Cross-Movement Open Space

🍁 Autumn Edition 🍁
🗓️ 9.+ 10.11.2024
⏰ each day 10 am – 6 pm
🌐 Le+O Waldkloster, Gellertplatz 7, 1100 Wien

The Cross-Movement Open Space invites active groups and people from various social movements working on socio-ecological change in Austria (may it be climate justice, human rights, migration, peace, democracy, right-to-the-city or other related movements) to meet every 3 months to exchange about visions, goals, strategies and current issues that might concern all/many of us. In facilitation we use methods that enable us to interweave experiences from diverse contexts and utilize our collective potential to the best. This also creates a space to discover concrete ways of working together and to practice cross-group organising.

Everyone is welcome who contributes or wants to contribute in one way or another to a sustainable, fairer and more peaceful world.

Purpose

• The event is a space for those of us who are committed to this work for a better life on earth to meet others in the field and exchange about their current missions and challenges. A space to surface needs and find ways to share resources.
• It is a space to weave our groups’ visions and goals together into a collective image of the future we are working towards. But also a space to practise acceptance, even appreciation of different opinions, strategies and short term goals as we don’t know exactly what will work and need to combine many different ways to have the best chances of success.
• It is also a space to practise working at the pace of regeneration, rather than sacrificing people’s well being for the sake of impact.

Through the regularity of the Open Space we can keep in touch and stay informed about what is happening in the wider field, in order to surface collaboration potentials that would otherwise remain unseen. The supportive nature of the event provides good practice ground for cross-organisational organising.

Read more about the background and intention on the event’s project page.

Focus Topic

This time the invitation question is:

”How can we build connections to life realities outside of our bubble?”

So the focus topic of this Open Space will be the question of how we can connect to people and their realities who are not already part of our field of activity. We want to exchange concrete experiences, best practices and the various reasons we see for building connections.

Of course, it is also possible to bring along other topics that are relevant to you at the moment and that you want to be addressed by swarm intelligence😉

AgENDA

As we have two days for the Open Space this time, we will take almost the whole morning on Saturday to explore the focus question “How can we build connections with life realities outside our bubble?” together. Before lunch we will create the agenda for the rest of the day together and in the afternoon we will jump into the parallel Open Space sessions.
On Sunday we will also spend the morning and early afternoon with Open Space Sessions and conclude the whole weekend with an extensive harvest in plenary.

SATURDAY:
9:30 Check-in table is open.
10:00-13:00 Arrival together with check-in in plenary and exercises in small groups
13:10-14:10 Lunch
15:00-17:40 Open space sessions (small groups)
17:40-18:00 Content harvest in the plenum
18:00-18:30 Closing

SUNDAY:
9:30 Check-in table is open.
10:00-11:00 Arrive together & collect topics
11:00-13:15 Open space sessions (small groups)
13:15-13:45 Content harvest in plenary session
13:45-14:45 Lunch (potluck: everyone brings something to eat & it is shared)
15:05-16:05 Open space sessions (small groups)
16:20-17:00 Content harvest in the plenum
17:00-18:00 Closing

Organisational Info

Details of the schedule for the two days will follow by email to all registered addresses.

💶 There are no costs for participants, although donations are very welcome.
👨‍🦽 The physical space is mainly barrier-free.
👶 Childcare will be available on both days.
🗣️ The event will be held partly in German and partly in English.
Let us know about your needs and wishes in the registration form below!

ABout the Format “Open Space”

Experienced facilitators lead us through the day with help of the “Open Space” method – which is ideal for complex issues (like the multi-crisis we are facing today) that require diverse perspectives to find comprehensive solutions.

All participants are invited to tell in front of the entire group what topic they want to address in which way (presentation/ workshop/ brainstorm/ discussion etc.) in an Open Space slot. Depending on intrinsic interest, everybody can then join subgroups to address the proposed topics in detail. New ideas, solutions, questions and/or next steps emerge in a lively and creative way. At the final presentation and consolidation (“harvest”) with the whole group, essential results and plans can crystallize, with which we can then start into our coming months of work.

In this way, people from the most diverse contexts, even with differing convictions, can work together in an enriching way and gain new perspectives, ideas and insights.

In addition, everyone is free to decide for themselves
– how much time they want to stay in which session (and generally be present at the event)
– and where they want to contribute with questions/ information
– or which sessions they initiate.

💡 The know-how, experience and working power of the large and diverse group of all participants can flow in a self-organized and intelligent way and contribute surprisingly well to concrete, versatile solutions to a wide range of complex challenges.

By the way – because this probably needs to be emphasized: Open Space is also open for regenerative sessions ❤️