roles before the event: of people who make the
> transition from having been members of the preparation group to becoming
> "normal" participants (they had expected certain outcomes, but they didn't
> put their related topics up on the wall because they wanted the space to be
> truly open – but then, who will see to ith that their burning issues get
> addressed?), and of people who make the transition from assistant to
> co-facilitator and have not been part of the preparation group.
>
>
>
> Yes, to be repeated, definitely. On October 20 – 22, the same sponsor is
> having another OS for people living with AIDS to find out about their needs,
> and I will facilitate again, this time with a translator. It's "copy-paste",
> in the same place, partly with the same team. We do welcome assistants who
> speak German and/or French!
>
>
>
> Thank you all again for being such a wonderful support and community!
> Love, Catherine
>
>
>
> Catherine Pfaehler Senn
>
> Open Space-Begleitung
>
> Kellersriedweg 8
>
> CH - 2503 Biel
>
> T/F/B ++41 - (0)32 - 365 68 41
>
> c.pfaehler at bluewin.ch
>
>
>  * * ==========================================================
> 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
>



-- 
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com
Open Space Resources:  http://tinyurl.com/r94tj

*
*
==========================================================
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/20060529/05e0ebd0/attachment-0016.htm>