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<FONT FACE="Times"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:18.0px'>I heard this story a little while back from my friend Susan Coleman...<BR>
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It seems there is an organization in New York City that more or less falls into the category of open space organization.<BR>
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Several years ago, during the Clinton presidency in the US, our State Department hired an institute at Columbia University in New York that specializes in this sort of thing to conduct a training program in peaceful conflict resolution with a group of Kurds from Northern Iraq. Susan, who was closely connected to the institute landed the contract to do the five-day training. The first three days offered content, role play and more on the nature and experience of the topic. Susan hired me to open space for the final two days of the event to give the 25 or so participants an opportunity to work together and experiment with their new understandings and behaviors in a real way.<BR>
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I reported on this whole event here some years back, so I’ll skip the details. (And no, sadly, I do not have a copy of that long-ago posting.) But here’s the heart of what Susan recently told me...<BR>
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During the event, we used a stone as the talking symbol, something I picked up off the ground in a nearby park. At the conclusion of the event, we awarded the stone to a young graduate student at Columbia who had done all the legwork of getting the participants out of Iraq, through customs in Turkey, and safely to the US. She was their organizer, chaperone, ambassador, go-between, and tireless worker for the idea of cooperation and peace.<BR>
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She graduated and moved on, I believe, but she bequeathed the stone to the institute at Columbia.<BR>
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And now, if I have it right, the staff of the institute has learned how to open space for its work, conducts all its meeting in this format, and always employs the same stone as its talking symbol.<BR>
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Can we call this truly an open space organization? Are there others out there?<BR>
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Ralph Copleman</SPAN></FONT>
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