Chuni Li - Thank you for sharing this wonderful summary of your first 'solo' flight. Your experiences and support for the always-tricky "latecomer and partial-participant" integration are inspired and more importantly were most effective!
Welcome to the 'circle' and again thanks including us in your experience. Best to All - Steve Cochran On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 12:08 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > I am writing to share my first full-scale, solo open space event that > took place in the last two days. > > 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 2nd day (due to various > work commitments, many couldn't do both days as we are a government > contracted social service agency.) > > 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.) > > Part of the reason for a smaller number of participants on the 2nd day was > because I didn't want people who couldn't come on the 1st day to just show > up on the 2nd 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 2nd 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. > > On the 2nd 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 2nd person stood up to explain the > Law of Two Feet; a 3rd person walked the circle and explained the > Bumblebee, and then a 4th 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-factly: > "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. > > 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 "bumblebeeing" 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. > > 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. > > Chuni Li > > > > _______________________________________________ > OSList mailing list > To post send emails to [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > To subscribe or manage your subscription click below: > http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org > >
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