Hi Larry -- and thank you for sharing. I'm curious -- was there butterflying and bumbleeing between the 5 meetings? It will also be interesting to see what synchronicity there was between the 5 groups by just having them in the same room.
Sounds terrific, Larry and others! Judi __________________________________________________________ Judith Richardson, MA Coaching & Consulting Optimizing Performance, Potential and Profitability www.ponoconsultants.com www.emergentfeminine.com Nova Scotia, Canada Phone: (902) 434-6695 Facsimile: (902) 435-1085 E-mail: [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Larry Peterson Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2004 12:53 PM To: [email protected] Subject: 5 Simultaneous Open Spaces Yesterday, March 6, a major non-profit housing provider in Toronto held a one day session with 5 simultaneous OSTs in one large room. (May be a record, I don't know.) The groups were 150, 85, 85, 45 and 45 participants in size. There were 5 themes, 5 sets of "sponsors", 5 circles and breakout areas, 5 OST facilitators, 5 convergence processes. Judy Gast and I were the leads for Starfield consulting who planned the "content" part and worked with their logistics teams under the oversight of a broader Planning Committee. We all did the planning in about 6 weeks. I won't tell the whole story here as it will take a while to digest but here are a few points that might interest you. The March 6 event was a follow-up OST after a previous event for 360 tenants and staff last October. That was one event, one circle and one convergence in 1.5 days. We did that convergence by voting and then people met in their local units. These were Tenant representatives elected to each of 27 new clusters of housing complexes. (There are 139,000 tenants in all.) They were staff involved in managing and supporting the new local housing clusters. They are moving toward more local management of the housing clusters with active elected tenant councils and managers accountable for the plan for each cluster. The October meeting produced six clear do-its for priority attention by the organization. Substantial progress has been made on all six. It also identified 5 key areas for further conversation: Safety, Maintenance, Tenant & Staff Relations, Human Rights & Equity and Youth Initiatives. There were top voted topics in those categories but the "next steps" were not as clear as needed. So, after some planning struggles, the committee decided to engage us again to help them have the next steps discussions - with about 6 weeks to plan. So, we prepared the overall approach with the Planning Committee, and then worked to develop 5 sets of background framing, givens, parameters for action with the staff and tenant leads for each group. That also meant working with their logistics committees for setting up the previously booked room for 5 events in a previously determined one day short time frame 10-3:30. Starfied found 3 other facilitators plus Judy and I - Sharon King (who is Starfield), Meg Salter and Becky Peterson (who lives with me). We got them up to speed on the background and into meetings with the leads for their theme group. Even with some sound problems - each circle had its own sound system in one huge room - I believe it went very well. Each of the 5 OST's had great discussions on their theme, came up with some good ideas for going further, set some priorities for attention and had volunteers ready lead some ongoing initiatives. But, it was the conversations that were exiting with tenant and staff working together to lead and record. It was fun, hard work and the energy at the end was remarkable when we all a came together for a quick thank you from the CEO (who was there for the whole thing). Someday, the whole story will be put together - with video, digital pictures, etc. - but I wanted to let you know that its possible to have 5 at one time in the same room. Larry Larry Peterson Associates in Transformation Toronto, ON, Canada 416.653.4829 [email protected] www.spiritedorg.com * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
