<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif;font-size:10pt"><div><span>Thank you Elaine and Steve for your kind words and encouragement.</span></div><div><span></span> </div><div><span>Elaine, I also wanted to thank you for sharing your wisdom on hosting small group conversations. I incorporated some of that which was helpful.</span></div><div><span></span> </div><div><span>Since I am doing this inside an organization, I intend to keep the OS spirit going as more than half of the staff have now experienced the power of self-organization. I have a weekly open forum that has been run based on the OS principles. My intent is to encourage people to come to the forum to open space whenever they need to discuss issues.</span></div><div><span></span> </div><div><span>And then, my hope is to leverage this experience to the leaders in
the whole System of Care at the state level. A momentum seems to be building...</span></div><div><span></span> </div><div><span><span id="misspell-0" class="mark">Chuni</span></span></div><div><br></div><div style="font-family: Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2" face="Arial"><div style="margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); height: 0px; line-height: 0; font-size: 0px;" class="hr" contentEditable="false" readonly="true"></div><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Elaine Hansen2 <elaine.hansen@hansen-rd.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> chunili2000@yahoo.com; 'World wide Open Space Technology email list' <oslist@lists.openspacetech.org><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Saturday, October 1, 2011 8:38 PM<br><b><span
style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> RE: [OSList] A strategic planning retreat in NJ<br></font><br>
<div id="yiv817970029"><style><!--
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--></style><div class="yiv817970029WordSection1"><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;'><span id="misspell-2" class="mark">Chuni</span>,</span></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;'> </span></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;'>Thanks for sharing. It all sounds very exciting and like a huge success. You have inspired me.</span></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;'> </span></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;'>I love that your team mates adopted the language so quickly and are bumble bee-<span id="misspell-3"
class="mark">ing</span> and creating butterfly moments for themselves… </span></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;'> </span></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;'>This sounds like the beginning of new possibilities for you…</span></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;'> </span></div><div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: Papyrus; font-size: 11pt;">Elaine S. Hansen</span></b></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: rgb(118, 146, 60); font-family: Papyrus; font-size: 11pt;"><a href="http://hansen-rd.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(118, 146, 60);">Hansen Resource Development
Inc</span></a></span></b></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: Papyrus; font-size: 11pt;"><span id="misspell-4" class="mark">Skype</span>: elaine.hansen</span></b></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: Papyrus; font-size: 11pt;">513.238.5999 </span></b></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: Papyrus; font-size: 11pt;"> </span></b></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: Papyrus; font-size: 11pt;"><img id="yiv817970029Picture_x0020_1" border="0" alt="iStock_Medium-stones-wee" src="cid:1.1143630265@web160916.mail.bf1.yahoo.com" width="56" height="56"></span></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><i><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: Papyrus; font-size: 11pt;">...in the end, it is the reality of personal relationship
that saves everything.</span></i></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><i><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: Papyrus; font-size: 11pt;">Thomas Merton</span></i></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;'> </span></div></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;'> </span></div><div><div style="border-width: 1pt medium medium; border-style: solid none none; border-color: rgb(181, 196, 223) currentColor currentColor; padding: 3pt 0in 0in;"><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><b><span style='font-family: "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>From:</span></b><span style='font-family: "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> oslist-bounces@lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:oslist-bounces@lists.openspacetech.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>chunili2000@yahoo.com<br><b>Sent:</b> Friday, September
30, 2011 12:09 PM<br><b>To:</b> OSLIST<br><b>Subject:</b> [OSList] A strategic planning retreat in NJ</span></div></div></div><div class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"> </div><div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'>I am writing to share my first full-scale, solo open space event that took place in the last two days.</span></div></div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></div></div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'>It was a two-day, off site (at a tranquil, wooded camp site) strategic planning retreat. All staff were invited to come. Of the 60 staff members, 37 came on the first day and 20 remained for the 2<span
class="yiv817970029mark"><span id="misspell-10" class="mark">nd</span></span> day (due to various work commitments, many couldn't do both days as we are a government contracted social service agency.)</span></div></div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></div></div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'>Words cannot describe the spirit and emotions that permeated throughout the two days. I am getting overwhelmingly positive feedback and profuse "thank you" from the participants. It created a tremendous bond for those who cared and were able to come to celebrate our 10-year anniversary in creating social innovation for children's mental health care, and to craft the agenda for the next 10 years as we continue to "Be the Change We Wish
to See in the World." (This is our agency mantra and the theme for the OS retreat.)</span></div></div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></div></div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'>Part of the reason for a smaller number of participants on the 2<span class="yiv817970029mark"><span id="misspell-11" class="mark">nd</span></span> day was because I didn't want people who couldn't come on the 1st day to just show up on the 2<span class="yiv817970029mark"><span id="misspell-12" class="mark">nd</span></span> day. However, one person who committed to coming on both days had an unexpected client emergency to attend to. I made an exception for him to come on the 2<span class="yiv817970029mark"><span id="misspell-13"
class="mark">nd</span></span> day. In order to prepare him, we asked him to read all the discussion notes from the first day break-out groups. Our Newsroom was set up for session conveners to type their notes right into our agency intranet database. Therefore all notes were immediately visible to all staff (including those who couldn't come) and also printed for the News Wall. </span></div></div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></div></div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'>On the 2<span class="yiv817970029mark"><span id="misspell-14" class="mark">nd</span></span> day, the "new" person, Rick, showed up having indeed read all the discussion notes from Day 1.
During Morning News, we welcomed Rick and "initiated " him into the circle by sharing a lot of the positive energy and people talking about how their night was "wrapped up" by the Day 1 experience. As I opened the circle, the sponsor (my boss in this case) wanted me to go over all the OS posters for Rick because he never hear the explanation. I said I wasn't going to go through the "ritual" again, and figured how about we have some volunteers to explain all the posters. With no hesitation, one person stood and walked the circle as he explained the 5 principles (perfectly!); then a 2<span class="yiv817970029mark"><span id="misspell-15" class="mark">nd</span></span> person stood up to explain the Law of Two Feet; a 3rd person walked the circle and explained the Bumblebee, and then a 4<span class="yiv817970029mark"><span id="misspell-16" class="mark">th</span></span> person explained the butterfly. Finally, everyone asked Rick to
explain the last poster "Be Ready to Be Surprised." Rick stood up, slowly walked the circle and said matter-of-<span class="yiv817970029mark"><span id="misspell-17" class="mark">factly</span></span>: "Be ready to be surprised - you have to keep an open mind and do not have fixed expectations about what ought to come." Everyone applauded. I found this variation of "initiating" a new member quite engaging and fun.</span></div></div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></div></div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'>Thank you Suzanne for being the support throughout the preparation and delivery process. Your advice on allowing an one-hour break for lunch was right. While it initially felt like there was too
much "unfilled" free time in between sessions (people are used to having back-to-back activities so having nothing to do is hard), that free time turned out to be important for people to get their notes into the computer. More importantly, people quickly learned to use that free time to just relax, take a walk in the woods, or chat freely with one another. Nobody was annoyed by the free time and they finally realized that we were in a retreat. They began to call such free time "butterfly moments." The OS lingo was used throughout the days as people described themselves "<span class="yiv817970029mark"><span id="misspell-18" class="mark">bumblebeeing</span></span>" from session to session. One statement I heard the most was "I just had a butterfly moment with so and so..." meaning they just chatted with someone incidentally by the coffee pot. Free time turned out to be important in
creating the feeling of being both relaxed and productive in an OS event. In the end, people were tired but happy and fulfilled. And the language helped create such a bonding among the participants.</span></div></div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></div></div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'>Thank you Harrison, thank you Suzanne, and thank you Karen Davis for opening this door for me. And thank you to all the contributors on this List. I borrowed a lot of good ideas from you all, including action planning and using the balloons.</span></div></div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></div></div><div><div
style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span class="yiv817970029mark"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'><span id="misspell-19" class="mark">Chuni</span></span></span><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'> Li</span></div></div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></div></div><div><div style="background: white;" class="yiv817970029MsoNormal"><span style='color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></div></div></div></div></div><br><br></div></div></div></body></html>