Jimbo Our invitations are no more than 3/4s of one page. It starts with the theme as a heading followed by the following short paragraphs:
1. Background to the gathering, e.g. why we need to have an event (problem, trend, etc). 2. Who is being invited to work on the theme and the theme stated as a question (the audience are those necessary to work on answering the question). 3. Some supplementary questions that help tease out the theme and get invitees to think about their burning issues. 4. Details on the event, such as date, times, location, food etc. The planning team might want to include a timetable. 5. One brief description of OST, such as the following: "Open Space was developed in 1985 to bring people together to explore a common theme through co-creating and just being there. It is simple and effective and needs no advance preparation. Open Space is fully participatory - there are no talking heads - and believes that participants are the real experts. Just arrive with an opne mind and the burning issues you want to see resolved around .. (summary or key words in theme)." Hope this helps. Cheers Kerry Napuk Open Futures Edinburgh Scotland <www.openfutures.com>
