Hello, fabulous Christine and others -
You wrote: One of our biggest challenges is physical space. In a previous posting, I got wonderful feedback suggesting that we create more space by eliminating tables. Picture 1500+ circles of six. Have any of you ever done a longish meeting with small circles but no tables? If so, what did people do with all their stuff? This group will be laden with artifacts they pick up in the exhibit halls, notebooks, personal items, water, etc. Thanks in advance for any ideas or experiences you can share I often am facilitating for large conferences where eliminating tables can be very useful. Consider, though, that some people with certain disabilities / different abilities need to sit at tables and would not be able to comfortably participate without that. So perhaps a survey question pre-conference asking people about their special needs including needing a writing-leaning surface may help. Then you can look after those people / assign a volunteer / ask participants to all help them move a little 'tv tray' or other small table surface wherever they need to be as they mix and match with other participants in other areas of the room through the different large-scale processes. Other than that, four things come to mind. - providing a backpack or, as mentioned, large 'tote' bag to each conference participant - informing and agreeing with the hotel/conference center banquet staff about the different times during the days when they can walk through the audience and pick up cups, boxes from lunch, etc. - helping that site staff by going through the room periodically to re- position the chairs (as without a table you want to create space that is safe to navigate through and invites the circles) - placing on the floor in every chair circle either a hotel bussing tray covered in a lovely cloth napkin(s) or just placing a few cloth napkins on the ground in the center of each group - upon which you pre-set the materials needed for each large-scale group process. Gives a sense of space, a place for the tools, a center for the circle, and if done well, a lovely thing to look at. (Trays can be pre-set another day - it takes a very long time to do this - hours and hours - more if you are needing to create replacement trays for / or shifting materials for [for example] Open Space and then for a next afternoon or day World Cafe) Amazing work you are doing, sister Christine, Lisa ___________________________ L i s a H e f t Consultant, Facilitator, Educator O p e n i n g S p a c e <mailto:lisah...@openingspace.net> lisah...@openingspace.net <http://www.openingspace.net> www.openingspace.net * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
