SOS Asheville

Dear Friends Old and New,

At our first meeting, the Asheville SOS Council confirmed the weekend of September 15-17 as the dates for the Fall SOS event, and Montford Recreation Center as the setting. The event is free and open to anyone who cares about the transformation to sustainability in our region. The schedule includes:

FRIDAY, 7 pm to 9:30 pm - Storytelling Circle
SATURDAY, 9 am to 5 pm - Open Space Sessions
SUNDAY, 1 pm to 5 pm - Action Planning

Please pre-register if you plan to attend, by visiting www.sosasheville.net. Thanks to John and Bill at Integritive Web Design for setting up our online registration form!

I invite you (whoever you are!) to help spread the word about this event. Open Space Technology works beautifully with very large groups, and we have a nice big centrally-located space. More people and greater diversity means a more dynamic event and a greater capacity for extraordinary, creative, effective responses to the challenges before us - not to mention a deeper infusion of inspiration and fun!  Thanks for passing the invitation along, and I hope we see you there.
~ Chris

The date for the opening discernment & formation meeting of the Asheville SOS Council is Thursday, August 3rd from 6pm to 9pm at Lotus Lodge in Candler.  RSVP to chris@springbranch.us ~ I’ll send you an email confirmation & directions.

~ Chris

Hi SOS Asheville Friends,

Below is a copy of an email I sent out to the people who expressed interest in the SOS Council during our event in June.  If you are not in that group but are interested in this opportunity, please send me an email.  I am very excited about how our leadership Council is unfolding.  We will soon be announcing the dates for our September SOS event, to be held at a large venue in the center of town.  Cheers!

Dear Friends,

I am sending this message to those of you who expressed interest in serving on the Asheville SOS Council, to provide leadership for future SOS events (including the next one in September) and for the SOS Asheville weblog.

The SOS Council will hold its first meeting next week.  This is a discernment meeting, which means that nobody has made a commitment to serving on the SOS Council, and one purpose of the meeting is for each person who comes to decide whether he/she wishes to serve on the Council or not.

Raphael Peter has offered to host us at Lotus Lodge in Candler for the meeting, which will be three hours long.  There are two possible dates/times.  If you are interested in attending, I invite you to send me an email by Friday at noon letting me know which of the following times is your preference:

THURSDAY, AUGUST 3RD, 6:00 to 9:00 pm; OR
FRIDAY, AUGUST 4TH, 2:00 to 5:00 pm.

We will choose the date that meets the most people’s needs and I will email you the date this Friday at noon.

At the meeting, I will introduce some givens for the SOS Council, and we will spend time reflectively and interactively exploring SOS Asheville’s purpose, leadership, vision, community, and practical responsibilities.

At this time I will share an overview of what the SOS Council is, to help you to decide if it is appealing to you or not.

The SOS Council is a collaborative leadership council for SOS Asheville.  All Council members will be equal participants.  (This means that by initiating the SOS Council, I am stepping out of my current individual leadership role and passing leadership responsibilities to the Council as an entity).

In general, the SOS Council as an entity does not concern itself with the content of sustainability initiatives.  (This of course does not preclude individuals who serve on the Council from being active in the content of initiatives).  The SOS Council as an entity focuses on cultivating and offering SOS Asheville as a process container for the transformation to a local sustainable culture, through hosting seasonal SOS Asheville events using Open Space Technology, and through maintaining and developing the weblog for online collaboration.  The SOS Council is responsible for planning, implementing, and debriefing SOS events.  The SOS Council is also responsible for the ongoing inviting of people to the SOS events and to the weblog, which includes proactive outreach to a diversity of sectors in our local community.

The SOS Council does not have a corporate (including non-profit) structure.  It is a service-based entity ~ nobody gets paid for their time (although rich non-monetary benefits are anticipated).  The SOS Council will operate as a Conscious Open Space Organization, fulfilling its purpose and manifesting its vision with maximum freedom bounded by a set of Givens, which will include some methodologies for meetings and for collaborative decision-making.  The SOS Council will also create a State of Grace Document with contributions from each individual Council member, to assist us in working together in a conscious, responsive, holistic way.My best estimate of the time commitment of serving on the SOS Council is one 3-to-4-hour meeting each month, plus a few hours of work on necessary tasks each season, and participation in a full-weekend SOS event each season.

That’s enough for now!  Thank you for sending input as to the meeting date/time choice.  If you plan to come, please RSVP to me by email.  If you are interested in serving on the Council but are unable to attend either meeting time, let me know that too, and we will discuss other possible arrangements.

Blessings,
Chris

The four-day Open Space Technology facilitator’s workshop finished yesterday.  When it was done, Liz Logan and I stayed a while at the pavilion.  I learned some things and crystalized some questions I’d like to share.

Liz has done a great deal of research about Peak Oil, and from her location near Atlanta she is preparing to provide both facilitation (”space holding”) and also content expertise for communities seeking to re-localize as a response to the peak oil reality.

Having just emerged from a 4-day facilitator’s workshop and from the SOS, we were both thinking about methodology and containers for transformation.

One question we explored was whether it is advisable for someone who takes leadership to hold space for transformation, whether in person or online, to also engage in content.  My experience is clear that the facilitator of an OST meeting is most effective if he/she doesn’t attend breakout groups or otherwise engage on a content level.  But I am interested in the question of the role of a space-holder for a blog like this one, or like Liz’s blog.  Does an online collaboration space need a space-holder who doesn’t engage in content or action on initiatives?

I also enjoyed Liz’s stories about the strength of the relocalization movement in Northern California.  I was not aware of this term as a movement, which is for me a wonderful alternative to, say, “anti-globalization”!  We went on to get excited about the potential of SOS Communities and SOS Councils as a powerful tool for community relocalization. 

I love that SOS Asheville will focus primarily on local actions and the local/regional sustainability community.  And I am re-inspired to develop SOS as a model that small groups of local leaders can apply to their own communities.  It also makes even more sense to me that the “circle of authors” for this SOS Asheville blog be the local folks who come to the seasonal SOS events.

Relocalization isn’t an idea.  It’s a living reality that grows from local roots.

Chris

SOS Asheville – Leadership for Continuation

Champion:  Chris Weaver

Interested People:  The following people are interested in potentially serving on an SOS Asheville Leadership Council:  Karl, Rainer, Laurel, Kathy, Kerry, Sage, Michael, Brenda, Lynn, Janell

Future Action:  The FORM & METHODOLOGY of the SOS Leadership Council is in development.  When this work is complete, Chris will contact the folks above about how to proceed.

Next Steps:

• Work with OST/SOS Workshop community this week

• Chris:  use “Organizational Medicine Wheel” to articulate the form of the SOS Council

Resources:

www.genuinecontact.net