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Recent news from Cincinnati sounds good... From Susan Smyth
<SUSANSMYTH@aol.com> Also from "Down Under" Joan Smith
<joanis@ozemail.com.au> they don't show up too much on The List --
but thought I would give them a spot.<br>
<br>
ho<br>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>
GoTeam!<br>
We're launched! Thanks to all of you plus the enormous efforts of our
Open <br>
Space Leadership Team Co-Chair, Daniel Epstein, we have finally had our
first <br>
real Open Space experience!!! P&G's ADOPT program used Open Space as
the <br>
format for an afternoon of dialogue. And the results were wonderful---
<br>
heart-warming, surprising, uplifting. <br>
<br>
A very diverse cross section of 49 P&Gers assembled Friday afternoon
for 3 <br>
hours of Open Space to dialogue on the theme of Building Communities of
Peace <br>
and Inclusion. Tiffany Taylor and I facilitated. Tiffany was the perfect
<br>
choice. She left P&G after 13 years on Oct. 1 to pursue her passion
of helping the world understand <br>
cultural differences. She was able to speak with credibility to the
concerns <br>
of P&Gers about this funny thing called Open Space and belief-bending
<br>
concepts like "whoever come are the right people" and the Law
of Two Feet. <br>
The topics people brought forward were deep and from the heart. <br>
Daniel will send along the list of the topics for all of you to see. The
<br>
only hard part of the day was to stop the spirited dialogue long enough
to do the <br>
final debrief and have people share a word about their experience. My
take on <br>
what they shared was: 'this works for us and we want more.'<br>
The team Daniel partnered with at the company who sponsored the Oct. 19
<br>
effort have a long term responsibility to provide solutions within
P&G to <br>
heal the racial divide in Cincinnati. They will let us know as they
continue <br>
to assess the Open Space pilot how and if they will want our ongoing
help. <br>
No matter how that sorts out, yesterday was a huge success. For Open The
<br>
Space Cincinnati and P&G. My deepest gratitude to all who have helped
make this possible. I <br>
particularly want to thank Daniel whose courage and persistence in making
<br>
this happen have been truly exceptional. We've all acknowledged that
hardest <br>
way to do this Open Space work is within the confines of our work place.
<br>
From a career standpoint, there is nothing to gain by taking the stand
for <br>
building communities of peace and inclusion, and doing it by having
people <br>
come together to TALK, in an open forum, of all things! We got where we
are <br>
as a divided city by many people at many turning points taking the safe
way <br>
out. This was no safe choice on Daniel's part. My deepest respect to you,
<br>
my friend.<br>
Thanks each person involved with Open Space Helpers without whose efforts
<br>
this result would not have been possible. It renews my commitment to open
the <br>
space. I ask that each of us look into our hearts as well as our <br>
rolodex/contact lists and see where we can create the opportunity to open
the <br>
space. <br>
Blessings, <br>
Susan<br>
Open Space Facilitators Leadership Team<br>
<br>
<tt><font face="Courier New, Courier" size=5 color="#FF0000">And then
from Down Under<br>
<br>
</font></tt>From: Joan Smith <joanis@ozemail.com.au> <br>
Reply-To: joanis@ozemail.com.au <br>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; N; PPC; en-US; m18) Gecko/20010131
Netscape6/6.01 <br>
X-Accept-Language: en <br>
To: owenhh@MINDSPRING.com <br>
Subject: Self Organisation <br>
<br>
<br>
Greetings from Down Under Owen, Hope all is going well with you - I have
just finished a 3 day OST with a group of 110 women from a Religious
Congregation. At the moment they are 'self organising' - a miracle of
some sort in their situation, and I am sure very few of them would have
thought this could happen two weeks ago. Healing is another word I have
heard coming through during these days. I smile when so many of them are
saying 'how did it happen'? They become frustrated when I answer
"not sure ". However in a debrief today I put it back to themto
reflect on the experience and I think they were surprised that they were
naming the interaction and self empowerment that occurred and now the
responsibility to take forward the directions they have decided upon.
<br>
In a meeting with the leadership team of the congregation in March I felt
uneasy as they were not sure about people taking responsibility and self
organising groups they could not 'control'. I suggested that maybe they
were not ready for this experience - At a second meeting we decided
together to go forward. <br>
A new leadership team were elected at the end of the OST - this, too,
held many surprises for the group. I think it was the deep interaction
over the three days that allowed Spirit to work and open people to
possibilities other than the names that had fixed in their minds when
they arrived. <br>
Gratitude Harrison for your 'two martinis and joke' that brought this way
being a group to so many of us. Also for your way of 'letting go'.<br>
Hope you can come to OZ next year. Peace Joan Smith<br>
<br>
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<br>
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<font color="#000080">So -- anyhow... wherever and however we can do
it...<br>
<br>
<br>
</font>Harrison<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<div align="center">
Harrison Owen<br>
7808 River Falls Drive<br>
Potomac, MD 20854 USA<br>
phone 301-469-9269<br>
Open Space Training
<a href="http://www.openspaceworld.com/" eudora="autourl">www.openspaceworld.com</a>
<br>
Open Space Institute <a href="http://www.openspaceworld.org/" eudora="autourl">www.openspaceworld.org</a><br>
Personal website <a href="http://www.mindspring.com/~owenhh" eudora="autourl">www.mindspring.com/~owenhh</a><br>
<br>
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