[OSList] ost in community building/organizing

Thu Sep 13 19:11:14 PDT 2012

It's a fabulous story.  You can get the whole book:
http://www.bkconnection.com/changehandbook

or just the OST chapter:
http://www.bkconnection.com/ff_details.asp?ID=9781605090290

or the unedited text of Chris' story from the draft of the chapter is below.

Peggy

Opening Space in Community

In January 2005 under the auspices of the federal government’s Urban Aboriginal Strategy (UAS), 275 people met in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada to address the complex needs of the inner city Aboriginal community in that city of 80,000.  They used Open Space Technology to identify priority areas and create a consortium of projects aimed at making a difference in a community riddled with poverty, violence, addictions and health issues.

But this was no ordinary gathering.  The 275 people included regular citizens, youth, elders, disabled folks, folks with mental illness, the poor and dyslexic and the rich and educated. 

The sponsoring agencies, a loose committee of service providers, government and local Aboriginal groups set the stage for the success of this event.  They decided that the UAS should not be controlled by the existing agencies and organizations.  To solicit community leadership, the agencies committed to turning the UAS over to the community.  That willingness and openness made a huge difference on the day.  In the pre-meeting, phrases like "we need new ideas to grow" and "supporting community leadership" became touchstones for the media campaign that formed the invitation.  The sponsors stated their desire to be completely transparent in how this process was to unfold.  They even committed to publishing a summary of the OST results in the local paper.  Over three weeks these messages were repeated in local media with the starling results.

The agenda was set within the first hour of the day and the first of 55 discussion groups met on a huge range of issues. By the end of the day the group had produced a 63 page proceedings document with summaries from 41 groups. 

On day two, about 100 people returned to work on projects.  People reviewed the previous day’s proceedings, space was opened again and people were invited to post invitations to champion new projects.  Participants were asked for passion to be tightly bound to responsibility on this day as they deliberated on how to “get it out of the room.” 

Project champions came forward from a wide spectrum of experience and background, from poor single mothers to City councilors.  Twenty-four project postings were made and these convened into 19 groups addressing a wide variety of community issues.  All of them found support from existing organizations and in just one and a half hours, partnerships were made, action plans drafted and in some cases, goals, objectives and visions were written. One group became so close that when they were finished, they stood in a circle for a minute tightly holding hands and prayed together. All of this was self-organizing, all of it happened in Open Space.

Within three weeks of the Open Space event, most of the champions had hosted follow-up meetings and attracted funding sponsors and other resources.  By six weeks after the event the project champions had formed a collaborative decision making body that would oversee the strategy and make funding recommendations to the federal government.

(Thanks to Chris Corrigan, www.chriscorrigan.com, for this story.)

_________________________________
Peggy Holman
peggy at peggyholman.com

15347 SE 49th Place
Bellevue, WA  98006
425-746-6274
www.peggyholman.com
www.journalismthatmatters.org

Enjoy the award winning Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity

"An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get burnt, is to become 
the fire".
  -- Drew Dellinger

On Sep 13, 2012, at 7:05 PM, Chris Corrigan wrote:

> There is a story in The Change Handbook in the Open Space chapter that I wrote about organizing in an urban native community in Prince George Canada.  That might be a good reference.
> 
> Chris
> 
> ---
> CHRIS CORRIGAN
> http://www.chriscorrigan.com
> +1 604 947 9236
> 
> On 2012-09-13, at 3:14 PM, Raffi Aftandelian <raffi_1970 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> fellow spaceniki,
>> can anyone be of assistance to my friend david mccain?
>> 
>> thanks,
>> raffi
>>  
>> powered by ubuntu 10.4
>> 
>> Hi. I'm David McCain and I'm a MA Candidate in the Sustainable Communities Program at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ.  I have participated in a number of OSTz (several led by Raffi - thanks for posting this, Raf:) and I am considering organizing one regarding a community center that is looking to expand its operations in Flagstaff.  I'm very interested in connecting with OST folks in the area and finding information on OSTz that have been held in a "community organizing" framework.  This information would would help me compose a research paper on the project.
>> 
>> I have two requests:
>> Are you aware of any information describing the use of OST for "community-building/organizing"?  I'm thinking that proceeding books or journal articles are two possible sources.
>> Are you aware of OST practicioners in Flagstaff, AZ or Phoenix?
>> Please email me with your responses at dm836 at nau.edu.
>> Peace,
>> Dave
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