Wosonos 2012 first open space

Sun Nov 21 07:43:38 PST 2010

Dear OS listers,

As Jon Harvey has already reported on the os list, two weekends ago the first open space was held for our Wosonos 2012 event. The Improbable office booked the space for us and I opened the space. It was a great turn out considering we had limited time to drum up support and interest. Thank you for helping make that happen. There was a lot of enthusiasm and lots of  sessions called and of course the beginnings of the rumblings from the field that come up when one takes the initiative on starting an event like this. I got to meet some faces for the first time and also met some people I didn't know I knew.

So here's my feedback on the whole event. On Sat/Sun we had a day and a half in open space.
After the event there are a number of things that are "up" for me. One is Improbable's heart responsibility towards creating an event like this and ultimately what the nature of their involvement is. Improbable took the initiative on making this invitation happen at the 2010 Wosonos, thanks to Matilda with support from Jon and Romy, and it was as such that it was accepted in Berlin. With this we have been handed an ineffable something, we have been entrusted with it and we have responsibilities towards it. It is  like a gentle flame (a metaphor which came up a lot over the weekend) and We feel a onus to look after this and make sure it doesn't go out. We must honour its journey from Berlin and its previous historic invocations it will be coming to us via Chile and end up in the UK. So we are Honouring the past whilst looking towards creating a new space for it to burn brightly in the future. So at present we are cupping it in our hands trying to shield it from our autumn winds here.  At the same time we mustn't hold it too tightly so that the flame gets smothered and loses it's oxygen and spirit.  So can we balance the fact that we made the invitation and are the trustees of this accepted invitation without controlling it too much? 

All these challenges seem like a perfect opportunity to use what OS is designed for. As a company (theatre not business although it of course is both) some of the benefits we have are  of being a very small organisation who has in the past facilitated some very big events so we have some experience here. We also have a pool of people in our own open space community (mostly but not wholly from  the artistic world) who have a passion for and interest in open space and it's divergent possibilities and uses. 

My personal interest is in finding out if we can use open space itself to unfold an emergent organisation/community/team who will help make all this happen. Can we learn how an organisation might create itself out of open space principles? At the crux of the process we hope to use this opportunity to hold a space where open space practitioners feel welcomed, where we are welcoming amongst ourselves and consequently in a good place to turn outwards to the world to invite people to the UK. We are creating a community that welcomes a wider worldwide community. 

In this first OS we did the minimum of  "organisation" hoping that the people who turn up will take responsibility for doing/changing things they want to make happen. 

So the tension we find ourselves holding in is looking after the trust that has been placed in us to host this event with the desire to not "control" or dictate how it happens. This is also important to us as we genuinely cannot do this alone and need the support of others in order to manifest this event.
At the moment we are still negotiating the fact that some people are turning up and ask: "How are you going to be doing this?" Well ultimately it will of course be how are we going to do this? 

The idea for what the event should be included some of these criteria:

It should be: An exciting party; Open to all; Have many by-products that are beneficial to the UK open space community & worldwide communities; Help build and coalesce the latent UK community which is "out there";  Ensure all the people who want to be a part of it are given the opportunity to do so. Welcoming people from the wider world to our Open shores. Transparency is an essential ingredient for the central host team. 

I also saw lots of the prime ingredients for the fertile compost open Space thrives on. This is a list of the criteria for OS to operate at a high performance level. 

#1: A real business issue:
Yes we have it. A commitment to make this event happen in 2012 in the UK for the UK OS community and the world. 
#2: Voluntary self selection: so our invite has gone out and already a group of interested people have shown up. There is a commitment to do a number of open spaces which invite the UK OS community to take part. This has been flagged as hopefully not just being London centric so our reach has to go further but I imagine those who can and are interested in working with us will come to the next open spaces or stay in touch with us. We are aiming to do open spaces outside London to pick up other memebers of the community and widen the net. This continued activity of opening space in different spaces will unfold its own self selection process. Anyone who is interested in other parts of the UK who wants to host an invite in your area of the UK please let us know!

#3: High levels of complexity: Already the challenges we face are I feel beyond the ability of one single "old style" directive organisation of encompassing or holding. The challenges we face in looking after the UK and world communities their demands,dreams and hopes for the event are incredibly complex.

#4:High levels of diversity:
This is an interesting one. I actually feel there was a good level of practitioner diversity at the event but feel the call to do further events really wants to engage with this. Ambassadors will be essential in fulfilling this criteria on all the potential colours and possibilities. 

#5:Presence of passion and conflict: Yes present and correct I feel: in the feedback on how we did the event, gossip and certainly present in some of the sessions and interactions I had. Hurrah!

#6:Decision time of yesterday:
People keep asking us when its going to happen on the OS list and also who's doing it so I guess we are already late by some peoples clocks!

The reports from the first OS have already gone online as a blog for the people who were there to contribute to and comment on.

Overall 
Speaking for Improbable I'd like to say what is important for us is our aim to ensure all the people who want to be a part of Wosonos 2012 are given an authentic opportunity to do so. At the moment I feel that as a core organisation unfolds or emerges we will be part of that or have a strong relationship to it. We aim to maintain the links with the world community and the world institutes. As this story tells itself Improbable must make a decision as to what level of responsibility we take in it. As this happens we will make an informed decision as to how central we are to that organisation either as a company or as individuals. It is all unfolding.

In terms of actions, what needs to be decided and actioned on is: Where and when the next open space to continue creating this team happens? Who hosts it? We already have one offer which we need to say yes or no to soon. I'd like to know if there are more out there? Either from the people who came to the event or others who didn't come. So that would also include all kinds of offers from suggesting a good space, a good place in the rest of the country to go to or include, offers to host with or without our support etc.. Etc..All variations considered!  Please put the word out and get in touch with us as soon as possible!

Best wishes to you all out there in the world 

Phelim x      

Sent from my iPad

*
*
==========================================================
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