[OSList] An invitation for future invitations to WOSONOS

Fri Oct 2 04:52:15 PDT 2015

Hello family!

I find having a local  (yearly or every 2 years) osonos very stimulating.
In the Basque Country we started in 2013 (bOSonOS; I knew in Krakow, that
Berliners had done quite many bOSonOS, too) and we are having quite much
fun. The invitation is always open to everyone. Probably we´ll  keep doing
bOSONOS for some years, the local community will grow and, little by little
people from far away will like coming.

Maybe one day we´ll invite for wosonos. If a good bunch of fellows are
eager to share the task so as everyone can enjoy it. If we one day decide
to invite, I suppose it will be quite simple. Then, if people decide to
come *wosonosing*, great. If not, very fine too (one less thing to take
care of :).

I love attending the international ones from time to time. Enriching, as it
makes possible meeting many new practitioners, and OS is people, as life
is, too, people -for me, mainly
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ1J9d27aA0>-. Krakow was fantastic, as
ever.

I find myself very comfortable when attending an osonos where 30-70 people
attend. Enough variety and not too overwhelming. More manageable.

I love knowing that the OS community grows on and on, and we are getting to
have several osonos yearly around the world. This way, when one is really
eager to attend one, the "difficulty" would be on oneself, deciding "which
great party will I attend now"? It seems that something like this is
already happening, great!

I suppose we take on too much responsibility and work because we assume
that the more people come, the better (And, what about "Whoever comes...?").

I find, too, that, specially when international, we tend to take on too
much burden as invitors. For example,...

   - Does the fact that many people will be coming by plane make it more
   difficult for the invitors to manage it? Why?
   - The payment issue, ... does it involve too much work? What would be
   the cons of just allowing paying cash on the site?
   - Is a fancy website really required? Or could we even registrate with
   an email an d having attendees fill in a 3 minutes form?
   - Does the food standard of the meeting tend to be too "smart", "high
   quality",... making it more difficult for the sponsors to hold? Why?
   - Is organizing a parallel online wosonos really required? Knowing that
   the permanent Wosonos is happening all the time on the OSLIST and other
   places online?
   - Maybe some of us feel the burden of showing the world "what our nation
   is like?..."

   - *Which other details are the ones that make it specially hard
   convening wosonos,* (apart from taking or assuming the decisions on how
   to manage language diversity)*?*

Having had so many wars all around the world for centuries,...Maybe it puts
an extra psychological burden on the invitors, wherever they live? Maybe we
tend to make a special effort to make it clear all over the world that "we
are lovely people":)?

Regarding the decision on how to decide "where next wosonos"? What
are the special features of wosonos? Maybe that you´ll usually meet there
more os-nicks than in a regular osonos (= that it´s bigger)? maybe that
you´ll meet with people of a wider part of the planet (= that it feels more
diverse)? Perhaps knowing that there are many people that repeat the
experience during years and special bonds appear, and you can get to
know/become more part of this big family?

I like the original spirit and I find that we could make it that simple now
too,...

*"Some nice soul just said, “Come See us.” If two people had similar
inclinations, but different places in mind, who ever spoke second covered
the following year. No fuss, no bother and in 10 minutes time the essential
arrangements were made."*

I assume that whoever invites is full of passion and able to host us in OS.
And that OS, it´ll always be the same and it´ll be also very different each
time.

In fact it´s the people coming, the participants, who make the OS
experience.

In an osonos, a specially high percentage of participants know it, we are
the ones that know it best :)! So why do we care so much (I feel) about who
the invitors+facilitators are and sometimes seem to evaluate if they are
really prepared to hold the event?

I hope this chaotic and disperse ideas add something to the conversation.

Enjoy life!

Eleder

2015-09-30 22:42 GMT+02:00 Michael Herman via OSList <
oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>:

> thanks for raising these questions, pernilla.  what you're proposing in
> terms of people (rather than countries!) coming forward at the beginning of
> the gathering makes great sense to me.  these invitations can be offered at
> any time, of course, including a week or a month before the wosonos
> gathering time.  if our tradition were to evolve in that direction, there
> could be some commenting on that in advance of the gathering.
>
> at the same time, the thing that makes for the pressure and scarcity and
> overall un-OS feeling of this situation isn't really a question of when the
> invites are offered, but that we have developed this habit of having only
> one of these gatherings at once, or one per year, or more specifically that
> we designate just one as *the* world osonos, even though nordic and haitian
> and camden and oz folks and some other have had significant series of
> osonos gatherings.
>
> i really like the idea that these things could happen on several
> continents at once, so the wosonos had multiple sites.  progress of tools
> like qiqochat offer interesting possibilities of being able to easily
> bumblebee across oceans.  we've also been growing a tradition of spinning
> these things up into major productions, perhaps drifting some from the
> simple power of our core practice.  if we met in more places at once and
> traveled shorter distances, maybe the hosts would feel less pressure to
> "work too hard" an planning and organizing these things?
>
> what if the wosonos could evolve in the direction of a kind of
> world-around OS carnival/retreat/learning exchange week?  many invites,
> many parties, i mean working sessions?
>
> michael
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Michael Herman
> Michael Herman Associates
> http://MichaelHerman.com
> http://OpenSpaceWorld.org
>
> Pernilla – It always amazes me how simple things complexify and
happenstantial acts suddenly become “intricate tradition.”

Back in the day, long ages ago, having an Open Space on Open Space (OSONOS)
seemed like a  fun thing to do. I think it took me all of 4-5 hours (total)
to organize it, and the “fee” for attendance was $25. Actually, truth to
tell, I did charge something like $200 for the first one on the grounds
that there was some value added on my part. But after  the first one, when
it became quite clear that I really didn’t do a thing... we got back to
something reasonable. That was $25 to cover Post-its, magic markers, News
Print, etc.  And when it came to figuring out where it was going to
“happen” next – the process was indeed elaborate. Some nice soul just said,
“Come See us.” If two people had similar inclinations, but different places
in mind, who ever spoke second covered the following year. No fuss, no
bother and in 10 minutes time the essential arrangements were made.

I don’t know when or how,  but things started to drag on. I am sure a lot
of folks didn’t see it the same way I did, but I have to confess that I
found my two feet working if the discussion of “next place” lasted more
than about 10 minutes... being a person of very short attention span. I
have been to most OSONOS’s and loved every one. But a few years ago it did
seem to me that we were working much too hard. It also seemed that having
*THE* (W)OSONOS was somehow a strangely competitive situation. Definitely
working too hard!

As far as I was concerned anyone, anywhere should invite whomsoever to
wherever. OSONOS all over! And just to make the point I tried two such
things in Camden Maine. OSONOS-by-the-Sea, I called it. I think I broke my
record when it came to organizing time. If I said 3 hours, that would be
stretching it. We were filled out in about 48 hours and the fee was $25,
most of which I gave to Lisa for her good work. When it came to
accommodations, I just provided the website of the Chamber of Commerce, and
suggested that anybody who was coming might check it out and find a nice
bed/meal/front porch. A local parish let us have the use of their Hall (for
a small fee) – and we were in business. Actually the fee that they proposed
was so ridiculously low that I doubled it – and we still gave most of the
money to Lisa! Go figure.

Maybe it is catching? I notice that Andrew Rixon is welcoming folks to
Melbourne and I am looking forward to joining Mrs. Song and friends in
Beijing shortly. And then of course Manila is upcoming. And what’s
happening in Sweden?

This seems to have gone on for a bit. And I do have a bottom line: If it
ain’t fun, don’t do it. And if you are working too hard, that definitely
begins to cut into the fun. So Pernilla, in an odd sort of way, I just want
to get back to basics – Would that be tradition? Make it fun. Make it
simple. Open Space wherever you can, and amazing things always happen. The
more the merrier!!!!

Harrison

>
> On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 2:22 PM, Lisa Heft - via OSList <
> oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
>
>> How wonderful, your invitation, in all its richness, Pernilla.
>>
>> Another two things I would like to add:
>>
>> 1) As always, for any team interested in hosting a WOSonOS for a future
>> year, I have a growing living letter of lessons-learned - gathered wisdom
>> from past host teams, that has been growing since 2001 and that I happily
>> offer to whoever wishes to contact me. My request is that if you, dear
>> reader, are thinking “oh that is something I / we will ask Lisa for” then
>> please wait until a few weeks from now, as I will in a few weeks update it
>> with the latest Host Team’s lessons-learned.
>>
>> And 2) As has happened at several years in the past, including at our
>> recent WOSonOS  - you as a Host Team / Host Team representative do not have
>> to be physically present at a WOSonOS in order to invite. Several of us
>> have over the years acted as representatives for teams wishing to invite
>> who were not able to physically make it. And you can make us do whatever
>> you like, to represent you !
>>
>> Looking forward to the conversation,
>> Lisa
>>
>>
>> On Sep 30, 2015, at 12:03 PM, Pernilla Luttropp via OSList <
>> oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all!
>> At the inspiring WOSONOS in Kraków there were some learning conversations
>> on how this community  goes about when expressing and accepting invitations
>> from countries/places to host the upcoming WOSONOSes.
>>
>> In the big circle there were voices that expressed some confusion and
>> discomfort with the process. Others said that whatever happened, they would
>> trust the process. There was also the mentioning of ‘traditions’ and the
>> ways things are usually done at a WOSONOS. And the reminder that traditions
>> are made in every single now and ‘Whatever happens is the only thing that
>> could have’.
>>
>>
>> *If you are new to WOSONOS *This is how it’s usually done (I think): the
>> countries that wish to host the next WOSONOS makes an invitation at the
>> closing circle of the WOSONOS and the participants are free to accept any
>> of the invitations. The process of accepting the invitation is sometimes
>> done by some kind of ‘voting’ procedure in order to agree on one place.
>> There is often someone who reminds everybody that the only way to ‘vote’ in
>> Open Space is by applying ‘The law of mobility’. There is no need to only
>> have one WOSONOS, there could be multiple since ‘Wherever it happens is the
>> right place’.
>>
>>
>> *My view *I am personally very uncomfortable to use the words ‘voting’
>> or to ‘make a collective decision’ within an Open Space. One of the
>> beauties with Open Space is taking responsibility for your own engagement.
>> If we all share the same engagement we will walk in the same direction,
>> eventually. But sometimes it takes time for things to emerge.
>> If a group decides on voting there are many good methods and it’s of
>> outmost importance for those present to understand what they are about to
>> do, in order to make an informed decision. Is it a majority decision? How
>> many is the majority? What happens if some vote no? Is it possible to have
>> a ballot vote? Is it the role of the facilitator to sum it up and make the
>> final decision? In my view, we can only express our appreciation for the
>> invitation at the Open Space, offer help if needed and make use of the law
>> of mobility.
>>
>>
>> *An invitation *This is an invitation to try something else and maybe to
>> let go of a ‘tradition’. What if we opened up at the beginning of the
>> process in order to see how it self organizes at the end?
>> There seems to be something unclear about the ‘tradition’ on how to get
>> information about who is inviting and why. If that information were
>> transparent from the very start of the WOSONOS, it might enable more
>> dialogue with the inviting hosts and between the hosts.
>>
>> The countries/places that wish to host a future WOSONOS could post this
>> on the OSLIST and Facebook and send a gentle reminder a few weeks before
>> the upcoming WOSONOS. The inviting hosts would then be posted on a flip
>> chart at the WOSONOS and announced as a session when creating the bulletin
>> board or at the evening news. As always there is the opportunity to add
>> places, sessions and news announcements up until the closing circle, both
>> on the spot and via other ways of communicating. This would make it easier
>> for everyone to approach the hosts, express their delight or ask clarifying
>> questions. It would also enable the hosts (or their representatives) to
>> come together in a session and find out how they would like to do the
>> invitations in the closing circle. Maybe some will wait until next year?
>> Maybe multiple WOSONOSes in one year? Maybe in different continents at the
>> same time? Maybe with different themes/urgent questions? Let’s embrace
>> chaos and see what emerges! Or ‘Whatever happens is the only thing that
>> could have’.
>>
>> Since the closing circle have a more definite dead line than ‘When it is
>> over it is over’, due to flights and other time restrictions, this
>> prolonged invitation process will open up time for more dialogues and
>> invitations.
>> But then again, as said in the closing circle in Kraków, there is nothing
>> like a good mess in order to learn something new J
>>
>> Maybe it has been tried before and in that case I’m interested to know
>> how it worked or didn’t work.
>>
>> Greetings from Sweden!
>> Pernilla
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