6 March 2017

Open Space with Donald Marmara | Monday March 13, 2017 | 5.30pm

How would you describe a workshop with no agenda, no leader and no set structure? And why would anyone want to participate in such workshops?

Some years ago in London Donald Marmara and a group of management consultants created an informal group (akin to the SFN) whose slogan was “Bringing Human Values Into Organisations”. They met regularly to discuss possible ways of supporting and learning from each other. The management consultants came from a range of backgrounds and worked in a variety of settings including corporate, NGOs and local government.

An experimental process emerged from the group where people met with no agenda, no set structure, and no leader.  The meetings continued once a month for a couple of years, and many personal friendships as well as professional connections developed. A lot of spontaneous co-working opportunities also came about.

Buoyed by the experience Donald experimented with “open space” (not to be confused with Open Space Technology) with different groups, and had great results also with groups of practitioners of different modalities.

Following the success of the SFN co-design day in in the MCIC (UNSW) last October, Donald felt the time was right for a new 'Open Space' group to emerge in Sydney. So if you are curious about the emergent potential of the SFN please join us for an experimental evening of facilitation. We hope that the March SFN will serve as a catalyst for an new ongoing smaller group gatherings to explore this process and create new connections and new friendships.


About Donald Marmara
Donald Marmara’s 40 years’ of international experience has seen him run seminars for health centres, organisations and training institutions throughout the UK, Europe and Australia.

As well as training for several years with leading pioneers of Somatic (Body) Psychotherapy and Personal Development in Europe & America, Donald served an 8-year apprenticeship with a Native American Medicine Man.

Donald is the creator of Core Development. He has a particular interest in experiential learning and integrating mind, body, emotions and spirit and currently maintains a private practice in Sydney.

Donald also works with children and teenagers and loves applying what he learns from them to enrich the lives and work of adults and organisations. 


Venue: [NOTE: we are trialing a new venue]

SFN is always on the lookout for simple ways to keep things fresh. Knowing that physical space can have an impact on head-space we thought we would kick of SFN 2017 with a new venue!  As a trial, we will use Customer Central in Pitt Street. Customer Central is a Transport for NSW purpose built collaboration space, designed to support the government's agenda to foster innovation and make the NSW public transport sector world class. Details below:

Customer Central Collaboration Hub
Level 8 South Entrance (Rawson Place end),
477 Pitt Street, Sydney Central.

Time:
From 5:30pm to 7:30pm sharp | No RSVP - Just turn up | Donation $5
Enquiries | Eoin Higgins  eoin.p.higgins@gmail.com ; 0407 411 684

Call for Guest Facilitators:

If you have an idea or know someone who has an idea for a session at a Facilitators Network meeting in please contact Eoin Higgins 0407 411 684 eoin.p.higgins@gmail.com