GAPaP/2012Mar2

GA Process and Purpose minutes, 2012 March 2

Location: City Place / Transportation Bldg

Time: 5pm to 7pm

Participants: 7

Agenda

Bootstrapping -- so the agenda was a little fuzzy, but based on notes collected prior to the meeting. We agreed to:

• Figure out what the purpose of this WG is
• Decide how this WG is going to operate

Outcome

• Agreed to operate by consensus, using the "talk about things till everyone agrees or we drop it and move on" model. We'll have an agenda with topics and rough time limits and goals for each item prior to each meeting.
• We talked about, but didn't reach a conclusion on what sort of methods we want to use for analyzing the GA. We discussed reviewing and getting more feedback on the outcome of the GA about GA's (GA Minutes Tue Feb 21 2012), and talked about possibly developing a survey (facebook, online, paper, etc) or finding other ways to reach out to people who aren't coming to GA's.

Discussion

Over and over again: I feel like people want some kind of format for discussion, varying from group discussion/break out time all the way to something like Robert's Rules of Order. I get the sense people feel stifled, that their voices aren't always heard. I feel that for me, coming in, there was a learning curve -- I see others having a hard time with it too. I think we need to think about how to address the learning curve, and how to format discussion so that everyone feels heard.

I'd like to talk about process; to the extent that we have to. I'd also like to talk about more than just proposal process, but about the GA holistically. On a more macro level.

There was feedback about macro or shared values -- it's something that came up, and it's natural, because we have a diverse group. I'm not sure that everyone appreciates how diverse it is. I feel like some members push a full consensus format, which I'm not sure is going to work for us given our diversity.

movement history, growth, ... -

The GA process that we're building on was based on Dewey's needs -- the needs of a group of people living together. We moved from 2 GA's a day to 4 and then 3 a week. What's the GA's role in a post-Dewey era? Do we need 3 GA's a week? Is that part of why it's wearing people down with long processes and minutia? Perhaps things don't have as much importance when people are living together, with a lot of people moving in. Who are we, post Dewey? What do we need out of a GA? We have no softening materials, no orientation materials, little recognition of new people. New people come to GA, and then never come again. Is Occupy a spectator sport? I'd like to kick the can around and figure out what the purpose of a GA is, and what it looks like to a newcomer.

I'm here to explore all aspects of the current GA structure. Not just the how decisions are made, but other things too. Just because we've been doing things such as announcements in the same way, doesn't mean we need to do it the same way in the future. More time in the room for discussions, not necessarily proposals. I'm interested in exploring all aspects of that. We may not change, but I'd like to explore that. I want to see how we think we'll operate as a working group, as much as what we'll do.

One thing I found interesting during the proposal to freeze proposals last night until we shut down two banks. It was interesting: people still wanted to have the GA. Although there was a lot of support for the proposal, it was more about having the discussion. A lot of people were upset that so few people come to GA, but no one wants to do away with it. It was a captured audience -- the audience of people who come to GA, in a snow storm, with no food.

I'm still fairly new, and have been hanging around for less than a month. I think of GA as working groups coming together to be a huge working group of everyone. I guess based on what people said that's not what's happening anymore. I don't want to speak for them, but there are proposals being worked on to restructure things. I'm not sure where I'm going with those thoughts.

We had an opportunity recently for discussion. Unfortunately, we didn't do very well. The topic was a report on the participatory budget process. We'd allocated time and a format for that discussion, but it kindof devolved. I think when we do this -- and it seems clear that we will have some kind of format for discussions -- we need to find a way to educate people on the concept so they get used to it quickly. Based on that last experience, you have to be careful how you bring things up.

I'm itching to practice consensus at OB, and haven't had much opportunity to yet. If we are indeed going to come out with proposals, somehow some way, we need a process to develop them. Maybe it's several steps in that... what do we do with it? How are we as a group going to decide on things?

I'm amenable to using concensus, I'd like to try it. I don't want to spend a lot of time working out a concensus process. If we do that, I'd like to attach it to a specific process that's not too bureaucratic or complicated.

I'm biased towards consensus. I think it'd be cool to try it in this group.

Can we be clear about what concensus means? My understanding is that we would not come to a decision that anyone had a problem with. We'd have to define what the problem is. Concerns with any proposal would be concerns someone would be willing to stand aside on.

My understanding is that everyone works together to come to agreement that everyone can live with. There's more ways to do it, but .. yeah.

We have a guide -- the formal concensus book by Butler.

I just spent hte last weekend with CT Butler. Consensus is reached when each individual says I can allow this to happen.

My understanding of concensus is that the only way a decision is made final is that each person stands aside.

In the model I've been studying, there's no individual block; it's a group block. The group issues a block in itself. The core to even practicing concensus is that the values of the group are so clear that people know and live their shared values. It's easier to know as concerns come up that they are addressed with that lens. In that model, if 25% of people stand aside, the group wouldn't consider it to be an acceptable decision. Also, I could not agree, but realize it's in the best interests of the group.

I think part of what you run into when you use the word concensus, but it's not really concensus, is that you're giving an individual the power to veto a group's wishes. I think that happens at Occupy Boston. It's totally undemocratic, a power trip, and really dangerous. Concensus is a much slower process than we allow for in a GA. And we're not going to get to pure concensus with a group of 40, 50, 60, 70 people. I have a guide to concensus that came from the 1970's. I typed it up, and am redoing it as a flyer. See what's useful and what's not...

In Butler's model, just like we separate phases, he'll do that too, but separate them over time. We spent one day talking about the importance of agenda planning. There's an agenda planner who meets with the facilitators for previous and next meetings, and they spend a huge amount of time planning the agenda. One section would be that if someone has a proposal to bring forward, they introduce it, say what it is, and then take questions. That'll continue until people understand it, and take the next step at the next meeting. At the next meeting, they take concerns or suggestions, just about that thing. Then, at the next meeting, you start trying to resolve some of the concerns. Everything gets published between meetings. Sometimes new questions or concerns come up, which can bump a question from level 3 back to level 1, and you start all over again,

The interesting part about that -- the level 2 -- there's a brainstorming portion where people just throw out ideas, and you grou pthose ideas into a relational set. As you do that, the issue becomes better understood in people's minds.

I got that impression when I read the conflict and consensus thing, that it was a much longer process. I proposed a while back that we think about spreading proposals out. I didn't get a lot of positive feedback on it though.

Butler doesn't recommend this model for a GA. But he advocates it for smaller level, like working groups.

Back when we had 2 meetings a day, we could've gotten through that long process quickly.

You could map out each part of the process to what we're doing. It's not a completely different change, but it would be an adjustment. He also talked about spokescouncil; but he called it elder's council. The spokescouncil is the exact same format as the elder's council.

Their advice about determining shared values was pretty simple. Everyone take a piece of paper, and write two columns: what values do you need the group to abide to, and what values would you want above the essentials. Everyone goes through a process where you get the essentials list and find out what people have in common.

I think we were talking about using concensus in this working group. If we want to do that, Butler's strategy might be a good starting point. Maybe others have models to share. I've used the "talk about stuff till you reach a decision" model.

... talk about things until we come to agreement model ...

I could live with that, but I'd also like to see an agendas with at least approximate times to spend on it. But maybe when it gets to coming up with proposals for us to figure out and agree on, that could be a different process. Maybe that's the "talk till we drop".

It sounds like proposals are part of that process....

So, based on what we just talked about: let's use that method until further notice.

If we feel like GA could be improved, there it is, the issue has been identified.

... consensus, agenda, goals, precedent ...

One of the things that we got in the feedback from the 2 hour discussion is that a lot of people don't want workshopping of proposals at the General Assembly.

Though I wonder if they would feel differently if people would feel differently if the goal for discussion was explicit.

What you were saying about precedent hit us with Occupy Boston too. People started suggesting that there was no precedent for our process. We realized that we had taught them a process without indicating that...

Have we now lost quorum to come to a decision on how to run things?

It sounds to me that people are cool with "talk about stuff until approval" consensus model.

... be explicit about topics and time limits, and "try this on".

CONSENSUS: We are going to try using a "talk about it until agreement" consensus model, with agendas and time limits.

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When an agenda gets set for a meeting, what's the agenda setter's role when the meeting starts?

There's always a part at the start of the meeting where people can change the agenda.

Do they then facilitate the agenda, or is a new facilitator chosen?

The recommendation is to have a new facilitator at every meeting, because the position is so powerful. It's a perk; everyone needs to feel the responsibility. Sometimes it's hard to own up to that power. A rotating time keeper, note taker, and facilitator each meeting.

Mission

To begin with the mission, it might be most expedient to state where we stand in terms of our process. How do we gather data from other places? We could be a reading and research group, a data collecting group, a group that liases with something else. How exactly we come to decisions, observations, etc. seems important to discuss.

I'd say at least partially, in response to feedback in GA. This is loosely tied to facilitation, because they run GA. Beyond that I'm not so sure.

I just looked at the notes from the 23rd's GA about GA's. There are some specific things here, and specific topics. It might be interesting to take them as broken down here, and do brainstorming about what would make these points better, and set up a GA where we report back with our insights and possibilities. Just as a way of bringing it full circle.

I do like the idea of being a group that goes back to the GA, perhaps regularly, to report and gather more information.

So we deal directly with GA, and not through facilitation?

I think that if facilitators want to be part of this process, they'll come to these meetings otherwise, facilitation doesn't have to approve anything. Facilitaton has to be on board if it involves facilitation... this group will have to liase with facilitation. I don't think we report there, at least not yet.

When we initially decided to form, we formed as a committee. That's the only reason I brought it up.

... reach out beyond GA ...

So go to the working groups? How do you find people, if they aren't already in GA or working groups?

We could put a call out for people who haven't been to GA for a while, and ask them to tell us why. Facebook, email lists, twitter, etc.

There're a lot of folks that don't go to GA, who go to working groups. They're all on facebook and twitter, etc.

We can go to spokes council, too, assuming that's up and running.

About 50% of the people in spokes don't go to GA.

How soon would we do this outreach?

We could do a survey...

We could ask Occupy Research to draft something for us.

We could do it online, and have them at GA on paper for people who like that. I think people like to fill it out. Throw it up on facebook, and people might do it.

If we contrast what those people said to what people in GA said, we could start figuring out the issues that we need to implement.