describing self organisation

[Anglican Chaplain]

Do you wrestle sometimes with how to 'describe' self organisation?

I work in the university and I was walking past one of the main lawn
areas where students eat their lunch - it's called the "Oak Lawn'. I was
suddenly struck by the way people were sitting - about 30 groups - none
with less than 3 people and none with more than 10. Average around 7
people - all sitting in circles. Presumably talking about things they
care about with people they want to talk with. 

The same week a photograph of this scene appeared in the campus news
paper with a reflection by the Guild President (that's the Student
Union), who was reflecting on some of the features of the campus that he
liked the most. He identified his favourite spot as the Oak Lawn and
this is part of what he wrote:

"But for a student I don't think that there is anywhere more memorable
or important to us that the Oak Lawn. Situated in the centre of the
campus and bounded by the Law School, Social Science and Guild Village,
Oak Lawn is the heart and soul of campus [note the language in this very
'secular university']. There is nothing better than a lazy day lying
around with friends under the massive oaks, listening to music,
discussing all those important questions of life, or even just having a
little snooze".

Next time I need to describe self organisation to someone, I am just
going to pull out this photograph!

Michael Wood

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>From  Wed Nov  4 22:43:51 2009
Message-Id: <WED.4.NOV.2009.224351.0500.>
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 22:43:51 -0500
Reply-To: 76066.515 at compuserve.com
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: douglas germann <76066.515 at compuserve.com>
Subject: Re: describing self organisation
In-Reply-To: <6C9098F11802AB4E820B84BADAB78E5702A21DDB at ADMIN-SERV48.admin.uwa.edu.au>
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Michael--

Wonderful!

		:- Doug.

On Thu, 2009-11-05 at 11:15 +0800, Anglican Chaplain wrote:
> Do you wrestle sometimes with how to 'describe' self organisation?
> 
> I work in the university and I was walking past one of the main lawn
> areas where students eat their lunch - it's called the "Oak Lawn'. I was
> suddenly struck by the way people were sitting - about 30 groups - none
> with less than 3 people and none with more than 10. Average around 7
> people - all sitting in circles. Presumably talking about things they
> care about with people they want to talk with. 
> 
> The same week a photograph of this scene appeared in the campus news
> paper with a reflection by the Guild President (that's the Student
> Union), who was reflecting on some of the features of the campus that he
> liked the most. He identified his favourite spot as the Oak Lawn and
> this is part of what he wrote:
> 
> "But for a student I don't think that there is anywhere more memorable
> or important to us that the Oak Lawn. Situated in the centre of the
> campus and bounded by the Law School, Social Science and Guild Village,
> Oak Lawn is the heart and soul of campus [note the language in this very
> 'secular university']. There is nothing better than a lazy day lying
> around with friends under the massive oaks, listening to music,
> discussing all those important questions of life, or even just having a
> little snooze".
> 
> Next time I need to describe self organisation to someone, I am just
> going to pull out this photograph!
> 
> Michael Wood
> 
> *
> *
> ==========================================================
> 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

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