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These are the proceedings from meetings of the Open Space Institute.
  • Title: Board Minutes 2021 February 16
    Meeting Date: 16 Feb 2021

    Open Space Institute - U.S. Board Meeting Minutes, February 16, 2021

    Present: Barry Owen, Myrianne Ouellette, April Jefferson, Karen J. Davis, Jake Yeager, Harold Shinsato

    Began with a Moment of Silence followed by Check-ins

    We celebrate State of Arizona's 109th Birthday (Thanks Jake!). Karen mentioned that New Mexico's birthday is almost the same.

    April Jefferson's Induction

    All voted in favor to add April to the board after her third consecutive monthly board meeting attendance.

    Wrapping up 2021 Peace & High Performance

    Karen reported we had almost had 80-90 at a time, and over a hundred each day. Almost half the attendees were from other countries, good chunk from Canada. Added dimension. The proceedings have gone out. Lots of phenomenal work that Suzanne Daigle pulled together creatively. Lucas Cioffi was a real gem for facilitating the technical side. Harold helped behind the scenes with registrations. Some real involvement by everyone in different ways. In terms of the dollars and cents, we have $2k after expenses are taken care of. Suggestion is that the money be a part of the OST Peace & High Performance in the future. When we get back on site at International House, there will be big expense. Other big thing related to that, is a potential video project related to the event. Suzanne Daigle is really beginning to focus on the video, and she has someone in mind and has backup people, and see what happens between now and the next meeting in terms of the cost.

    Harold moved to reserve $10k. Motion passed unanimously. We also had a conversation about a website and branding upgrade.

    Purpose Facilitation

    We will schedule this next meeting, using Genuine Contact. Maybe invite the community. Shifting from Holding Space towards Opening Space.

    Funding Proposal

    Jake sent out a request for feedback to many in the OST community and gotfeedback. He shared the feedback as a set of slides. The overarching themes were:

    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion. Look for more ways to include underserved and underrepresented.
    • Simply. Had extracted the $ amount, but one person asked to simplify. If you are providing microgrants, application should be simpler.
    • Networks + Initiatives. We are focusing on Individuals and organizations. We aren't including looser networks and initiatives that are not entities, which is common.
    • Tax Implications. If we are sending grants oversees. Are there tax implications.
    • More "Open Spacey" Models. Other models were shared, more slides about them. And they are more "open spacey", as our proposal is very standard. There are upsides and downsides. Maybe we can make a hybrid that makes.
      • Showed a graph with separate donors and separate grantors.
      • Crowdfunding + dialog - GoFundMe, Kickstarter, people put up posters and people fund them.
      • Giving Circle - The group decides together.
      • OST w/ funds available

    Open Questions - Funding size amount? Funds available? How to prioritize proposals? Tax implications?

    Next steps, subcommittee (April, Karen, Jake) review. Slim it down, have it focused. We can grow to something bigger.
    This will all be influenced by the purpose. It will be influenced by working with Canada. It might take a couple sessions. Might be opening a can of worms.     This will take three two hour sessions, and will be an ongoing project. We can't start in March because of the non-profit financial year ends then, which would prevent Myrianne's being able to contribute.

    Movement to Nominate Harrison Owen for the Peace Prize

    Is it a lot of work? Barry has some info and energy to support it. It has to do with educational institution doing the nominating. Had some discussions and he will put energy into it. Only certain people can nominate. Then need to be nominated by qualified individuals or institutions. Barry will dig into that. Myriane is happy to help after March/April. The nominations are due in October.

    Future of Work Open Space - May

    Last Future of Work 24 hour open space, the Institute was a sponsor. We were a promotional sponsor and shared the event with the members. The Future of Work is bringing multiple thought communities together, and is similar to Flourishing Futures. It is for 24 hours. It definitely has D. I. & E. involved. Every 4 hours another circle from different parts of the world facilitating. Will have Spanish, Japanese as well as English circles. With funds that were raised, gave honorariums to volunteer facilitators. For each circle two facilitators, one producer, one graphic recorder, and a scribe. For Spanish/English circle, the scribe will summarize. Normally financial sponsorship is $500. The OSI-US has often sponsored at $250 level. Harold moved, Barry seconded, motion passed unanimously to promotional and financial sponsor at $250.

    Next Meeting

    March 16th, 6-7:30pm.

    We closed with checkouts.

  • Title: Board Minutes 2021 January 19
    Meeting Date: 19 Jan 2021

    Board Meeting Minutes for the OSI-US - January 19, 2021

    Present - Harold Shinsato, Jake Yeager, Myrianne Ouellette, Barry Owen, Karen J. Davis
    Guest - April Jefferson

    Began with a moment of silence followed by check-ins.

    Jake - Bin Gardener
    Harold - Note taker

    Peace & High Performance 2021

    We reviewed our plans for the upcoming event January 23-25. Showed the qiqochat setup as developed so far. We can add CSS to make the Join Video button glow. Would be useful to have a video showing the process. April Jefferson has remove the tech support because she's worked through the need for it, and no longer needs it.

    May be a meeting tomorrow for tech support with Lucas. Asked for availability to do support. Friday - stick to the book - with personal variations. One of our previous folks from - Helene from Paris. Everyone will have a chance to participate if they want to, even more than one person. That will evolve as we go. May need support from the board to coach these volunteers from the event participants.

    Harold just saw Marc Trudeau for do a QiqoChat marketplace where he invited participants to bring markers and paper, so they can introduce their topics in the camera. Much better than just typing it into a web page. Myriane recommended doing the process twice to demonstrate. It is useful also to do the opening principles with hand drawn images of the prinicples and law.

    Grant Proposal Process

    Reviewed what was produced by Jake, Karen, April.

    Zoom Protocols

    Be careful about OSI-US Zoom account use - let each other know - or use your own accounts.

    Next Meeting

    February 16, 2021 - 4-6:30pm Eastern

  • Title: Annual Member Meeting 2020 December 15
    Meeting Date: 15 Dec 2020

    The board of the Open Space Institute - U.S. held it's annual board meeting, as announced on the OSList, on December 15, 2020. In attendance were all the board members, Karen J. Davis, Barry Owen, Myrianne Ouellette, Harold Shinsato, Jake Yeager, and Mark Sheffield. April Jefferson joined as a member and as an invited board member to be. We reviewed our progress and our available funds, which were over $25k which has accumulated almost entirely from events we have held or sponsored.

    The theme of the meeting was "What are the issues and opportunities in holding space for open space in 2021?"

  • Title: Board Minutes 2020 November 17
    Meeting Date: 17 Nov 2020

    Present - Karen J. Davis, Harold Shinsato, Jake Yeager

    Started at 6:30pm eastern.

    We had a short meeting. We voted to compensate Lucas Cioffi $250 for QiqoChat support for the Flourishing Futures event held in October. We considered several possible new board members. After the discussion of a few candidates, we agreed Harold will invite April Jefferson to go through the board on-boarding process.

    For the 2021 Peace & High Performance, it will be online on QiqoChat. People get distracted a lot. They are in their home. They float in and out. Taking that into consideration when designing it. So easy to get "zoomed out", maybe it is less time (shorter blocks).

    Harold will look into comparing CiviCRM versus Eventbrite. Benefits of Eventbrite is the integration with qiqochat. We can set up hidden tickets for scholarships. Benefit of CiviCRM on our website is maintaining contact and attendee relationship info, and no Eventbrite fee.

    Next meeting board meeting, also Membership Meeting, December 15, 6pm est.

  • Title: Board Minutes 2020 October 20
    Meeting Date: 20 Oct 2020

    Open Space Institute - U.S. Board Meeting

    Attendance: Harold Shinsato, Barry Owen, Mark Sheffield, Jake Yeager, Karen J. Davis
    Absent: Myriane Ouellette

    Harold note taker. Jake bin gardener.

    Started about 6pm edt with a moment of silence followed by check-ins.

    Zoom Link Changing: Problem with the Zoom Link change for the board meeting due to Zoom changes. Harold will fix it again after this meeting.

    Flourishing Futures: $2531 net proceeds with 97 signed up. We have more sponsors lined up and more. We have a good shot still of making our target of 1000, but it will be a strong showing. The 12 from the original design team are working well. We have an additional team of helpers and facilitators. Tickets are 50% north america. 35% europe/africa/mideast. 15% Asia. Barry has more bandwidth, he can help. Karen has been spreading the word in IODA. They haven't become a sponsor yet. Karen can advertise herself. April Jefferson helped organize the Future of Work global gathering, Jake & Harold were there. The environment in QiQoChat was stunning. April will help us "sexify" the QiQoChat. They had 3-4 graphic recorders. She might be able to connect us to graphic recorders. It would be very connecting.

    Peace & High Performance: In terms of 2020, Harold and Karen are still resolving it. Just a small discrepancy between Harold and Karen's accounting. For 2021, Karen sees us heading in a direction. OSonOS turned into WOSonOS. The Peace and High Performance had Harrison Owen on board after that switch. Ralph Copelman and Karen worked. Ralph changed his "cosmic address". Hesitant to bring individuals in. Somewhere along the line, the Open Space Institute had been a part indirectly became directly involved. Harold took on helping with the registration administration. Has been doing a great job. Since Suzanne became involved with the activity and the gathering. She became behind the scenes with whom Karen worked closely getting it moving. Suzanne did not want to be up front, but writing skills and newsroom, etc. Then last year for first time she was considered an official host becoming more public working together. Then working with the board. That's been a part of the evolution. Where Karen is at this point she is really seeing continuing in a similar direction, but asking the board be willing more of a consulting strategy than being involved with the direction of the whole event. That's the main thing Karen wanted to say about the organization. In terms of timing, we get an invitation out in November. It will be virtual this year. Be dynamic differences. So many of the things Karen has been involved with, the pros and cons. She is pretty sure that Lucas Cioffi will be doing the QiQoChat side of it. So that's sort of where we're at. In terms of International House, it will be April 2021 before they do any events there. And they still would like to be involved somewhere in the future, but for sure not 2021.

    More context for switching OSI-US to take a consultative role. Keeping things as simple as possible, doing one less thing. Since there is a great history with Suzanne and Karen. The Institute host is around for whatever is needed. Touchy things we might need to talk with a larger group about. Previously, Karen and whoever else was involved would split the extra.

    Now What?! Partnering: The board decided against partnering for flourishing futures give the design team's capacity. We probably don't want to partner in general, as a board, given the purpose of Now What?! is not the same as our mission of holding space for open space. Jake will reply we don't have capacity for Flourishing Futures for partnering. Harold will speak with Ben.

    Annual Meeting: Probably simply open up our December board meeting for our member meeting.

    More Board Members: We need another board member. Have that on our mind for Flourishing Futures.

    Next Meeting: 17 November 2020, 6pm EST.

    Check out at 5pm.

  • Title: Board Minutes 2020 September 15
    Meeting Date: 15 Sep 2020

    Open Space Institute - U.S. Board Minutes 2020 September 15

    Present Harold Shinsato, Mark Sheffield, Karen J. Davis, Barry Owen
    Absent: Myrianne Ouellette, Jake Yeager

    Started with 1 minute silence and checkins.

    Harold Note taker, Mark Sheffield bin-gardener.

    Zoom Link Change: The Zoom Link to our monthly meetings will change because of Zoom policies. The old link will not work next month so we need to make sure the link is updated to include a password. Be sure to look for an updated link from Harold.

    OST Online Event for the Whole Community: Harold reported that Jake is doing a great job leading the event, getting input from within and beyond the team, while also taking initiative and setting deadlines to help things move forward.

    Mark says that printout of the invitation uses a lot of toner. Might want to consider not to have a tinted background. Mark asked if our invitees will know what OST is. The invite includes a link to explain what OST is, but doesn't really describe the experience. Other notes about the invite from the board was that the invitation is quite long, and wondering about the world having a gender (she).

    2021 Peace & High Performace: International House is holding a contractual space for us, even though it is not available for January 2021 because of the lockdowns. In 2022 it would cost more. At some point we need to work out the virtual aspect.

    2020 Peace & High Performance: Just a couple dollars discrepancy that we can clear that up.

    OSList might be marginalized: The GNU mailman list for the OSList is getting categorized as spam by GMail. Hopefully solutions might be found to improve this.

    Next Meeting: October 20, 6-7:30pm edt

    Checkout - before 7pm edt.

  • Title: Board Minutes 2020 August 18
    Meeting Date: 18 Aug 2020

    OSI-US Board Meeting, 18 August 2020, 6pm EDT

    Present: Myriane Ouellette, Mark Sheffield, Jake Yeager, Karen J. Davis, Barry Owen

    1 minute of silence
    Checkins

    Peace & High Performance 2021

    International House decided there will be no events there before April 2021. Therefore if we want to do something it will be virtual. It would be similar to the process to what is going right now with the online open space Jake is initiating. That's the update there. Harold will put a "Hold the Date" notice that we will have an online event. We could be physically together, those who were able to show up. Whereever it happens. We can easily plan for a virtual event. If we want, it is possible to do virtual. It will cost less. Harold will announce it. If we do the virtual OST, it is also possible to do a training.

    Online OST

    We had a 2 hour meeting yesterday. First session went well. We accomplished what we wanted to in that session and ended where we planned to end. We have tomorrow a session just for the East. To accommodate Susan Basterfeld. Saturday, large group. Finalize the theme. How best to do that. Virtual circle, 10 in the circle. Thomas Herrmann recommended we speak more slowly and encourage people to ask if they don't understand, and mentioned the Four Fold Way from Angeles Arien, which helped with supporting a multicultural group.

    Pre-work was two questions. What challenges does this community face, and what does this community want more of? Six communities, Agile, Art of Hosting, Genuine Contact, Liberating Structures, OSList, Teal.

    #1 Desire and need to connect between communities

    Mind Map - What would you like to have happen as a result of the event? Friendships, connections, spurring a revolution, a new wave, New awakening, Creating sustainable communities out of this process, spark for more events & ongoing collaborations, Learn from and with other facilitators.

    Experimenting with bridging communities to navite the paradigm shift, new era, How can we practice inclusivity and diversity in a world split by the Digital Divide?

    Find a theme potentially rewarding to the community.

    Mark asked, what is the specific paradigm shift? We are peeking in the pot and it looks we are rushing it, and we could talk for hours. And we all have that wanting to talk and discuss. But the process was very good, in just getting those things out, and on the table. Even if we are far from the final product.

    Jake - considered the Medicine Wheel tool - look at the purpose and the business goal. Look at leadership, what is my role, what is my leadership role in this, then the vision - the outcomes, what is the community of stakeholders, and management- what are the dates, all that stuff. Give structure to that part of it.

    How can we leverage each other - 6 disciplines and about 9 folks. What would my role be, sharing leadership right in the get go... and talk about this leadership factor - what kind of role. We can't impose a leadership role. They have to speak up.

    Consider the roles for the rest of the conversation and be ready for the action planning.

    Next Meeting

    September 18, 2020. 6-7:30pm edt.

  • Title: Board Minutes 2020 June 16
    Meeting Date: 16 Jun 2020

    Present: Jake Yeager, Harold Shinsato, Karen J. Davis, Mark Sheffield, Barry Owens, Myriane Ouellette

    Minute of silence
    Checkins

    Jake Yeager Induction

    Harold moved, Mark seconded, that we accept Jake Yeager onto the board after he has been present for 3 consecutive board meetings. All approved. Harold will send the onboarding document to Jake (and Myriane).

    Peace & High Performance 2021

    When do we make the final decision? Karen will talk to International House to understand when we need to make the decision, or even if the facilties will be available.

    OSI-US OST Online Event - Connecting & Collaborating

    Looking at the documents tracking who we've spoken with. Good representation from Agile, from 'Matriarchs', and many others. Frances Barello - in order to heal a system - get it to talk to itself more. If we are going - address the issue we raise - if we are going to move forward with a theme and an invitation - it has to speak to all of the different communities we have identified. Based on the feedback we have received - What is In It for Them? For them to participate?

    Reaching out to Lucas Cioffi - join with his efforts, QiqoChat.com.

    Diane Gibaut says the theme needs to reach everyone else - including non-open spacer's, people who practice it on a once in a while basis. She suggested a theme around thinking together, to be able to leverage the potential of our collaborative methods.

    The theme and the invitation will be borne of the planning group. What can we do together that we can't do alone? How can we explore that?

    We are inviting diversity - invite each one of these different people or methods together. Around a method? Or working with complex issues? We missed Appreciative Inquiry.

    Karen said for the International OD Association, they have a third summit every 5 years apart. Bring people with similar values and practices. From that experience from what we talked about so far, no input about what has worked and not worked. It goes to personal contact.

    Mark noticed a theme in several of the comments that resonated with him: the question of what would you like to have happen here. The abstract ideas are there. He asked what would you like to have happen if this event were to be wildly successful?

    Myriane said she and Jake spoke about that in their initial conversations. We could essentially bring a group together from different spheres to discover that together for a 100% co-creative process. Really to see can we start exploring. And what she recommends, join a committee together go through Medicine Wheel together.

    Jake concurred and offered a question for group around the purpose of the OSI. "Our purpose is to hold space for open space." We start with Open Space - those people have connections to make it even bigger.

    A lot of Art of Hosting, everyone thinks they've been in an OST - then they come to OST and it isn't the same as what they came to. We are really using the principles. We are giving it the time. We are setting the stage properly. It educates without - come to one of our events. This is an event we want to share with the community with REAL open space.

    This is a good opportunity to experience 'pure' open space. We don't have to be explicit with that. It can just be part of the process. Don't be dogmatic. Jake responded to Mark's point, he doesn't think we have take the feedback to heart - they want to know concretely. Let's just do it to do it - because we know it'll be.

    Most people think linearly. We can't sell beyond the linear, even though that is what we are trying to sell. It's being dogmatic, instead find an Issue that all these people resonate with.

    Someone said the theme is staring us in the face, we as facilitators are going to be called upon, and we are going to be truly busy post covid 19, figuring out what this is doing to our systems and how we are going to navigate it.

    Barry's input: I like and I know what is going to be is pure OST - and everyone gets that. Not understanding, but it's what we deliver. Initial excitement, all the folks different ways of opening space, whatever you call it - don't want to call it methods as that is labeling. One of the real values is all these people do it differently get to get together and learn how they are doing it. and everyone comes away with a different perspective. Just the word Diversity. This isn't any different from different cultures how we are going to emerge from a pandemic. Everyone will have their own perspective based on their beliefs.

    Myriane moved that we get a team together. Is everyone on board with this idea? Myriane already has one person at least from AofH to participate. Facilitate a Medicine Wheel tool process.

    Moved and passed unanimously to assemble a team from multiple communities to create an Online OST with a committee from multiple facilitation communities.

    Karen will explore in the Dispute Resolution Community.

    This video shows a valuable conversation about hosting online Open Space events from the Devoted and Disgruntled community: https://youtu.be/_HVyAn7qyNo

    Next Meeting

    July 21, 2020. 6-7:30pm.

    Checked out 7:28pm

  • Title: Board Minutes 2020 May 19
    Meeting Date: 19 May 2020

    OSI US Board Meeting for May - 5/19/20

    Present: Harold Shinsato, Mark Sheffield, Karen J Davis
    Guest: Jake Yeager

    Began with Silence and then Check-ins

    OSHotline

    Theory and Practice Discussion. Very interesting contrast of Open Space Technology, and open space (Sometimes called Little "o" open space.) Not getting too wrapped up in the form, and being more connected to the spirit.

    Virtual OST Event for Enhancing Connections & Collaboration - Jake Yeager

    Showed a proposal to sponsor an online virtual OST event that invite various groups that employ OST for greater collaboration, starting with a 10 person planning committee with representation from these different communities. Have an explicit action planning effort. Some target communities beyond the OST community: Genuine Contact, Applied Improvisation Network, National Coalition for Dialog & Deliberation

    Likely impact all the employees of that organization. Seeking. In this case, we don't that kind of cohesion or impact. Love the transparency. If the invitation is clear, more of a statement to the list. And it says something like... in the spirit of diversity. Looking for some small number of people to help with the planning.

    Next Meeting

    June 16, 2020. 6-7:30pm edt.

  • Title: Board Minutes 2020 April 21
    Meeting Date: 21 Apr 2020

    Open Space Institute - U.S. Board Meeting

    April 21, 2020, 6pm edt
    Present: Harold Shinsato, Barry Owen, Mark Sheffield, Kevin O'Brien, Karen Davis
    Guest: Jake Yaeger

    A couple minutes of silence, then check-ins.

    Walked through open projects. Some technical and accounting things that keep a number of items open still, and many are just areas of interest without a concrete closing.

    Next meeting - May 19, 6pm EDT.

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