<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" SIZE="2">Doug--<BR>
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I agree with you that working on something else, or reading, feels for me like it takes me away from the group in a way that a walk or a nap does not. <BR>
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Sometimes I will sit in a small group, holding space, if I sense that the conversation may be a difficult one. More often, I will slip into a group for a few minutes and listen. Like you, I do not enter into the conversation. I sometimes mention in the opening that I might come into a session just to listen for a bit.<BR>
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More often I walk around, sit in the main space, watching and listening. Much of the information I gather about an event is the same kind of things I learn by watching a group work in a language I do not speak--the body language, the cadence and volume of the talking, the engagement and energy of the participants.<BR>
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Apart from those very minimal kinds of participation, I pick up coffee cups, tape posters back on the wall if they fall, rustle up a flip chart for a group, sometimes confer with a caterer or find out how to adjust the room temperature. But this is more in a mode of finding ways to move in the space than it is taking responsibility for these logistics.<BR>
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There can be a little sadness in standing outside the party, looking on. But I am pretty clear in my own mind and heart that I am present to serve the needs of the client and their work together, not to meet my own social needs. It is a different role from being a participant. You might think about arranging an opportunity for deep conversation for yourself, maybe after the Open Space is over. And of course, if you have contracted for follow-on work with the client, there will be more conversations that you are fully a part of.<BR>
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Take care--<BR>
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Joelle<BR>
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