The Consensus Building Process

Taking decisions vs. building consensus

The model underlying Newbold Community decision making process is centred on the creative power of the group. Instead of seeing a decision as a choice among different opportunities, it is seen as a building process, that is the decision is not just “taken” but “built together”. Someone use to say that “the consensus has to be cooked together”.

Decisions built together come usually on a longer term but have an incomparable support from the members and a deep impact in the self confidence of he group. However there are situations in which the time of the decision may be critical and so different levels of “taking” and “building” have to be used in different contexts.

As an example major decisions, impacting the future of the community, should be taken by consensus building. Consensus building is not something that can be obtained by decision making meetings. It is formed by information transparency, cleared personal relationships, emotional health, time to discuss and reflect.

Different spaces for different needs ….

A meeting can be of very different nature or hosting different spaces with very different purposes.
In order to reach consensus building several spaces are needed in addition to the decision making one:

• Need for a space for Sharing/Listening/Receiving Empathy
  Having a space for an individual to be witnessed/heard on the way of his/her life path.
• Need for a space for Interactive Forum: personal issues in community life
  Having a space for an individual to raise personal issues and have them addressed in and by the group in an interactive way. Having a space for stimulation of healthy inter-personal relationships among members.
• Need for Transparency, i.e. giving all the information to everybody
  Making community members aware of what is going on in the community in all the areas, including decision making processes. Lack of transparency prevents consensus building and improve conflicts.
• Need for a space for Problem Processing and Discussions
  Having a space to address and analyse together possible problems which arise in the community. Keeping discussion space separate from the decision one.
• Acceptance of Proposals and Issues
  Having the possibility for any member to propose some issue to the attention of the community.
• Need for a space for taking decision together (Consensus Building)
  Taking decisions in an efficient way which are supported by the whole community. This is the proper space where a decision comes to the end, but its efficiency and effectiveness strongly depends on the availability and quality of the other “side” spaces.

How we fulfill our needs

Currently we have the following spaces available. Please refer to membership model for the definitions of co-worker, working guest, etc.

• Morning Meetings (everybody), 7/w
• Zegg’s Forum (members and co-workers), 1/w
• Supervision (members), 1/m 
• Members meeting (members and co-workers in fishbowl), 1/w 
• Work sub-groups meetings (anybody)
• Family Meeting (everybody), 1/w
• Community Boards (accessible to everybody)

According to the Findhorn tradition all the meetings are open and closed with an attunement, i.e. a ritual moment for invoking co-creation with divine presence.

The Family Meeting

Once a week all the community (i.e. members, co-workers, working guests, committed volunteers and woofers) gathers for an hour and a half doing a silent meditation and then having a space for hearing all voices.

Zegg's Forum

Once a week the members and the co-workers meet in a Zegg's Forum . Zegg's Forum is a community tool developed by the Zegg's Community in Germany ( www.zegg.org ) which aims at clearing the relationship among the memebrs of a commuity in a safe and creative way.

Supervision

This is a space dedicated to the members for their support in holding the purpose and the vision of the community and improving the interpersonal boundings. It is facilitated by an external professional.

The Community Boards

Huge Boards are available in the community "headquarter", besides the kitchen, where all announcement, minutes, agendas, news and the working papers of the working subgroups are exposed.

The Members Meeting

This is the space where formal decisions are taken using the consensus method among members. The members take their decisions in front of the co-workers using using a special way of chairs dispositions called the "fishbowl" .

Each meeting is based on a solid agenda which is published on the boards a day before. The agenda is compiled by two keepers who receive the proposals, try to prioritize and give time slot to them, publish the result and accept possible complains and requests for modifications.

Proposals and Issues in the agenda should respect some clear criterions in order to be accepted:

• If they imply a discussion/decision enough information must be available for the issue and when possible distributed to the members before the meeting.
• Plenary sessions should be used for major discussions and decisions. Delegate minor decisions on various focalizers for details.
• Proposals should be already pre-elaborated and already known to the members by circulation of documents or using the boards.
• It is suggested that proposals and issues which are carried on by at least two people being one a member, so that an initial consensus building and cooperation has already started. Proposals which cannot find at least one supporter are very probable to need modifications and review before going in front of the plenary meeting for global consensus.

The meeting is facilitated by an internal facilitator who take care of the awareness of the process on going, rising alarms when the dynamic goes out of the agenda etc.. The facilitator has only the power to make members aware of what it is happening at process level, he/she has no power on deciding how to proceed.