Newsletter Sunday 27 July

Newsletter Edition 1

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Dear Delegate,
We want to say again how wonderful it is to welcome you to Ghana.
Today is the first edition of our daily conference newsletter. We hope
by posting this to the blog, we can keep you updated with what is
going on with everyone.

Registration
Today was our big registration day. At this time, 74 people are
officially registered. We have people from all across the world
joining us in Ghana this week.

Pre-conference workshop
Francois Breuer, who is an OD consultant in the Netherlands and a
well-known lon-time member of IODA, ran a workshop on "Story Telling
as an Interactive Invervention in Change." There were 24 people in
attendance. It was an interactive workshop that explored the potential
for storytelling as a tool in OD practice.

Theresa from Ghana felt that storytelling is part of her cultural
tradition, but she had never thought of it as a tool for OD
interventions. She appreciated getting some structure to think about
how to use stories in her practice.

Edwin from Ghana also really enjoyed the workshop. Since OD is about
building capacity, he appreciated a new tool that could help him
better do this work.

Cristin from Canada especially enjoyed working with a small group of
people during the interactive part. These people came from South
Africa, Ghana, Burma, and Chile. It was wonderful to connect with
people from around the world through stories. She was amazed how the
group could teach each other through the meanings of their stories.

Member Meeting
The IODA member meeting took place from 4-6:30 p.m. It was a very
interactive meeting where members were asked to give their input to
the Executive Committee.

The President told the members that she has posted a report on the
IODA website which looks at what IODA has accomplished so far with
regards to the vision that was established last year.

The balance sheet showed that IODA is a healthy organization, and the
budget reflected more spending to strengthen the organization.

Different themes were discussed. These were membership, communication,
IODA-China, the website, and young professionals to name a few. IODA
is looking for people to join working committees. Some of these
committees are for the Robert Beck award (for people who know the IODA
organization well), elections, the newsletter, the website, young
professionals, marketing, and journal. If you are interested in
joining a committee, please talk to an EC member or look for a signup
sheet in the mess hall. This is a member-driven organization, so your
participation is welcomed to strengthen our organization. Thank you
for any input that you have.

Also, watch out for an election again this coming year for the
position of Vice-President of IODA. There was a standing round of
applause for Ben Arikpo to show appreciation for the work he has done
as Vice-President in his current term (which is now ending, so there
must be elections).

Traditional Ghanaian Play
A nice dinner was rounded off by a lovely traditional Ghanaian play,
including dancing, telling the story of a Ghanaian wedding.

We wish you a great day tomorrow. Please contribute your reflections
and comments to the blog, too. We would love to hear from you! Wishing
you a good night and see tomorrow.