WhoGetsInvited?

Working on the invitation in the middle of the night, mindful that if we are going to have an event in May, we have to get cracking (plus I am on the invitation 'committee'!), I am cogitating about the theme for ES3 May 2006 in our planning phone call:  to invoke and explore the dynamic tensions we are holding as a collective.

I am seeing this next gathering in May as a kind of 'base camp'.  I have never mountain-climbed but it is my understanding that climbers build base camps part way up their journey.  I see this next event, maybe, as one in which we focus on the theme I just listed (which came out of the phone call group, not me).  If the theme is focussing on the dynamic tension we are holding as a community, maybe this next gathering will not have a broad invitation list?  Maybe we want to invite previous salon participants and, of course, those others who are eagerly watching our work and want to join.

 If we do this event at Whidbey Institute in May, we are really limited to sixty participants.  The Whidbey Institute has made this decision.  Larger groups stress the capacity of their facility and they have every right to protect their precious home. 

 If we approach this next event as a pause, a base camp, to carry us into even richer and, maybe, bigger gatherings, then the invitation list is, for the most part, already shaped.

Posted by Halim:  

We face some interesting questions around the topic of how to approach the invitation process for Salon 3.

Here are some of the issues:

• Limited capacity at Chinook (60 people)
• Broad call or focused invitations?
• The list developed so far has about 85 names on it already -- these are basically people who were either invited to Salon 2 and couldn't make it, or there wasn't room, or were additional names that were suggested, or who found out about the salons and asked to be invited.
• The desire to add still more good names to the list to choose from
• Also the large number of community members who might want to return from Salon 1 or Salon 2 [Invitation to Salon 2 suggested we might expect 1/3 returning members and 2/3 new]
• Getting a good gender balance and other kinds of diversity
• Managed balance or law of two feet?

Here are a few different approaches we might try. Please comment or add additional proposals!

How it was done for Salon 2:

According to Terri, there were basically four groups of invitees for Salon 2, organized respectively by each of the core organizers (Michael & Connie for Great Story-focused people, Tom for co-intelligence-focused people, Juanita  for World Cafe people, and Peggy & Mark for Spirited Work and Integral Spirit people). Each organizer initially sent out invitations to their own lists of whoever they wanted. Registrations were taken first-come, first-served, but based only loosely on deposits received; there were quite a number of late cancellations. Some invitees invited their friends; when any of these additional people asked to come, they were discussed by the organizers (including Terri) and either allowed in or waitlisted.

Proposal 1:

Divide the gathering capacity into balanced groups of men and women, if necessary putting men on the waiting list while still accepting registrations from women (or vice versa). Part of the implication of this would be sending out a relatively large number of invitations and then managing the space on a first-come, first-served basis within the male/female categories.

Proposal 2:

Possibly the managed capacity approach could also be used to work toward balance in other categories such as new and returning participants, or other diversity indicators.

Proposal 3:

Operate under the law of two feet: send out a lot of invitations to as diverse a group as possible and consider that whoever shows up to register first are the right people.