Dear colleagues, Even though this might not be very important, we want to let you know all those who are in the training team. Eleanor and Chrissie (Ulster University - the sponsor of the training) Michael M, Yaari and Jo from Berlin.
Counting all the preparation time and winding up after the training, the team will have been on this great job for 10 days, seven of which were the actual training. Today is day four, half way through it. Writing this mail we are sitting in the main space which is the large multi purpose space in the Connswater Community Centre in East Belfast. Spread throughout the building participants are busy exploring the Learning Spaces (library, cinema, exhibition, audio, cyber). In addition to these spaces we have created a Questions-and Answer-Wall (presently consisting of three flip charts with 25 questions on it and one chart with very few answers) and Reflection Groups that meet every evening. The first two Open Spaces are over: 1st one to experience oneself as participant under a theme that was phrased in a planning session and closed with action planning. 2nd one was an Open Space on Open Space to reflect on the experience. Still ahead: 3rd Open Space designed and conducted by the participants themselves complete with action planning. The last day will be spent on feedback and planning ones further journey towards becoming an Open Space facilitator. The entire "training" is an exercise in remembering Open Space and conducted solely in Open Space format: No lectures, no presentations, no speeches and barely any answers from the training team. We have also just agreed with the sponsor on the date of a 3-day Learning Exchange next April as a further station in the journey. Happily exhausted (in no small way influenced by imbibing the local brew in the great pubs here) we greet you from Belfast. Michael and Jo ******************************* faythe aiken schrieb:
Hello Friends of Open Space, What a joy it has been to be a part of this safe space that we have been creating together in Belfast! We are on day three of seven and today I think we all began to get into the groove of how to function together in an "open space". We have spent the day furthering our theme of "Creating a strategy to unstick our passion... so that it sticks" by putting our discussion from the previous day into action. The morning brought a time to review, followed by a time to implement our discussion into action points. There were many ideas that we will put into action, here is just a glimpse of what we will be doing: 1. A Northern Ireland Passion Political Party (yes, that is NIPPP for short!) 2. A monthly email reminding participants to live and work with passion 3. Simple get-togethers that encourage us to "be" and not "do"... We felt the process of putting a days worth of thoughts and ideas into points of action gave us a real sense of accomplishment and of freedom. The rest of the day carried a much lighter weight and the following discussion seemed to have an ease about it that the previous day did not. One of the reasons that the conversation felt lighter, we feel, stems from the sense of trust that was developing among us... We were beginning to trust the process and each other...We were becoming pros at navigating our open space! The remainder of the day we split into break out groups to discuss the questions and methods of open space. Closed by our usual time of evening news and an invitation to share a smoothie together at the local coffee shop, I think we all left with a better understanding of the process and each other! Peace, from your friends in Belfast * * ========================================================== 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
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