Opening Space and Participating at the same time?

[Johannes Terwitte]

Dear community,

Over the past few months I have introduced OST in two NGOs I'm
involved in. In those few Open Spaces I tried to open and hold space -
and resist the temptation to jump right in and participate.

Now there are three 1-day Open Spaces coming up in the near future,
two with around 20 participants and one with around 10. In all cases
the topic will be very dear to my heart, and in some the nature of the
topic will require me to be involved as a participant. My intuition is
that opening space and participating would not be much of a problem -
it is *holding* space and participating which don't go together so
well. Who would collect the empty coffee cups while I'm involved in a
discussion? Maybe someone would... then how much holding space is
necessary?

I take it the first-best solution would be to have someone else open
and hold space. Assuming that's infeasible: what are your experiences
with opening space and participating at the same time?

Appreciatively,

Johannes

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