Difference (from prior major revision) (no other diffs)

Changed: 76,81c76,80
:1. Open Space Institute, Going Deeper (Christine)
:2. Training next generation of facilitators (Kerry, Christine)
:3. Making grants and payments to individuals and its effect upon our 501(c)(3) tax free status (Doug)
:4. U.S. website for practitioners (Kerry)
:5. Linking videos on You Tube and other portals. (Kerry)
:6. 10-year OSI anniversary! (Kerry)
:1. Training next generation of facilitators (Kerry, Christine)
:2. Making grants and payments to individuals and its effect upon our 501(c)(3) tax free status (Doug)
:3. U.S. website for practitioners (Kerry)
:4. Linking videos on You Tube and other portals. (Kerry)
:5. 10-year OSI anniversary! (Kerry)

OSI-US Board Meeting October 25, 2007
Thank you for your comments, adjustments, corrections.


Present: Peggy Holman, Karen Davis, Lisa Heft, Tree Fitzpatrick, Christine Whitney Sanchez, Gabriel Shirley, John Engle -- Absent: Phelim Mc Dermott, Douglas Germann Sr., Ed Laboy, Kerry Napuk. Notes-taker: Lisa Heft

We began by sharing a moment of silence together.

1. Haiti @ FOSonOS? Report (Karen)

Actions / Decisions / Agreements :

Peggy has sent a check for $1000.

2. WOSonOS2008 2008 update (Lisa)

Thank you to OSI-US for ability to use nonprofit status for booking a site. Event will be bi-located at the Officers Club at the Presidio (daytime activities) and Golden Gate Club at Fort Mason (evening activities) - both great sites in beautiful settings, nearby to each other. Using Fort Mason for evening helps with flexibility for our social evening, proximity to accommodations. Registration process will include invitations to help pool resources for Askers. We agree that with both Lisa and Tree on the team there will be quite a bit of energy for helping everyone access and be part of this event.

Actions / Decisions / Agreements :

The US Host Team is seeking sponsorship: please contact Tree or Lisa if you have ideas for sponsoring individuals and organizations and whether you can be the point-of-contact person for that ‘ask’.

Lisa will be on the OS World Institutes call - topics of discussion will include the Access Queen project and how the Institutes can support each WOSonOS2008; Lisa will also ask for Institutes to be ‘official’ co-inviters.

When the Host Team announces registration is open, thank you for registering early to help inspire them.

3. Meeting in Hungary on organizational change in 2010 (Karen)

Cze from Hungary is staying with Karen and joined our call for a moment. Great pleasure to visit Karen, glad we were able to hear his voice and are hearing about the intentions they have for the Hungary conference. They are getting great responses to their invitation and Che is going home with good news. Wonderful little miracles have been following him on this trip, including being able to join our little call for a few moments.

The idea is that some of the groups involved would participate in the design and organizing as well. They are envisioning 1200-1500 people or more. The OS world community was identified as having some similar values and people so: we are also looking at the possibility of connecting with the Hungarian OS community then. Though we have 2 other European region invitations for 2010 in the mix (two announced and one potentially to be announced), this may be something we want to consider - aligning a WOSonOS2008 in Hungary with these dates. Let us see how we might support this event, either way.

Other groups being recommended by Karen to them: US National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD), International Association of Facilitators. Peggy and Gabriel may also be able to inform them about design for bringing together diverse groups of methods practitioners. Karen knows a lot of this event’s initiators and she really is excited about their perspective, flexibility, intention, ideas and commitments. One of the possible designs includes an action agenda at the end - something that would make a difference in the world.

Actions / Decisions / Agreements :

We will keep exploring this.

4. Tithing for OSI (Christine)

How to find a way to sponsor more people and build some capital in our OSI-US reserve? How to return the value we have all received from OS so we can seed it more and more? We have been very open and casual about asking people if they want to join or renew each year. One of her practices for the next year will be - when she makes money from anything having to do with OS she will give some money to OSI-US. She is thinking that more people doing that will both bring more consciousness to what Open Space does for the world and the open source nature of our work and these tools, plus supports the good work of OSI-US. Christine also hopes to offer to OSI-US a video created by the Girl Scouts that shows how people really experience their voices being heard through these dialogic methods.

Discussion of the great idea and the challenge. Being able to say thank-you in some way for what OS has meant for one’s work with clients is wonderful - are we attractive enough as an Institute that people would be excited about making that donation? Who or what do we need to be to be the attractor? Maybe we are enough as we are and it is a matter of how we tell our story - but perhaps this requires a bit of thought. In the spirit of Access Queen it might be interesting to consider proposing various options - to give people possibilities of how to contribute depending on their abilities.

Actions / Decisions / Agreements :

Discussion will continue on this topic.


At the end of the call we checked in with how we each are doing lately.

Gabriel - all the electronic devices in his home are dying. Wonder what that means. Started a PhD? program at Fielding Institute - it has been lots of fun and lots of work. Looking for ways to bring in income during this phase - interested in finding a good fit with an organization, to get some experience from the inside. Investigating different kinds of consulting firms.

Karen - just returned from the ODNET conference. A few OSniks were there - Harrison received an award called ‘Sharing the Wealth’ - for making a difference for people in the world. Karen was really energized by the fact that more people at that conference get that we are really interconnected across the globe and want to partner on a number of issues.

Peggy - very excited about the upcoming Journalism That Matters event - this next one opens up a series of gatherings and includes other innovators who are not necessarily journalists - and others who are passionate about what the images and stories are and do - the potential to shift the nature of storytelling, the role of technological changes and what this does for participatory democracy. Social innovations and shifting social systems through a series of conversations. She is beginning to see language and ideas from previous conferences showing up in the mainstream.

John - His brother in law, an economist in Montreal, and other colleague recently submitted a proposal for big grant to do a 3-year impact study of the 6-month training they use in Haiti - at 9 different schools (study group, 9 other schools as control group). Involves Open Space as one of the methods, and the study will track teachers and students over the years. People so often ask about research and impact and all they have is anecdotal info about their work in Haiti so they are all very excited about this. John is also involved in fundraising events for Haitian dialogue projects, filming this work and more. John’s wife Merline is trying to take her current pregnancy easily - this one is a bit rough for her with nausea and such. It’s a girl. Does that tell you anything?

Christine - is doing some work for her first corporate client in some time - it has really been great as they are really hungry for dialogue and learning processes to change they way people work. Their upcoming conference includes Appreciative Inquiry, World Cafe and Open Space - they are taking a leap of faith as they have not yet experienced all of these things. She is also continuing with the Girl Scouts with training and process to help the organization shift and grow. Working on the possibility of designing the next Girl Scout convention in a way that touches the whole field of feminine leadership. She is struggling with living in a super-hot climate and is missing her connection to the outside.

Lisa - has been having an interesting time with her health. She had a hard time at OSonOS by the Sea - has some stamina and mobility challenges due to the toxicity of chemo and radiation. She has a great health care team and is now working with a clinic specializing in Chinese and other holistic approaches and will begin a wonderful regimen of self-care focused on detox and wellness. She has been helping her parents (mother is in fragile heath and father is caregiver), been busy with work (recently facilitated one OS with Columbia University’s Center for International Conflict Resolution and another which was a whole-conference OS and a World Cafe for the Canadian Conference on Tobacco Control. She’s been enjoying work and life even with its little challenges.


NEXT MEETING: Thursday November 29 11a PST / 7:00 GMT

BIN for November 29, 2007 OSI(US) Board meeting:

1. Training next generation of facilitators (Kerry, Christine)
2. Making grants and payments to individuals and its effect upon our 501(c)(3) tax free status (Doug)
3. U.S. website for practitioners (Kerry)
4. Linking videos on You Tube and other portals. (Kerry)
5. 10-year OSI anniversary! (Kerry)