Resources on Facilitation

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Resources on Facilitation

Potential Models of Facilitation and Decision Making

Consensus decision making via voting

Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure.
A quote from the ether: "Robert's Rules are what make town hall meetings so boring." But there are clear ways to form a new proposal and present it to the group, and it would be helpful to have a widely known American standard. However, Public Lab is an international community.
Spokes Council Model.
Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.
Sociocracy.
_Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision. (yes this is a reference from Mathew Lippincott). _
Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)

* members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties * may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..." Pros: * nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation * anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process" * no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements Cons: * essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed * very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers

The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association. If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry
Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From authors' experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/ https://pol.is/ http://www.discourse.org/

Rough Ideas

Flat leadership can be great for innovation and interaction. However, some events may be controversial and require mediators and facilitators to provide a forum for reaching consensus.

Consensus is desired, but may not be obtained. What will be our process then? How will we voice dissenting views?
Many other methods exist for approaching difficult decisons. Could we approach consensus by region, mailing group, organizers, Robert's Rules of Order, etc.?