[OSList] Community Gardens and crucial conversations

[Michael Wood]

Re: Community Garden

Dear Annamarie Pluhar

I was involved in helping establish a community garden. I've been gone from the project for 7 years and it's still running strongly.  We used formal Open Space every six months or so, or more often if needed, for everyone to check in with each other. A kind of general topic like, 'how are things going with the garden and where to next?' This enabled irritations to be surfaced. It also enabled some important questions to be posted and revisted from time to time like 'governance' and 'day to day management/co-ordination'..... getting clarity on who was doing what,  who was authorised to sign cheques; etc etc. Although it sometimes sounds like it, Open Space is not the same as Laissez Faire. Communities, to function, generally need some decision making disciplines. As Harrison helpfully points out in 'The Spirit of Leadership' and in 'Waverider' the main principle is to have 'sufficient structure to support Spirit', rather than trying to Squeeze spirit into structure. The latter is the way things tend to evolve if we don't keep opening space and asking the questions 'is our day to day structuring still working for us - is it still supporting Spirit?'. And of course to never think we are in control. The kind of challenging situations you describe will continue to arise, and I admit can be challening to deal with in 'voluntary organisations' where we don't have the coersive powers of an employment contract. This gives us the opportunity to ask the question, 'how do we do effective (non-violence) communication when we can't resort to coercive power? Community Gardens provide a great opportunity to explore such questions I think. Convene an Open Space and throw the question to the group - harness the collective wisdom...

Michael Wood
Perth, Western Australia

HI all,



Slightly off topic, maybe, but I'd be interested in your thoughts.  HO says
(copied below) we are self-organizing top to bottom, beginning to end.



So how does one handle in a community garden the one person who consistently
doesn't act in the best interests of the community but only insists on her
perspective? Flouting agreements, signed contracts.. etc. etc.  I think the
answer is in total transparency?  That the folks who knew this was going on
didn't broadcast it and make it apparent to everyone else?



Of course this is relevant to anytime you have a group of people doing
something together:  teamwork, project management...



I often think of the adage "One bad apple spoils the barrel" .. I wonder if
there are versions of this is German, French, Spanish, Swedish, Hebrew...  ?
Unlike in Open Space the gardeners can't pick up and move their gardens to
another space....  (though I do fear some are opting out which will
eventually kill the garden)



Your thoughts?



Thanks!





Annamarie Pluhar



Pluhar Consulting

http://www.pluharconsulting.com <http://www.pluharconsulting.com/>

802.451.1941

802.579.5975 (cell)