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These are the proceedings from meetings of the Open Space Institute.
  • Title: Board Minutes 2019 July 16
    Meeting Date: 16 Jul 2019

    OSI-US July Board Meeting Minutes

    Present: Barry Owen, Harold Shinsato, Kevin O'Brien, Karen J. Davis
    Absent: Tricia Chirumbole, Miriam Ouellette

    We began near 6pm EDT with a moment of silence and check-ins. There was a signficant sense of being very busy and overcommitted in all the check-ins. Harold volunteered to be note taker and Barry, Bin Wrangler.

    Agile Open SoCal

    We are sponsoring the event. Colleen, one of the coordinators for the Agile Open SoCal, showed up at the Global Oasis for Emerging Leaders this past week that was convened by the two trainers we have invited to lead a training before WOSonOS, Anna Carolina Turk and Thomas Herrmann. It seems fortuitous that we are sponsoring the event.

    IT Support Load

    Harold welcomse volunteers to support him separate from the meeting, and that there are tasks on the website that non technical people could accomplish. Barry Owen said he would contact him.

    WOSonOS 2019

    Registrations are coming in. We have viral invitations spreading through the Genuine Contact and Agile communities. June 24 was the original deadline that Cherry Hill Park was reserving the premium cabins for WOSonOS attendees, but that was extended to July 23. There will be a Halloween event during WOSonOS, but only for overnight guests.

    WOSonOS History Lesson

    Harold Shinsato had attended the 8 day Genuine Contact Summer Academy, and learned things about early WOSonOS events from stories from Birgitt Williams as well as having had conversations with Peggy Holman. After the last Washington D.C. OSonOS, Birgitt and a group of women that included Ann Stadler and Peggy had invited first Harrison Owen into the center to hold space for Open Space, then asked him to step back and the Open Space Institutes to step to the center and then step back, and finally for the entire circle to then hold the space. Peggy said this was more significant to Birgitt perhaps than to others, but it is an explicit ingredient in the way Open Space and facilitation in general is taught in the Genuine Contact program. That is, an explicit hand off from the leader or leadership to the community to include them in the process. It was after this that the Open Space on Open Space events started becoming an annual WORLD Open Space on Open Space, and the next year it was in Canada.

    Thomas Herrmann was involved in Open Space ongoing groups conversations that proceeded out of the early WOSonOS events. He facilitated several "Global Open Space". Larry Peterson was also involved, as was Karen Davis. We'd like to have a safe space for younger adults. Culturally, the communication style is different.

    Barry has personal history working with Genuine Contact. He worked with them for a couple of years. What he sees happening right now, right before WOSonOS, everyoe I mentioned has been posting on LinkedIn. It is gaining attention. Doris Gottlieb is there. Anna Carolina, Thomas, and Doris were all at the 8 day Genuine Contact Summer Academy with Harold.

    Next Meetings

    The next board meeting will be a WOSonOS focused meeting on Tuesday August 6, 6-7:30pm EDT. And then the next regular board meeting will be at the regular date, August 20, 6-7:30pm EDT.

    The meeting adjourned a bit before 7:30pm edt with checkouts that were universal in saying we all felt refreshed.

     

  • Title: Board Minutes 2019 July 2
    Meeting Date: 02 Jul 2019

    This was a special meeting only focused on WOSonOS 2019 that the OSI-US is hosting and sponsoring.

    Meeting began 6:00 pm EDT

    Moment of silence

    Checkins

    Board Members Present: Karen Davis, Kevin O'Brien, Barry Owen, Harold Shinsato, Mark Sheffield

    Lodging:

    Lodging information has been posted to the website.

    Kevin and Harold will work together to enable room reservations via PayPal on the website.

    Transportation:

    https://www.cherryhillpark.com/transportation lists some options.

    Other options include bus service from Baltimore airport (BWI).

    List of registrants and a way for them to communicate with each other:

                  Barry created a private Facebook group for registrants. He will receive email notification for each new registrant and will invite them to join the group.

                  Harold will make a list of registrant names visible on the website.

    Budget:

                  Some funds have been donated to provide support for some people who would not otherwise have the opportunity to attend WOSonOS. Consider the details of managing requests for assistance at the next meeting. Also include a sentence on the website about accepting additional donations for providing support.

    Topics for next meeting include:

                  1:1 inviting

                  Parameters around providing support for people who would not otherwise have the opportunity to attend

    Next two meetings:

    July 16, July 30

  • Title: Board Minutes 2019 June 18
    Meeting Date: 18 Jun 2019

    Monthly Board Meeting for June of the Open Space Institute - U.S.

    Present: Mark Sheffield, Harold Shinsato, Karen J Davis, Tricia Chirumbole

    We opened the meeting at 6pm EDT with a moment of silence and checkins.

    Agile Open Socal

    We have paid. Was easier paying by PayPal. Paying by check was hard last year.

    Open Space CD's

    Make it a benefit of membership. We agreed on tha a while ago. But will take technical work. First priority is improving the website. There are finances. Paying for research.

    WOSonOS 2019 Trainings

    Harold will get back to Thomas Hermann & Anna Carolina Turk about reference price points (not advice), and to speak with Cherry Hill Park tonight.

    WOSonOS 2019 Catering

    Nothing to do right now, board members not present are defering activities.

    WOSonOS 2019 Budget

    Tricia had made a quick spreadsheet a month ago, no progress since.

    Next meeting

    Tue July 2, 6pm-7:30pm EDT

  • Title: Board Minutes 4 June 2019 WOSonOS2019
    Meeting Date: 04 Jun 2019

    This was a special meeting only focused on WOSonOS 2019 that the OSI-US is hosting and sponsoring.

    Meeting began 6:00 pm edt

    Moment of silence

    Checkins

    Board Members Present: Barry Owen, Myriane Ouellette, Karen J Davis, Mark Sheffield, Suzanne Daigle, Harold Shinsato

    Worked on abbreviating the main page for the invitation with space for more elsewhere.

    Agreed to continue with the lodging plans to adjust as we go forward.

    Budget - reviewed something from Tricia.

    Training - we have not heard back from Anna Carolina Turk and Thomas Hermann, but we had planned on Tue-Thu Oct 22-24.

    Next meeting, June 18, 6pm edt.

  • Title: May 23rd meeting
    Meeting Date: 22 May 2019

    Open Space Technology Institute US Board of Directors

    May 23rd, 7 PM via Zoom

     

    Present : Karen, Harold, Barry, Tricia, Kevin, Myriane, Mark, 

    1. Sponsorship for Agile Open – Agile Alliance – Harold will sponsor 

    2. WOSonOS organization notes

    1.    Theme : Honoring the innefible spirit of OST?

    1.1. Discussion around the word ineffable – there has been many discussions about it. Agreed that this is a good word to use to describe what OS is. Need to describe what that word means to be inclusive. 

    2.    Invitation :

    2.1. Who’s working on the invitation: Barry will draft something; Myriane will help with the designing of it. Barry will infuse the definition of ineffable. 

    2.2. Timeline: Draft by the 23rd, 5PM, feedback from committee by the 24th.

    3.    Online Registration: Pricing is important to figure out. We can add discount codes easily, but need to have 

    3.1. Should we add sponsors to help cover the cost ?

    3.2. Cost :

    o  $350 for early bird (first 25 people, depending on sponsorship funds and add deadline, eg. End of July)

    o  $425 till (date TBD)

    o  $500 last minute registrations 

    o  Cancellation policy – no cancellations only exchange.

    4.    Budget : Myriane will send the OST budget that Suzanne provided to Barry

    4.1. Deposit for International House will be at least double (around $5000), they may also want the final payment a month before. 

    4.2. Contract for Cherry Hill will be sent by Harold. The cheque for the deposit has been sent.

    5.    Lodging : Kevin sent out a document that Suzanne shared describing  the lodging options. Cherry Hill will hold 2 cabins and some log cabins for booking. We have to manage the reservations for the cabins. Kevin is managing these, possibly Tricia. Maybe the board rents out one of the cottages for the board members to stay. If the board rented 2 cottages, it would be $600 plus $30/person. We can make the rate to around $120/room (this would be paid directly to the Institute. 

    Karen will look at the contract to see what needs to be done to book the space.

    6.    Food : around $2500 a day for 60 people. Get some numbers for 150 ppl and revise (Myriane). Ask the café down there to see if they would provide coffee or tea in the morning. At the International House, it’s about 20-25 people a day. 

    See if we can scale the lunch down to sandwiches / soup ?  We may look at the option of bringing in some of our own food. Barry will help Myriane.

    7.    Gail West offered to sponsor someone to participate 

    8.    Contact person on website for responding

    o  Notices

    o  Administrative access to the registration page

    o  Barry will be added, along with Karen

    o  Harold will create an email – WOSonOS2019 – Myriane will manage the email. 

    9.    Next meeting – June 4th– Harold will send an invitation. 

     

  • Title: Board Minutes April 2019
    Meeting Date: 16 Apr 2019

    OSI-US April Board Minutes from April 16, 2019

    Present – Barry, Kevin, Tricia, Harold, Mark
    Absent – Karen, Myriane (sick)
    Note taker – Harold
    Facilitator – Kevin

    WOSonOS 2019

    We started breaking the tasks down for the event.

    What about the invitation? Barry has heard people are excited about the unstructured gathering Thursday night.

    What are the next step for the invitation? Cultivating the invitation. The invitation theme from the WOSonOS 2019 Invocation meetings online seemed to circle the word ineffable, which means something too great or extreme to be expressed in words.

    The ineffable Spirit of Leadership. Anybody’s leadership. Participation. Engagement. Constructive and Destructive.

    From Jake – from the Teal Organization – it’s about accelerating self-organizing. It tied to Genuine Contact. Accelerating is mostly about accelerating self-organization. Amplify – that’s not the right word either. Ineffable Spirit. Those were the two most meaningful words. Spirit has been present before day 1.

    At one point in Kevin’s life, Leadership invoked something different. Ineffable Spirit resonates, it’s an element of Open Space because we just kind of create the space for it. In everyday life you don’t always do that. What happens when you let that show up.

    Some theme possibilities:

    What happens when we invite the Spirit of the Ineffable?
    What happens when we invite the Ineffable Spirit of Leadership?
    What happens when we invite the Ineffable Leadership of Spirit?
    Where is the Ineffable?
    Who invites the Ineffable?
    What happens next?

    You are instilling the spirit. There is a dual purpose. What is happening? We don’t know how it’s going to go.

    What is the ineffable spirit of self-organization?
    What’s next for Open Space?

    Open Space has always been there. People are adding to what is already there. The Operating System is already there. It’s already there.

    Harrison was always basically bring and step back, none of the stuff that’s happening you have any control anyway. Even as you’re speaking these words. The illusion of control. What isn’t an illusion is that you are having experiences in the world. It’s Open Space anyway.

    What is possible when we truly let go of the illusion of control?

    How do we allow for and honor the evolution of the forms of opening space?

    How do we honor the ineffable spirit of Open Space?

    After all this discussion, we chose this working theme:
    WOSonOS 2019: Honoring the Ineffable Spirit of Open Space

    Pre WOSonOS 2019 Events

    Barry spoke a bit about the Genuine Contact training before because of being with Anna Carolina-Türk at the WOSonOS 2019 Invocation Part 2 meeting. What might work well is a 2-3 day training. They just need 10 participants. Tuesday-Wednesday or Thursday. She’s very excited about the training. There are Genuine Contact people in the U.S. she’d like to come for support. There are 3 that do this program, but probably only Thomas Herman and Anna would lead it. Rather than decide anything they agreed to schedule something with the board, which will happen Monday April 29, 8-9am EDT.

    Daniel Mezick has proposed an Open Leadership Symposium on Thursday October 24 before the WOSonOS.

    WOSonOS 2019 Registration

    Maybe about $400 full price. What other expenses? Catering/food, other than venue. Barry has a friend who does catering, and has some leverage because he does million dollar gigs. They do all the food and beverage for golf tournaments. They have all the contacts for catering nationwide. Have someone good that is local in the Alexandria area.

    Maybe grazing food, or always available. Tricia will look into setting up a Google Sheet to do cost calculations.

    Next Board Meeting

    May 21, 6-7:30 eastern.

  • Title: Board Minutes March 2019
    Meeting Date: 19 Mar 2019

    Present: Tricia Chirumbole, Karen Davis, Kevin O'Brien,  Barry Owen, Mark Sheffield, Harold Shinsato

    Moment of Silence and Check-ins

    Note-taker: Mark, Facilitator: Tricia

    Formally accepting Myriane Ouellete to the Board

    This being Myriane's third consecutive meeting and her willingness to join the Board, Harold moved to accept her and Tricia seconded. The motion passed unanimously. Harold will add her to the distribution list and grant her board-level access to the osius.org website.

    WOSonOS October 25-27, with an evening of gathering and storytelling for those who arrive early on Thursday

    Venue: Cherry Hill Park Campground

    The Board unanimously approved Suzanne Daigle's offer to act as a Board contact person

    Board contacts for the contract: Karen & Harold

    Some housing is available in the campground; additional housing is available at nearby hotels & motels

    The contract specifies a capacity of 125 people; there is some pricing leeway if the actual number goes over or under that amount. A deposit will be due 4 months in advance.

    The Board expressed a desire to keep registration as low as possible without going into red.

    Suzanne has drafted a save the Date postcard; Myriane will help finish that work. Harold will post the announcement from the Board to the OSList, Barry will create a Facebook event, also from the Board.

    There is a possibility that OST training will be offered for 1-2 days before WOSonOS.

    Harold expressed his desire that each of the Board members discover their own passion about WOSonOS.

    Online OS events will be scheduled for formulating the theme and soliciting input from the OS community. April 8 from 7-9pm ET and April 13 from 7-9am ET. Harold will coordinate the events and run them using Qiqochat. Harold offered to host the April 8 session; Barry offered to host on April 13.

    Check out

    The next meeting will be April 16, 6-7:30pm Eastern.

  • Title: Board Minutes November 2018
    Meeting Date: 20 Nov 2018

    Present: Karen Davis, Harold Shinsato, Barry Owen, Tricia Chirumbole, Kevin O'Brien

    Moment of Silence and Check-ins

    Note-taker: Harold, Facilitator: Tricia

    WOSonOS 2019 in U.S. of A.

    In keeping with one-less-thing-to-do, Harrison had shared with Karen some thoughts about possibly combining WOSonOS 2019 with the annual "opening space for peace and high performance” at International House in NYC. Also more recently he has been more limited in his mobility and energy for being present for anything more than an hour at a time, even if it is held in the DC area. Discussion included the increased room rental fees at International House (around $3000/day) and whether I-House could accommodate 200-250 people even in 2 concentric circles in Davis auditorium. However, there are numerous housing possibilities in the area. It was decided to continue exploring venues in the D.C. area. This includes Bolger Center (US Postal service and conference hotel near where Harrison lives), a location in D.C. where Agile Coach Camp was held that Tricia Chirumbole facilitated which was a nice space and had some wonderful history associated with it, as well as the Dulles airport hotels where the original OSonOS was held.

    There was also discussion about the need to determine the venue soon in order to then decide pricing.  The WOSonOS 2018 in Iceland registration fee was about $400. The WOSonOS 2013 in Florida had three tiers, $500 the highest and $250 the lowest. Possible dates are in late October.  Also considered was the possibility of a OST training day just before the WOSonOS.

    Peace and High Performance 2019

    Main thing is getting the link and the website up. Harold will get something up on the website this evening. At least one person has already purchased her airline tickets from Canada, there is someone from Korea awaiting final approval to register, and possibly someone from France. Harold will put a checkbox to offer people membership in the OSI-US.

    Sponsoring Agile Open Northwest 2019 in February

    We're spending about $500 a year on sponsoring open spaces in the Agile world. How do we want to use our money?

    Report on WOSonOS 2018 in Reykjavik

    Genuine Contact work is very interesting, and using Whole Person Facilitation to help. There was a lot of interest in Agile and Open Space.

    State of Open Space Survey

    Kevin forwarded a communication since our last meeting about a contact from his connection with Organizational Network Analysis. That contact put him in touch with a professor at the University of Exeter, Andrew Parker, who thinks he can help us connect with a PhD student who would help us put together a survey. We will hold a conversation probably December 3 in the 10:30am-1:30pm eastern time frame. Kevin conveyed we are willing to invest $2000 for the health of a student. Kevin listened to Andrew Parker in a webinar. Kevin sent the contact in an email. The OSI-US has a research focus and we would like to invest in doing a survey. We will include Tom Brown who has volunteered his time to be part of a committee for this. There were also contacts from the WONonOS in Reykjavik who may also be interested.

    The next meeting will be December 20, 6-7:30pm Eastern.

     

     

  • Title: Board Minutes October 2018
    Meeting Date: 16 Oct 2018

    Present: Barry Owen, Mark Sheffield, Karen J. Davis, Kevin O'Brien, Tricia Chirumbole

    A minute of silence, everyone checked in, Harold volunteered to be note taker, and Kevin as facilitator.

    Bin Gardening - we added a few items

    WOSonOS 2018

    Harold is the only board member attending WOSonOS. Harold will approach Kari and offer $500 and encourage him to use those funds to help reduce attendance costs especially for local Iceland people.

    Harold will ask for Kari to list OSIUS as a sponsor on the website.

    WOSonOS 2019 in U.S. of A.

    Harold is planning to welcome WOSonOS 2019 to come to the United States in the D.C. area. We may be competing with China for WOSonOS 2019. Harrison may be able to attend in D.C. as he is no longer traveling anymore. Suzanne had encouraged the China folks if they would attend. Harold will speak with the China attendees before making the invitation. If we hold it, it's likely to be September or October.

    International House 2019

    Suzanne Daigle and Karen Davis are working on an invitation, and we'lre working from there. There was some trouble with the Bank of America check so the initial 1000 deposit check was rejected. It's not clear why.

    Move Bank Account out of Bank of America

    Harold will move to Missoula Federal Credit Union. They have mobile phone deposits. There maybe other options for credit unions that support non-profits, but it might be easier to move afterwards. The Board is supporting the change to MFCU. Kevin will be the backup signer.

    GDPR Examples, Guidance

    Harold did some investigation and the OSIUS.org website does use a cookie, so we should add the GDPR notice about cookies. It is possible to only show the notice for E.U. countries, but despite how annoying it is, it's good to signal compliance for this requirement, whether or not we agree with how its being done. We'll operate the cookie acknowledgement for all visitors, not just those from the European Union.

    State of Open Space Survey

    We've spoken about this in the past. The first step we've discussed is simply reaching out to the community about the opportunity and seeing if anyone had thoughts or references to helping design such a survey. The OSI-US could possibly invest some funds for survey development as this would be a research topic. We could possibly engage a PhD student to help design the survey. Harold will send out a note to the OSList before the WOSonOS in Iceland. Barry noted there are a lot of people wandering into the Facebook group. It would be fun to market the survey to the Facebook Group. There are 2,572 members of the Facebook Open Space Technology group. There is a lot of potential through Social Media, which is growing compared to the email based OSList, which is starting to look like a "dinosaur" in comparison. Kevin mentioned Organizational Network Analysis. One way they do the work is to survey groups. They also do the work with information from Social Media. ConnectedCommons.com. There are tools that analysts use to understand organizational networks. Debra France is from Kevin's former company, Gore associates. Kevin knows the one who runs ConnectedCommons who is connected to academia. Kevin will reach out to Debra.

    Closing

    The next meeting - Tuesday November 20, 6pm eastern.

    We closed with checkouts at 7:30pm edt.

  • Title: Board Minutes September 2018
    Meeting Date: 17 Sep 2018

    Minutes from the September board meeting:

    Present: Tricia, Kevin, Harold, Mark
    Not present: Karen, Barry

    Moment of Silence & Check-ins

    General:

    Harold attended Agile Open Southern California and promoted the OSI-US in the circle and in an Agile Coffee podcast last weekend. He also mentioned that an open space event is likely to happen at his current corporate client.

    WOSonOS 2018:

    Barry might attend; Harold might; Karen might; Tricia, Kevin, Mark not attending

    No updates; no decisions or actions needed

    WOSonOS 2019:

    Are we interested in proposing? If we're not in Iceland, who & how to propose? Location identified. Date depends on Karen's schedule

    International House 2019:

    $1,000 sent to the venue; we are committed to that venue for Peace & High Performance 2019. Large rate increase may happen after 2019

    Membership & Contact List Communication | GDPR examples, guidance | "State of Open Space"

    In Harold's hands.

    Kevin's game that "Opens Space"

    Kevin works for a company that is creating a Virtual Reality game for training leaders; the game might have applications for Open Space

    Clean Language

    A helpful modality for generating the Theme and other prework, and for promoting Open Space. Helps facilitator become more fully present and invisible. We should test using Clean Language for prework and promoting Open Space before publicizing it as a technique.

    Peace & High Performance 2018

    A few financial items & final report remain to be done. Harold is working on those items

    Online Open Space for Multistakeholder facilitator sustainability

    Moved to "parked indefinitely"

    Front Porch Chat Virtual invitation

    Harold has some, wants more videos. Make this item into an ongoing program, with a formal website page - Harold will make the page.

    Professor Emma Bell- Unconference research

    Harold will follow up with her.

    "Understanding Open Space" CDs

    Harrison Owen approved giving it away for free. Proposal: make it a benefit of OSI-US membership, available on the OSI-US website - Kevin will research technical details (Sound Cloud, etc).

    Respectfully submitted,
    Mark Sheffield

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