I just stumbled across what looks like a great series of blog posts over at the Federation of Egalitarian Communities on the finer points of consensus-based meetings.
The latest post is about the pace of meetings: when to accelerate (e.g. introductions, reports) and when to slow down (e.g. tough decisions, emotional issues). Meeting pace is definitely something KCCA (and a good few other orgs I’ve been involved with) could use some practice on!
Other topics covered so far have been:
- When do you know enough to act?
- Closing the deal
- Wordsmithing in plenary
- Redirecting competition
- Bridging disparate views
- Harvesting partial product
- When to be formal
- Harnessing brainstorms
- Coping with blocking energy
- Defining respect
- Balancing voices
(Links are to be found in the blog post–go there!)
Golly I’d love to be at a meeting facilitated by this person! We should all get better at this stuff!
