[OSList] Birthday Bash was a wild success

[Suzanne Daigle via OSList]

Hi Everyone,

It's hard to tell how many people popped in yesterday -- 40, 50, 60 or
more!!  Sometimes we just saw their names, other times their voices and
their faces. It was a wild wonderful ride, a technology adventure of the
best kind. Lucas Cioffi ever so dedicated who conceived QiQoChat which
created the dream that it would be possible for us to meet in a big house
cannot be thanked enough. Fate conspired against us not because of QiQo but
because of concurrent tech upgrades that messed us up. Not to worry, all
was calm and between Lucas, Michael Herman and I and with the joint
participation of all who came, we truly had a blast. We always knew this
was an experiment and experiment it was. The possibilities are truly
heartwarming.  Many wave riding days ahead!

There were serious topics and serious conversations, lots of hearty
laughter, delighted outcries as people joined and others so pleased to meet
f2f (virtually) for the very first time. You could feel the affection and
interestingly enough, everyone started talking as if they'd known each
other forever, because that's truly how it feels when we are part of this
Open Space worldwide community.

Harrison with his usual and wonderful aplomb kept the conversation going as
we settled into our tech challenges. There were some teary eyed moments as
people described what Open Space meant to them and how grateful they were
to Harrison.  We even sang a global Happy Birthday, a bit difficult to get
all our words coordinated but that was the fun of it all.

We had a few breaks during the day not many as one stray person after
another would arrive on camera. Two by two's talking then suddenly there
were three, four, five and more. Always the conversations flowed to invite
and include, self-organization as its best.

It's what a birthday party should be, a mix of everything, over meals and
favorite spirits (yes we saw a beer, a glass of wine or two and martinis
yes... from Russia) with a slight difference that it was from the comfort
of our own homes or offices wherever we happened to be.

Here is a rough picture album
<https://www.flickr.com/gp/137104309@N02/8y13C3> pulled together from
computer screen shots. As you scroll down with your mouse, notice how the
captions pop up to describe some of the antics of the day. You'll see how
late at night Kari from Iceland came joining  Alan Stewart  in Australia
who then greeted John Engle from Haiti and his daughter lying on her bed
behind him. Seems Alan babysat the Engle kids a long time ago in San
Francisco.  Yes many precious memories!

Thank you everyone for making this drop in global party magical. We have
much to celebrate from these past 30 years  in Open Space and much to
appreciate from the man in a hat, Harrison Owen who celebrated his 80
years.

Please if you can, do consider joining us at International House in New York
<http://www.osius.org/peace-high-performance-2016> where Harrison and Karen
Davis, with the help of OSI US, will be hosting their Open Space gathering
on High Performance and the Practice of Peace. A great crew of folks have
confirmed already. This experiential learning has been going on for 20
years or so and indeed in that time, many have been inspired to open space
all over the world after spending three days (used to be 4 days) there.

Thank you all so much,

>From your co-hosts -  Suzanne Lucas, Michael and the wonderful Anne Stadler
who is facilitating an Open Space in India as we speak.
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