[OSList] Accessibility concerns about bending down to pick up paper/pens

[Christine Whitney Sanchez via OSList]

I once opened the space for a municipal gathering that was focused on preventing elder abuse, co-sponsored by a police department and the Area Agency on Aging.  They did a wonderful job of inviting elders from the community and offering transportation and other supports to help them to get to the conference center.  

The design team decided to offer foamboards to the elders, who could ask a neighbor to retrieve a pen and paper from the center so that the elder could write her or his own topic without having to struggle into the middle of the circle.  Some of the elders asked that same neighbor to post their topic on the wall.  But they all got the mic and announced their topic themselves.  

There were so many wonderful moments in this event, one of which was the way the participants, without any prompting from me, collectively made sure that it was very quiet when the elders announced their topics, which eventually extended to all of the topic announcements, creating a sacred tone for the gathering.  

Thanks for the inquiry, dear Harold.
Namasté,

Christine

Christine Whitney Sanchez, M.C.
Phoenix, AZ, USA • +1.480.759.0262
www.claremontlincoln.edu
www.innovationpartners.com 
www.christinewhitneysanchez.com
Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/ChristineWhitneySanchez> | LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinewhitneysanchez?authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=Zy8g&locale=en_US&trk=tyah&trkInfo=clickedVertical:mynetwork,clickedEntityId:16048,authType:NAME_SEARCH,idx:1-1-1,tarId:1463366987763,tas:Ch> | Twitter <https://twitter.com/CWhitneySanchez> 



On Aug 18, 2016, at 9:27 PM, Harold Shinsato via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:

In the many OST's I've participated in or helped open myself, I've encountered this complaint about having to bend over to pick up the pens and the papers in only two instances. Both of which were Universities. In both cases, the leading edge of the complaint seemed to have to do with women's dresses, but I also heard something about being "able" prejudiced.

The first University chose to put some tables outside the circle with some papers and markers. The second one is thinking they will wheel in a table after the opening into the center, which seems energetically disruptive.

Have others encountered this? How did you deal with it?

    Thanks!
    Harold

-- 
Harold Shinsato
harold at shinsato.com <mailto:harold at shinsato.com>
http://shinsato.com <http://shinsato.com/>
twitter: @hajush <http://twitter.com/hajush>_______________________________________________
OSList mailing list
To post send emails to OSList at lists.openspacetech.org
To unsubscribe send an email to OSList-leave at lists.openspacetech.org
To subscribe or manage your subscription click below:
http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
Past archives can be viewed here: http://www.mail-archive.com/oslist@lists.openspacetech.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20160818/295b199a/attachment.htm>