sponsor/facilitator (was the circle, luminaries, personal growing edges)

[Diane Brandon]

Brendan, your reference to "both sponsor and facilitator" reminds me  
that I want to explore that topic, here on the list and/or perhaps by  
posting a session at the OSonOS that's coming up in Camden.

Space will be opened on 9/22 in Eliot, Maine, for at least that one  
afternoon, and hopefully to continue Sunday morning, for an  
interfaith "education for sustainable development" (ESD) conference.  
(If you want to see some good interfaith materials, check out this  
Canadian website:  http://www.faith-commongood.net/ )

Saturday morning 9/22 will open with a keynote about the national and  
international ESD faith sector work, then a short fishbowl dialogue  
on same, followed by a cafe time. After lunch, open space.

We had an afternoon of OS last year at the conference, and it went  
very well. Peter Adriance, the keynoter (known to Chris C) opened the  
space last year, but we both agreed that I should take the leap and  
do it this year.... and now I'm having second thoughts.

What are the implications of both being on the planning committee for  
the conference, being a member of the primary "host" faith, and  
opening the space in the afternoon? Peter wore all of those hats last  
year, and it didn't seem to create any problems, but last year it was  
a primarily Baha'i weekend conference, and this year it's interfaith,  
but hosted at a Baha'i facility. So..... perhaps it would be better  
to have a person of a different faith open the space, to prevent us  
Baha'i hosts from being too dominant in owning the processes?

The planning team includes people of several different faiths --  
Quaker, UU, UCC, Catholic -- and others (including a Rabbi) are on  
the email list for the planning process, and have been involved in  
1:1 planning meetings. One person on the planning team, from the  
local UU church, has opened space before in his professional work for  
U. Maine Extension... would it be better if he does it for the  
conference this year? Or should we have a complete "outsider" (not  
involved in planning, co-sponsoring, hosting, etc.) open the space?

I'm  happy to hear any thoughts,

Diane Brandon (with my conference planner hat on)
Eliot, Maine





On Aug 21, 2007, at 9:08 PM, Brendan McKeague wrote:

> Kaliya - it sounds as though you have been both sponsor and  
> facilitator of growing an 'open space culture' in your community  
> over time...
> and you have been successful in achieving what you set out to do.....
> The journey from semi-circle to circle worked!
> Cheers
> Brendan
>
> At 06:10 AM 22/08/2007, you wrote:
>> What I put forward to you has worked really well for me in the  
>> Tech communities I have grown and cultivated.
>>
>>  I have an very high level of credibility and trust among very  
>> very senior people in the industry (to people in BIG corporations)  
>> in part because I built trust with them and the community I helped  
>> to build "OVER TIME" (we are having our 5th event in the fall (we  
>> do them every 6 months).  This last OST we closed with a group  
>> poem. My goal with each event is to expand their process horizons  
>> every time.
>>
>>  These people now tell me they have a much lower tolerance for  
>> 'talking heads' conferences and events with 5 papers....they are  
>> in love with open space.
>>
>>   Part of the reason for this I believe was my choice - my  
>> perception of where they were at culturally as a group and what i  
>> could do - interms  of pushing their boundaries - (having NO  
>> agenda was already pushing it at the beginning) an not going 'over  
>> board' in the pushing. It is not like I had a client or committee  
>> I was pleasing by not doing a circle- I was it - the designer/ 
>> facilitator (I always run my event designs by my co-producer and a  
>> process ally in my tech community)..
>
> *
> *
> ==========================================================
> 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/20070823/24ba2b53/attachment-0015.htm>