Audio Recording of Facilitation/GA Conference Call
Notes from today:
Facilitator Meeting I/O November 22, 2011
Jay introduced himself and asked for a co-facilitator and note taker.
James from San Jose volunteered as co-facilitator and Inga from Pittsburgh as note taker.
James will be doing this NOT from his computer…free-style.
Language: caution to be used in making the distinction of introduction vs. announcement. Be specific with your language as facilitator. Introductions/checkin is a short and sweet deal…brevity is key. To start the intro try beginning from a geographic region.
Attending ten (10) people:
Sarah from West Palm Beach Facilitating Committee.
Victor from Ithaca.
Josh from Richmond.
Lisa from Philly from Messaging.
Safiya from Crestone. CO.
Mrs. Starhawk from San Fran has facilitated groups since early 80′s using consensus processes. Also trains trainers in facilitation and has written a book about horizontal groups. Some of which can be accessed on Starhawk.org
Jay with Occupy Stanford.
Next is updates…practicing getting a stack. Remind people that updates need to be short…minute or less.
Sarah in Florida calling for Palm Beach O. Has concerns about facilitation…wondering if they should only take proposals from committee. Aslo having issues with numbers of persons facilitating. Are there training materials avialable for learning how to meet. There are a group of members from OPB with one phone on the call.
Victor in Ithaca. Last night Ithaca initiated their first occupation (of a park). He is here for find out more about where and how to go from here.
Jay in Stanford. From last meeting how to break out and arrive at concensus. They also talked about Quorum. Today we will talk about people not agreeing with the process. www.GeneralAssemblies.info meeting resources and you can add to the list.
Starhawk in SF. Last weeken they had a group about concensus with 50-60 people attending.. TrainersAlliance.com has some materials as well.
www.GeneralAssemblies.info
Good to see if any later attendees have joined the call and see if they need to check in…helps with inclusions.
Hand Signals: on phones it’s difficult but titanpad.com/facilitation-training is a location for chat. Direct response should not be an opionion or option. It’s usually a crucial peice of information. Say “check” or “I’m done” to let people know you are through.  On a conference call, always ask if people disagree with what is going on…they can express their disagreement and discuss.
Starhawk: generally does not accept Direct Response. If the group will not agree to not using DR, whe will have a co-fac as a filter and ask that the members go through them before stating their DR. If is truly is a DR, the Fac is alerted and stack is jumped. If not, they are put on Stack.
On Maestro:
#1 – Raise Hand (Get on Stack)
#2 – “Two to Twinkle”
#3 – Direct Response (explain)
#4 – Point of Process
#5 – Tech Help
Agenda Creation…..super difficult BUT if you don’t have an agenda ready prior to the meeting…it’s necessary.
We are going to practice making an agenda on the fly. The topic of “what do you need help with in your O organization” was suggested.  Jay suggested that James start by asking individuals for their input. We took notes on the fly and as one notetaker wrote down streams of consciousness, the other attempted to group them into cogent themes.
  • Process is authority - rejecting the process - Vote 4  (15)
  • How to get buy in to the decision and process
  • Orientation on Consensus Process – What is it.
  • People not Getting Heard Vote:  4 (15)
  • (3) Confrontation & Distruptions from Outside- how to deal with it – neutral - Vote 3 (10) 1
  • Dealing with Splinter Groups Vote:  3 (10) 3
  • Dynamic between GA & Camp Vote: 3 (10)
  • Creating New GA’s Vote: 3  2
  • Multiple GA’s Agreeing – National Consensus - Vote: 2
  • Random Proposals Vote: 0
  • Keeping Time and Time Keeper – keep the meeting moving Vote: 0
  • Encouraging More Participation of Faciltators and Training Future Facilitators Vote:  1
  • Creating New GA’s Vote: 3
  • How to Start Up and Facilitate a GA
  • Creating Virtual GA’s
  • Collaborative Environments for Virtual Participations On and Off Site
Other:
  • Spokes Council Model
  • Voting Processes 2/3 9/10th Default measures’
  • Transparency issues
  • Explaining the process so that people can understand and use the process
  • Coming to Awful Decisions
  • People Being Heard
  • Disruptions from outside individuals
  • How to achieve “buy in” from people re the process
  • the process is a negative aspect to participation
  • proposals being accepted and not followed through
  • keeping a time-frame for agenda items
  • mentoring leaders and presenters
  • disagreement between off- and on-site participant views
Facilitator repeated the information as each said their schpiel…important to do for two reasons: for the note taker can keep up and to make sure they are understood. Once we’ve achieved a list…ask if there are other items people feel need to be on the list.
We then went through an excercise using Maestro voting to prioritize the list. Jay read through the list by asking people to vote for an item by pressing “1″ if you wanted to talk about an item. Everyone could vote as many times as they wanted and we kept track for how many votes for each item (see above). Two items received 4 votes. We achieved this in a little over 5 minutes (the Maestro Timer was used to keep track).
Time check: see how much time is left and divide the time by the number of issues to be discussed.
  • Process is authority - rejecting the process - Vote 4  (15)
  • How to get buy in to the decision and proces
  • Faciltiation is a service….it’s like being a waiter…not eating or participating in the convo…just making sure others are being served.
  • Orientation on Consensus Process – What is it.
  • Consensus is a process not a decision making method. The purpose is to make certain that everyone has a voice in the matter.
  • Sometimes the consensus process can default to a 9/10 vote…not a great outcome generally. If individuals are moving toward the popular vote, proposers are apt to introduce measures “likely” to pass or be popular.
  • First is to try to achieve consensus….where everyone feels they have been heard.
  • The more diverse the opionions the less successful the decision is bound to be UNLESS there is a ton of discussion…dialog from smaller discussion which then are synthesized to larger and larger groups in a process for coming to a mutually agreed upon measure. This will help ensure that in the future fractionalization of the group will be less likely  because everyone had a say in the matter. In the long run it’s worth the effort!
  • Talk about the issue first…blue sky discussion. No proposals are introduced at first. Discussion includes issues, concerns, etc. Some tools for hearing other perspectives:
  • Use a spectrum (continuum). Take a poll with extremes and ask people to stand on either end in support of the perspective. Most will end up in the middle of the “spectrum.” Then, interview people in different parts of the line….then ask for differeing opinions to speak.  From this an understanding of diversity can occur. The purpose is to have the deep emotional aspects fo the issue “heard” and once they are heard perhaps consensus can be reached.
  • Fishbowl where people of different communities sit in the middle of the group. and talk about their perspective on the matter.
  • Open space technology, used by the transition movement. Using white board/paper and the individuals write down their concerns (what they are interested in discussing). Once written, people can decide which group to join and go to the paper for further discussion.
  • World Cafe
  • Understanding talking vs talking about talking
  • Setting an agenda before the meeting can be good because it limits the time we talk about talking and get started with the meeting.
  • People not Getting Heard Vote:  4 (15)
  • Clarification: all people get a chance to speak, but the reaction or decision does not support their perspective.
  • Issues with the word “vote” arise it then becomes a personal matter
  • Breaking out to smaller groups has benefitted the GA process
  • When “I haven’t been heard” is said it generally means “no one is agreeing with me”
  • start with range of ideas (not proposals).
  • Set the expectation that this is a process and synthesis.
  • Split issue into three parts: discussion this week, draft proposal next week and ask for support the following week.
  • Writing down or repeating to the group is important to the process. A white board was suggested to utilize during the meeting as you go.
  • Off topic subjects can be annotated on the whiteboard which will allow people to know they have been heard
  • Straw polls are super effective and efficient methods to address and move on with some subjects. Straw polls allow for a “show of hands” on ideas or an idea. Example: raise your hand if you want to talk about X. The number of hands determines if the subject moves forward. AKA checking the “temperature.”
  • Most of the most difficutl issues in Philly have be day-to-day camp issues and sight is lost of the bigger picture. But the bigger pictures issues are agreed on easily and by consencsus.
  • Dealing with Splinter Groups Vote:  3 (10) 3
  • People coming in at different times.  Some people have been a part and some not .
  • Re-educating people each time you meet.
  • different faces for committees at each meeting
  • Many occupy have started having camp meetings in addition to GA’s.
  • Consensus and hand signals are introduced at the beginning of the meeting
  • Expanding the range of the ways we interact (breakouts)
  • Sometime the secret groups are about power dynamics
  • Singularity is not practical in this movement
  • Diversity is expected
  • Two groups actually equal three or four
  • Find the most neutral members and try to achieve communication
  • GA’s are not the movement, just a part of it
  • When another group splinters, tell as many people as possible
  • Encourage attendence with the “other” with an expectation of eventual reconvening of the whole
  • Initial response and handling of the splinter group directly effects the outcome.
So we discussed Consesnsus Process first. Notes were added to the list as we talked. We then went to stack. Jay suggested we move forward  to talk about consensus from another perspective. Notes were taken and we went back into stack at two minutes over. This stack was for pressing/urgent matters.
Next topic: People not getting heard. Notes were taken and stack was addressed.
Time was addressed and we had 3 minutes remaining in the convo. Stack was opened on the splinter group issue. Then stack was closed (important to do).
Making sure things are repeated or written down and that their idea is on a straw poll as mentioned above.
buddypress.com is like a mini FaceBook.
Next Meeting: December 6th, 2011 at Noon Pacific and 3pm Eastern
4pm  7pm EST Wed – - -1 month from now  dec 21st
Strawpoll was taken and 4 people indicated that the above time was acceptable and two attendees were unable to attend. A suggestion was made that at least one of the meetings during the month be in the evening or on a weekend.
  • Link for Meeting Schedule Form for future meetings:
  • https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEFWbHk5S3JVbFJFd1J5ajRXLXlpbWc6MA
  • Communication Email list: (Google Group)
  • http://groups.google.com/group/national-facilitation-training-wg
We checked out with Name and 1-3 words to end the meeting. We were 10 minutes over on the call.