Hi Harrison and ALL, yesterday we were at a Novosibirsk part of the meetings which are preceding the Whole Russian Civic Forum of NGOs, which will be held in November in Moscow with Putin and other important persons. It will be the second one meeting of Putin and NGOs the first one was a spontanic (?) organized at least for many of us on the 12 -th of June ( the day of Independance of Russia (of what?) - it is a question for all Russians until now, but may be from the USSR, as Russia was not an Independent Republic in Soviet times in terms of there were no Russian govenments as in all Soviet Republics, it was only USSR government, and so on, I will not go far to this history...)
On the first meeting there were sportsmen, gardeners, representatives of Soros Foundation and cosmonauts - very interesting NGOs, more likeley representatives of the civic society.... so yesterday there were a sort of elections of 28 representatives of NGOs of Novosibirsk to represent our region in November meeting. So on the discussion of several questions, one of them was Institutions of Civic Society, I made the remark on many "we need to make the Institutions of CS....." that OFCOUSE WE NEED TO MAKE THE INSTITUTION OF CS, BUT WE ALSO CAN WORK NOW USING NEW METHODS OF INVOLVING PEOPLE IN PROCESS OF SOLVING THEIR OWN PROBLEMS TOGETHER WITH ALL FOCUS GROUPS.... and gave the examples of our FSCs and OSs.... .... but recieved the remark that we shouldn't do the promotion of ourselves here, IT IS NOT FOR YOUR SAYINGS, BUT.... so it was still said AFTER my practical methods using report... - this is the way of some people - not to hear what is saying, but to hear what they think they are hearing... so at the end, when there was discussed the method of gathering for 5,000 people may be in the Congress Palace, Marina proposed OS as the constructive method of dialogue and recieved the same agressive answer, and saying that many people don't like the OS as the method, and how it could be done for so many people. my answer is to provide several topics meetings as we had yesterday - there were at least 5 in big halls, so people could go to every when they want but also to participate in the one they really interested. but Moscow representative said, that they have bad opinion about OS - and that ofcouse possible, when people use the method don't knowing it's essence, just form and when it is not a proper method to be used, so we do aware in our country, that it is difficult to restart, then just start, but whatever, we do our way of promoting and retelling the applicable ways of OSs as we do it in Khabarovsk on our 5(actually 4) days training on "Effective Communications of Organizations" when the most angry people there, who did not like OS, now are writing letters, that it was the most important to learn several applications of OS and a new method -FSC, which could be finished also by OS. So now my question. Is this idea OK? when there will be really crowd of people, but there will not be real dialogue, as yesterday, when people were limited by 1 minute and evaluation like "you are promoting yourself"... if there will be like 5 topics: 1. . Institutions of Civic Society 2. NGOs in Legislative process 3. Civic initiatives in solving social problems 4. Civic expertise and Control on government affairs (people were very much in this!) 5. Civic education and civic activity and different halls and possibility to use different "talking conners" we propose to provide one in Novosibirs for everybody who cares, but there were a lot of negatives from the "presidium" and so there were no real discussion on this. Marina wants to talk with regional authorities as there will be regional meeting soon, to try, so I support her greatly and if she will have time and forces to do this before her "difficult" efforts to go to Izrael, as there should be invitation on real stationary paper, (it is a time for post...) and visa - to go to Moscow- and tickets... and so on after, so we are ready to try and show (we know it works) but to show for other people and do you think it is real for 5,000? best wishes elena Novosibirsk ----- Original Message ----- From: Harrison Owen To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 7:23 PM Subject: Re: 550 plus At 12:07 AM 10/16/01 +0100, you wrote: Specific concerns centre around the melee of the marketplace; convergence/action planning; and endings. In planning for the convergence which necessitates prioritization -- I strongly urge that you use a voting software. Sticky Dots for 600 are a total mess. The one I use comes from TASC and you can get the details by calling Karl at 703-633-8300 ext 4564. There will be a charge, but how much depends on what sort of organization you are working with. Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, MD 20854 USA phone 301-469-9269 Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website www.mindspring.com/~owenhh [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected] Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
