Cross-Movement Open Space

🗓️ 9.+ 10.11.2024
⏰ 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.

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 ❤️