Cross-Movement Open Space

☀️ Summer Edition ☀️
🗓️ 7.+ 8.6.2025
⏰ each day 10 am – 6 pm
🌐 tba

For the 5th time, the Cross-Movement Open Space invites active groups and people from various social movements working on socio-ecological change in Austria (may it be on climate justice, environment, human rights, migration, peace, democracy, feminism, solidarity economy, community building or other related topics). The cyclical event gives us the possibility to meet every 3-4 months to exchange about visions, goals, strategies and current issues that might concern all or many of us. In facilitation we use methods that enable us to interweave experiences from diverse contexts and utilise our collective potential to the best. This also creates a space to discover concrete ways of working together and to practice cross-group organizing.

Everyone who is engaged in a civic initiative or political group and would like to connect with others who take responsibility for shaping social change is welcome.

You can register using the form below.

We are currently working intensively on the search for a focus topic, the reach-out with invitations and we are looking for helping hands for the event itself. If you would like to be part of the process – be it giving input for a fitting topic, inviting initiatives or lending a helping hand – please show us your interest when you register via the form below and we will get in touch with you! We look forward to seeing you!

Purpose

• This cross-movement networking 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 while not falling into the trap of collapsing the complexity of the work by wanting to agree on “the right way”. This means we learn to work in ambiguity and uncertainty, designing parallel experiments and coming back together to compare notes on how it went.
• It is also a space to practice working at the pace of regeneration, rather than sacrificing people’s well being for the sake of impact.

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

Beyond this event, CAN offers various forms of support to help initiatives or alliances in their engagement. Through these efforts, we aim to foster the flourishing of a vast network of active groups and individuals, contributing to the unification of civil society’s strengths.

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

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 in an Open Space slot (via presentation/ interactive workshop/ brainstorm/ discussion etc. You can even ask for input on a topic you know little about – maybe there is someone with more expertise in the room).
Depending on intrinsic interest, everybody can then join parallel subgroups to address the proposed topics in detail. People choose freely where they want to contribute with questions/ information. It is welcome to switch between groups (as bees doing cross-fertilization 😉 ) and to take breaks according to needs (sometimes conversations at the coffee table can be the most valuable ones!).
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. 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 ❤️

.