Establishment of a [Celtic Burn / Scottish Regional] Consent Council

@Zoe Ironstone Thanks Zoe. Very important points all around. I do like the idea of a co-created manifesto of some sort. Perhaps an agreement that those on the council will take the role of listening first, and will gather information carefully before taking any actions.
Given that the UK burn consent network already exists I wonder if they have anything like this or some training that can be offered to or signposted for those who would be on the council.

I think it is good that multiple people have shared thoughts on the importance of such a council not alleviating communal or individual responsibility for consent issues.
As a reminder for all - this AP was certainly created with the hope in mind for the council not to have to take action in most cases and to rather be there for the community to bring serious concerns, as currently there is no place for these things to be taken or any authority granted to anyone in the community to safeguard folks in the in worst case scenarios.

I like the idea of a council that is diverse and that can be assembled and consulted as and when its needed. I think seats on the council should be changed regularly/annually to prevent power going peoples' heads.

I think we should definitely try to sort low-level/annoyance/'ive been offended' stuff at community level rather than overly complicating things. That said, we need to have clear guidance that helps people navigate how to clear things up on their own with a menu of options i.e. step 1: go directly to the person and what that can look like step 2: go to the consent council to request mediation etc. and maybe an emphasis on what is best to avoid i.e. public/online discussions/arguments for all to see.

For more serious concerns, I agree we need to be aware of incidents as a community to be able to uphold our duty of care to each other and to keep burns safe and healthy places for all to be in and enjoy. This might include sharing details with other burns. That said, we arent an official burn event as yet and we arent yet sure whether we want to be. As such, I think we need to be careful about how we engage with the central network and I agree with Zoe 100000% that we should only engage if something has been escalated and on a need to know basis rather than abdicating our responsibility to deal with things in the moment.

Finally, education is key and again, I agree with Zoe in saying that people need to be allowed to make mistakes and to fail to get more resilient, better at regulating and better at navigating conflict. Whether its part of the council remit or a separate strand, we are in a good position to experiment to find a good system that encourages people to deal with their shit. But we do need people, all of us to step up to the plate, participate and not to palm stuff off.

Oh and also I think the council should be agreed by the whole community in a sort of consensus fashion rather than a defined panel.

And since we are such a small community/event and we dont want to end up having leads/teams for everything, could this council also encompass safeguarding issues?

Conflict is probably a separate thing but I do think there is crossover.

@Victoria B Thanks for all your thoughts Victoria! Do you mean that those who are on the panel should be decided by the community?
If so, that is part of the purpose of this AP. To gather interest from the community on who might want to be on the council. But in order to have the council we need buy in from the community for it to exist. Since we've have a pretty small proportion of the community sharing thoughts here it's hard to tell how the overall community would feel about it.

Regarding safeguarding issues, personally I think it might depend on what kind of safeguarding issues we're talking about. Personally I feel that the consent council could end up taking on a lot of responsibility if it then requires members to deal with consent, safeguarding and conflict as some have suggested it should. That said, I'd like to hear from the overall UK burn Consent team to learn more about how they handle this.

First: gratitude to Rachel, Sophie, and Su for their/work on this important topic. Thank you.

Next: something akin to joy at being part of a community where this conversation takes place so intentionally and thoughtfully. I agree wholeheartedly about managing the vast majority of concerns in a direct, individual, non-escalated way. This sentence of Zoe's -- "We can’t expect our community to get better without allowing and encouraging our people to get better, which means we need to let our people fuck up once in a while without consigning them to the flames" -- summarizes my feelings (and experience) about being in right relationship to each other. I've fucked up royally at times with my husband and my son. The messy experience of recognition, communication, apology, and trying-to-do-better -- repeated over and over -- is what has created strong bonds of trust and safety between us.

I'm realizing as a write just how strongly I feel about this. Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg says, "The healing is in the return, not in not getting lost in the first place." Of course we're not going to get through life (or a relationship, or even a meditation session) without getting lost, i.e. fucking up. That's just reality. The healing (and the potential for beauty and growth) are in how we navigate the coming-back.

I agree with Victoria's loose outline of what steps toward recovery might look like, and agree that I'd like to see any council be as-needed, short-term, and consensus-based rather than self-selected.

The real challenge I see is that not all members of our community will have the sense of safety, agency, and voice to be able to engage concerns directly. I think that most of us who are commenting here would be able to address issues directly, or find ad-hoc support to do so with another trusted person or two. Some members of our community just won't feel nearly as able or as empowered to do this for themselves, and that's wholly legit; I wouldn't have been ready for it years ago -- it's a long, slow work to find and trust one's voice.

So I see this question separating into two needs:
1) How do we, at a practical, granular level, create a culture where everybody -- including younger people, those with more trauma history, those who are less outspoken or confident, etc -- feels safe to address problems directly? I wonder if anyone in our community has training in mediation? I know we are rich in people with emotional intelligence and common sense (yay!), but I think there are specific best-practices in mediation and I'd love to learn more about them.
2) For the hopefully-very-rare occasions when something does need to be escalated, or duty of care involves communication with other Burns/wider community, what is the mechanism?

I recognize that this is More Thoughts as opposed to Useful Answers... but that's where I am for now. ;-)

Hugs and gratitude.

@Sprite Thank you for your thoughts Sprite!
Regarding the council being short-term can you please explain what you mean by that? Are you referring to how long anyone on the council would be on the council? Perhaps we could borrow from the rotating helm concept Sam introduced - but I'm also conscious that it will take some time for people on the council to learn what they might need to around handling any escalations and if it is too short term we lose out on experience learned from members..

Regarding consensus-based rather than self-selected, this was part of our intent in making an AP - to allow any CB member to step up to be on the council and for the community to be allowed to come to consensus around it. How much of the community do people feel are needed to engage in this conversation in order for it to be a consensus? And is there a way folks imagine coming to consensus on who is in the council?

@Rachel: By "short-term" I meant that any given person's tenure on the council would be time-limited -- as opposed to, say, the US Supreme Court where appointment is for life, not that anyone was considering that! ;-) -- but I completely agree with your point about the time needed to develop skills and experience, and not wanting to lose that experience through quick turnover. I mostly think I'd want the council to be (and be perceived as) made up of "ordinary Burners" with some training, as opposed to An August Group of Consent Experts -- though, of course, that's a tradeoff. Expertise is GOOD.

It's a really good question about what portion of the community needs to engage in order for anything to be a consensus. I know how hard it can be to get people to dig into threads like this seriously. I think if 10-15% of the community weighed in, after multiple prompts and opportunities for everyone to do so, that might have to count as consensus. ... Of course, if the conversation could wait until we were together in person, we'd probably get lots more participation.

HOW we come to consensus? That's hard. Sam struggled to get a decision re: location for Singing Sands, and consensus around something like this is substantially more delicate. I don't know.

Thank you all for time and courage spent addressing the issue of how do we sort out consent violations. It seems to me we are also moving as a community into to how to address rupture/conflict in general (not just consent violations). I'd like to make sure that the first point in the AP scope: "To help foster a culture of consent at Scottish regional burns through education & discussion" has a large part in the process and is used to it's full extent before the second point : "To be the point of contact & to collect information for the parties involved after an incident " once something goes to an investigation type of process it seems to me that we are moving more towards a judicial/punitive type of system, rather than a restorative system. Radical inclusion fits much better into the restorative system for me.

Many of the things that are important to me have already been said above by Victoria and Zoë and Rachel L., so I'm echoing a lot of those:

- Yes, there is some crossover between consent and conflict, but the distinction is important; in my opinion, mediation/resolution of issues should not be dealt with by a central council.

- Re. Keeping things inside the community for resolution/restoration:

In my opinion, the best system for restorative work/ conflict resilience that is most in line with the values of our community would be a decentralised system that we would cocreate (i.e. anyone in the community who is willing can support others with difficult conversations. When help is requested, this comes with the understanding that there is a willingness from the person who is raising the conflict to enter into some form of dialogue, to make use of community resources to address the issue directly first, before escalating).

Engaging in a restorative conflict system does not mean “having to agree” or “to be convinced”. It means being willing to come to the table to hear both sides in good faith.

- The power to impose sanctions, if any, should not be central, but this should be decided on a case-by-case basis by all the people involved in/affected by that particular incident. In that way, this power would also be decentralised and the outcome would be more likely to be authentic and actually restorative to those who have suffered harm, rather than coming from the judicial/punitive mindset of the default world.

- I am wary of the idea of "investigations" for the same reasons mentioned above, and doubtful about the benefits of affiliation with the central UK network. I would like us to have more of a discussion about whether this should in fact be formalised.

I would suggest having a conversation about this separately from this current decision.

We are lucky to currently be a small enough community where we can still have real genuine relationships with each other (-> Dunbar's number). That's a real strength and we should capitalise on that, for building our culture of how we want to have difficult conversations and be conflict resilient.

Rather than risk the mistrust and additional rupture, inside of our community, that comes from the assumptions that members will now start reporting each other to an outside "authority". We've already seen this type of concern and mistrust seeded in the community since CB 24, and I think that this is avoidable.

- Most importantly, for me: I believe such a Council should not be in charge of mediation of any conflict (whether it originates from a consent issue or anything else), because this would not be aligned with decentralised or restorative principles. In my opinion, a conflict communication system should be co-created and co-owned by many people in the community so that it will actually be trusted and used.

It would also be much better to distribute the load across many community members, as doing conflict processes well takes a lot of time & energy, and a small team of dedicated mediators/facilitators will quickly run out of capacity.

So, to sum it up:

I can hear that there is already a shared understanding here that a Council (if one is to be formed at all) should only be used as a last resort, when other attempts to resolve an issue by direct restorative communication between the parties have failed.

My concern is that, as we don’t currently have a conflict system for this established that is clear and co-owned and accessible to everyone in the current community, many people would not know where to turn to, and issues would get escalated to the consent council by default / for lack of a better alternative.

I suggest that, before considering establishing a council, we would focus on co-creating that layer of conflict response first and start using it for existing conflicts/issues to develop our ability to deal with things internally. This would give us a truer picture of how much a council is actually needed in practice. It would also give me more trust that, IF we were to establish a council, it would actually only be in charge as a “last resort”, which I understand is our wish.

@Isabelle Thanks for your comments on this Isa. I think what you have outlined, in terms of restorative and resilience work, is the foundation of our community. I don’t see what you are suggesting and what is being suggested in the AP as being entirely mutually exclusive; perhaps they could exist on two sides of a continuing spectrum, as long as a restorative culture is prioritised throughout.

We are a small enough community to capitalise on the relationships we foster with each other. My concern is that not everyone will have access to, be willing to or can rely upon those relationships in ways that would be ideally supportive.

I agree that a wide range of issues shouldn’t be automatically escalated through a consent council. Is there is scope to do both and create different channels for different levels of issues? The last resort would be only on one end of the spectrum.

Re the UK Consent Network - the hope is that the discussion about whether or not we affiliate ourselves with them will be ongoing long after the resolution of this AP.

So much had been said about a decentralised method of dealing with conflict/consent problems which is incredibly valid and core to the values in our community. I worry that confidentiality has not really been mentioned. There are many times when people involved may not wish to take their issue to the whole community or even a large group. I know I personally would be reluctant to inform anyone of an incident which happened to me if my confidentiality wasn’t protected. I don’t really have solution to this contradiction of confidentiality being protected in a decentralised process. I do feel very strongly that it must be in the forefront of the conversation though.

A comment from Sparkes which she has asked me to share as she cannot comment here: "I agree that conflict resolution processes & training is important for the community. Also that if a council was formed that it would be used as a last resort. I also think that Privacy & confidentiality is an important part of it as mentioned by Gemma."

Hi, here are some thoughts:

I would propose that the council be responsible for Conflict too, and be called the Conflict and Consent Council (CaCC). Because, I think the main method for resolving a reported consent concern comes through a restorative conflict process.

I agree that we need a culture of conflict resilience with people working through their interpersonal tensions. I also think a dedicated council is a good way to for members to arrive at our processes/ report concerns, especially for new people. How do you voice/ report/ flag behaviour that is unacceptable? With our current system, someone would create a new consent team (if they thought it was needed) each time Celtic Burn comes around. I think with the number of smaller events and the culture that we want to create in the Scottish Burners (around Celtic Burn), we need more of a broader structure. These are my reasons for saying YES to the formation of a consent council.

From speaking to a few BL friends I like their approach of splitting up this topic, at least in our minds, to make it more manageable.
Pre Burn - Boundaries (boundary sensing and setting is in focus)
During Burn - Consent (practicing asking and responding to what you want)
Post Burn - After care (reflecting, integrating, reporting, discussing)

Here are a some ideas of how the Council might be formed and might operate:

- Minimum of 3 humans, no upper limit of humans.
- Council humans commit to participate in council activities for a Scottish Burn cycle (until the next April Burn).
- Council humans who are available can respond to reports and facilitate mediation, rather than be called to make decisions.
- Recruiting and stepping down happens at the Burn (Similar to Welfare training).
- I feel okay about the council being self selecting to start with, where everyone agrees to join an initial call to talk openly about their past experiences of power, conflict, consent and boundaries and be prepared for discussion around this.
- Above all the council will be aware of their legal responsibilities with reported incidents.
- The focus of the council is to be a point of contact for reporting conflicts. Restorative Circles model to be at the heart of conflict resolution, where all parties are invited into dialogue to co-create the outcome (separately and together).
- Paid (or equivalent) conflict resolution training (Restorative Circles) for new council humans. Funds come from Celtic Burn savings (ideally until we have systems in place and can train each other), this is at the heart of the council, that all onboarding members have the same level of training.
- Council humans have initial meetings to iron out details of procedures e.g. how do people report incidents, how does the council mobilise.
- Transparency is important. Council humans to make easily digestible summaries of procedures decided upon.
- Important to for the council to understand the legal frameworks we need to navigate to handle the information and not break any laws.
- Council humans will share a vow of confidentiality and within that vow they discuss and learn from the cases they handle.

I imaging the council consulting with the wider UK consent network when they have decided to ask a member not to attend a specific event. And pre event, attending members can come forward with concerns (we have been (since year 2) publicising the event membership list in the master spreadsheet).

I know this can be an emotive topic and I have commented form my perspective, knowledge and experience, from a heart place of care for the community xxx

@Sam Lee - Thanks for this excellent and considered post.

Can I query "Recruiting and stepping down happens at the Burn" - Could you expand on this? It seems like you're saying that a consent team would be disbanded at Celtic Burn? Do I misunderstand? It seems to me better to do a different period, such as September to September so that the consent team is ramped up to be available through Celtic Burn. What are your thoughts?

@Sophie Collins
I think joining and onboarding can be happening throughout the year. I was thinking more that it's not good that people join and then ghost; so to have an end point when people can step down and outboard properly.

I agree a different time. Perhaps when a consent team would naturally be forming for the burn (people with memberships wanting to be involved with this kind of work) e.g. Jan 29th.

I did just look up though that national consent awareness day is in September 😄

I’m going to be echoing a lot of what has already been said…

Firstly, I ask to set aside the idea of Celtic Burn or Northern Regional joining the Burning Man regional network; as this is being discussed in a separate (if somewhat inactive) AP, and so far does not seem to be gaining much traction in our community. So please, let’s avoid conflation of these separate decisions. The fact that this idea exists has already invited the unwanted attention of an individual from the UK Consent Network, which has had a negative impact on at least two of our community members, and no positive impact that I could notice.

With regard to collaborations alluded to in this AP with the ‘UK Burn Consent Network’- I have evidence-based reasons to maintain that this is not an ethically-run entity at present; and so I currently oppose and advise against further official or unofficial collaboration with it.

To the point of this AP - the proposed establishment of our own ‘Consent Council’ - I am somewhat opposed to this for several reasons:

While some people may have justified concerns over inconsistent handling of incidents in our community, and argue that without codification, consent-related incidents will be treated haphazardly; I would counter-argue that codifying our protocols will actually make it worse, and create new problems as well.

Application of values (by different people to different cases) will always vary a lot, whether this is supposedly done within or without a codified framework - my concern is that there's no way to build an unbiased protocol, and no way to apply a protocol in an unbiased fashion - and so any protocol ultimately leads to some people getting less fairly treated than others. 

Empowered structures that are self-selecting are concerning to me and I propose not creating them!

Alternatively I would suggest fostering a culture of encouraging people to talk their conflicts out first, privately or with a mediator that they’ve chosen. If escalation is needed due to communication breakdown or impasse, then escalate to bigger circles.

I often feel that the court of public opinion is a hazardous and unfair place. And the moment that people lose the assumption of good faith, other people are going to start being victimised or treated less-than-fairly. People dropping accusations publicly is VERY problematic; 

The other equally problematic flipside is people making accusations, through anonymizing proxies, and without giving any details -- this is also really unjust in my opinion.

From a personal experience: “I’ve been informed that I’ve done something wrong at some point in time, not been told what I did or who was involved, and not been informed what the consequences of that are going to be”.

Different values applied in different ways by different people... in the end it’s a lot about people’s sense of responsibility and morality - But when we codify and make processes into official protocols, that releases many people from their internal sense of responsibility -- “this is taken care of by others” -- and then we get smaller (and power-concentrating) groups applying their morality and biases to ever more specific cases.

A recent positive example in our community: 

We’ve recently seen a situation, where some accusations were made publicly (against S), in a manner that I (and others) felt was accusatory and unhelpful.  

This caused S grief and she felt she might need to leave the community, but it also kicked off an unofficial/semi-formal investigation. T wrote up the conclusions of it, and S requested a “cleanup operation” of certain public messages (which I executed). 

But more importantly: It was publicly acknowledged that the allegations had been untrue, and through this process happening in a public and transparent way, there’s a process of learning and growth in the community that goes further than just “S receiving justice”. 

My alternative proposal instead of a Consent Council: 

I’m very keen on keeping all authority unofficial and short-term.

We should encourage and educate for a restorative (and not a punitive) attitude in our processes!

I’d propose to use the same system of decentralised decision-making which we currently use in the community for organisational tasks:

At first a task is proposed; then an ad hoc realising team steps forward to take on the task. This team do-ocratically exercises power in a conscientious way, with appropriate reach, soliciting community advice to acquire a communal mandate where reach is larger.

For tasks of consent/conflict communication- this ad hoc team may function as mediators and conflict-communication facilitators.

This process should be kicked off by the complainer, and not by an entity external to the conflict or incident.

There is no viable replacement to getting the parties to sit down and talk it through civilly.

By maintaining an unofficial, do-ocratic structure, we can avoid centralization and unfair bias-driven mistreatment of our community members.

@fox of light thanks for your comments fox. I just have a couple questions at the moment for you in regard to your proposal.

1) If a task were to be proposed in regard to a consent violation, are you imagining this to be similar to our past use of tasks on a trello-esque board? So someone who has experienced a consent violation must publicly request an ad-hoc team to support them? Am I getting that right?
Or if that is not what you are saying, then how do you suggest a new burner who does not have solidified connections within the community to call upon support privately or to know who they can turn to?

2) "my concern is that there's no way to build an unbiased protocol, and no way to apply a protocol in an unbiased fashion - and so any protocol ultimately leads to some people getting less fairly treated than others."
- I'm a bit confused as to how you feel your ad hoc non-standardised approach avoids some people being treated less fairly than others? If you do indeed feel it would avoid this, can please explain why?

For example, how do you propose an ad hoc team should handle a worst case scenario for example in which sexual assault were to occur within a burn. Do you propose the person who was assaulted should be required to confront the person who assaulted them for a civil conversation as a default start point? Or if not, what actions would you imagine the ad hoc team could take to address this? You say that they could do-ocratically exercise power in a conscientious way. What if the ad hoc team felt that an individual had crossed too far a line, or had been given chance after chance to address issues in their behaviour and shown no interest in changing nor have they acknowledged wrongdoing? If this ad hoc team felt that such a person should no longer be allowed to be at our burn, or not run a sex positive workshop for example, what authority do they have to take action on that? None? Do they do-ocratically just ask said person to leave or not run workshops? If said person has strong supporters in the community who disagree with the ad hoc teams actions because they are not aware of the incident(s), do the team then break confidentiality and share their concerns? How do you see your proposal protecting the privacy/confidentiality of both the person raising an issue and the person accused?

Unlike Sam's proposal above, those on ad-hoc team would likely not have any training in conflict resolution, nor would they have necessarily spent concerted time effort and intentional thought to how to handle specific consent issues when they arise. As much as we would greatly benefit if we could have community wide conversations and work to skill up our whole community on handling conflict, the reality is that it is not feasible for everyone (or even a large group of folks that might constitute multiple ad hoc teams) to dedicate the necessary time and thought to these issues to take conscientious action. Without an agreement to some standard/policy at its most basic, no one taking action on these concerns will have community granted authority to do anything. Additionally, the ad hoc team you mention sounds like it would also be self-selected, which you seem to feel is highly problematic. If an ad hoc team is of either people who step forward or people chosen by the victim or accused, they will definitely be more likely to be biased.

Additionally, let us not conflate conflict with consent violations.
Not all consent violation concerns can simply be mediated out with some discussion. Yes, conflict mediation across the whole CB community is highly important and could prevent some concerns regarding consent from needing any form of escalation, but it would be highly inappropriate to treat all consent violations as conflict as a necessary first step.

Edit: Finally, I want to agree with you that a situation as you quoted in the "personal experience" is definitely not ideal. Personally I feel that as much as possible, anyone who has been accused of a consent violation should have information shared with them on why any consequences would be applied and be given guidance on how to prevent such incidents in the future. I also agree with your call for an overall restorative (and not a punitive) attitude in our processes, wherever possible.

Hello all,

Thank you for your comments and engagement with this. It’s clear that there are some differing views. 

First, I’d like to clarify a few things:

1. One comment raised concerns about becoming an official UK burn. That is beyond the scope of this AP. 
   
   

2. Decentralization works well when people are forming around one off ad-hoc problems. For example, finding a new site or brainstorming how to increase participation. But does not work well when an institutional memory is required. Suppose for instance Felix has touched someone in a sexual way without consent. If an ad-hoc team forms to deal with this and disbands, there is no knowledge of the fact that last year Felix had three similar complaints made about him and the year before, several more.
   The decentralized model benefits only those that seek to thrive where there are no memories of their previous actions.
   
   

3. “But what about Borderland?!?” I hear you cry; “Borderland is decentralized!!. We should be too. We don’t need no authoritarian Consent Team”.
   
   Borderland has a centralized and long running consent team. They take this matter very seriously. I quote the following from their survival guide:
   
   “The Consent Team is an on-site all-hour shift team that works to support the Safety Teams in cases of consent breaches. In case of an incident you, or the helpful people around you, are asked to contact the nearest Clown or go to the Sanctuary; they will then contact the Consent Team. There are also three consent drop boxes on site, where you can submit written reports (forms are attached to each box).”
   So I agree, we should adopt Borderland’s model.
   
   

Furthermore, every other burn that exists in the burner calendar has a consent team. Microburn. Burning Nest. Nowhere. London Decom, Afrikaburn, etc.

For those that are against the formation of a consent team, why are we different? How is it ethical to have a burn with liberal substance usage, sex positive play spaces and nudity, but no consent team or reporting process?

1. For those that say that we should focus on having mediation teams rather than a consent team, I would note that as a survivor of multiple sexual assaults, I would not be willing to sit in a room with my attackers. This “Mediation first strategy” places undue pressure on victims and increases the chances that consent violations will go unreported allowing problematic people to repeat their behavior.
   
   So does that mean consent teams are against mediation? Of course not. Mediation is one of the first things that is usually offered to a person reporting an incident, but it’s worth noting that many feel deeply uncomfortable with this. That doesn’t negate the thing that happened. It should still be investigated. In that instance, having a consent team to talk to all parties to understand what happened allows the incident to be taken seriously rather than brushed aside.
   Insisting on mediation over any other approach benefits the people that are committing the problematic behavior as it increases the likelihood that it will go unreported.
   
   

2. “Investigation” sounds like a creepy word right? Like if you get a letter from the tax man saying you’re being investigated, it conjures up images of them looking through your bank statements and taking photos of you on holiday. But the reality is much less sinister than that. If I were investigating a consent incident that had been dropped in a reporting box, I would likely:

   1. Have a conversation with the reporting person 

   2. Follow up with the victim (assuming they didn’t report it). 

   3. Have a conversation with any witnesses

   4. Talk to the alleged perpetrator
      
      

It’s just talking to the parties involved, not rifling through anyone’s rubbish bins. 

1. “But why does this have to happen in the shadows?”, “Why can’t we have these conversations as a community??”.
   There are so many reasons why this is a bad idea: 

   1. This overwhelmingly benefits popular people in our community at the expense of the victim. There are people out there that are hard working, contribute to burner culture, are fun to hang out with AND rack up a string of consent violations. In situations like this it can be very difficult to raise a concern publicly against someone who is seen as a pillar of the community. So the victim is more likely to remain quiet. Even if concerns are raised, often people struggle to believe that someone who is a pillar of the community can do bad things. But two things can be true at once. 

1. The severity of a consent violation is not subject to popular opinion. Just because some random Joe thinks that being touched by someone when I was in a play space is no big deal because “what did she expect? She was at an orgy!” doesn’t mean his opinion has any value. Should I have to convince fifty people in a telegram group that this was traumatic for it to be valid?
   
   

2. A public “trial” has the benefit that it may publicly exonerate someone.
   
   It also may not exonerate someone that should be exonerated because mob rule isn’t a way that civilized cultures decide wrongdoing.
   
   But it also can put the accused person through enormous public humiliation and stress. The recent incident at WeeFest and the subsequent public trial was wildly inappropriate and likely humiliating for the target of the discussion. In many cases, it might also be humiliating for the alleged victim. Maybe I don’t want the whole Scottish burner community knowing I was at a queer orgy? Is it reasonable to require someone to out themselves publicly to report a consent incident?
   
   Also, it lacks discretion and subtlety. Perhaps I’m involved in an incident with someone and the appropriate way forward is a quiet conversation, working towards mediation and a quiet resolution. If the default is trial in a public telegram group, we’ve just used a nuclear weapon to crack a nut.
   
   

1. One comment raised “ethical concerns” about the UK consent network. Please do not be distracted by this.
   
   If you don’t know what it is: The UK consent network is a centralised reporting body that is currently being set up and engaged in discussions with all of the official UK burns about how it should operate. There are some valid concerns being raised by other burns and there is a lot of development and troubleshooting of technical issues and philosophical issues to be done.
   
   This AP is not about a decision to join or use the network, but about creation of a consent team who would have a number of community appointed responsibilities including helping us decide what relationship we should have with it (if any). I would imagine that the consent team would liaise with the Consent Network, form a view and ratify that through another AP.
   
   Rache Rl and I have been attending these consultations with the consent network and members of other UK burns in an information gathering capacity as members of the current status quo consent team in lieu of the new official consent team. We are not assuming a mandate to join the network or commit the community in any way.
   
   For the record, my position is that in principle a UK wide consent network is a good idea as it helps track the few repeat offenders in our community. There are those that are seeking to completely tear it down and, frankly, I question their motives. In my view, we should be aiming to collaborate to ensure that it exists, but does so in a way that is consistent, as transparent as is appropriate and fair. 

1. This isn’t a theoretical exercise: There is a de facto Celtic Burn Consent team operating and has been since Celtic Burn. The team formed organically out of the welfare team and the consent education folks on the basis of do-ocracy and has been handling multiple reports of real consent issues, mediating and having conversations with all parties. Some of these consent issues are non-trivial and many of the people involved would not have felt comfortable raising this directly with the individuals involved.
   We created this AP because:

   1. We don’t believe that this group should operate without an explicit community mandate; It should be an official thing.

   2. We want to invite others to join the team (and replace some or all of us)

   3. Rachel and I are attending the Consent Network consultations unofficially, but again, have no intention to commit our community (see above)

   4. Most situations are resolved through a few conversations with the individuals involved or perhaps mediation. There will be a few, exceptional & extreme situations where sanctions or restrictions are required. Consider the following hypothetical examples:
      (Content Warning: Sexual assault, Rape, Substance use)

      1. Fred has adopted one of the yurts as a play space for Celtic Burn. During the burn, six reports of consent violations were raised by users of the space about Fred's behavior at events in that space. Two of these incidents could easily be considered sexual assault. Fred isn’t a safe person to be running a sex positive space. We need a process to apply this kind of restriction on Fred. This doesn’t mean that this authoritarian consent group would be judge, jury and executioner. It might mean that they receive the consent reports and then convene a panel from the community to decide sanctions. 

      2. Finn gave Sally substances during an evening at Celtic burn, but wasn’t clear about the composition or quantity. They later had sex. The next day, the woman feels that she did not consent to this and that it was rape. Assuming the above facts to be true, should Finn be banned from Celtic Burn? Should he have restrictions placed upon him? Again - we’re not suggesting a shadowy judge, jury and executioner type group, but one that can facilitate community decision making (perhaps through an ad-hoc panel).

      3. Derek and Jane slept in the same tent. There was no sexual activity prior to sleep or discussion about allowed sexual contact. Jane wakes up to find Derek’s hands in her knickers. This is reported to the consent team. They had a report of this at the last Celtic burn. Derek had been through mediation with the last victim and made commitments to change his behavior. Should he have restrictions placed upon him? Do we ban this individual? Again - probably the right thing is to convene a panel from the community to make a decision in accordance with some community agreed process?

You may be reading this thinking “we don’t want to go banning people, left, right and center”. I agree. That’s not what’s being suggested. But we need a mechanism to do this when rare, serious situations arise.

We also need institutional memory so that problematic people cannot keep causing repeat issues. Ideally we need a mechanism where misunderstandings can be mediated and people that have done problematic things can repair their place in our community.

We need to take consent seriously as a community and step one of doing that is creation of a group that can own development of processes to make our playful frolicing in the forest safe & fair. We also need an appropriate level of transparency that balances privacy for those involved. None of this is easy, but isn’t just a set of abstract philosophical conundrums about how we balance privacy and safety, it’s real incidents that can have a long term impact on our friends.  

@Sophie Collins Thanks Sophie, well put.

@Sophie Collins Yepp. All of this.

@Sophie Collins Thanks Sophie, I love how this is layed out, beautiful!

I agree with all of your post.

I'm interested in the "appropriate level of transparency part". I'll try and work out where this is coming from:

When I read your hypothetical scenarios I feel sad and confused that these things have happend at the same event that I have just attended. I didn't know about them (still hypothetically) and they were very far from the burn experience I had just had. How can I help to support and prevent? Do I feel helpless? Do I feel safe to attend not knowing who is who and feeling suspicious?

Here are some thoughts that would put my mind at ease:

- Do I know the procedural steps that the consent council will have taken when receiving and acting upon a report? If yes then I feel more at ease that we've done the best we can.

- Can we periodically report on the numbers of things that have happened?

- Can we ask the question to the people involved in 'cases' - How can we help the community learn from this situation? Maybe in a 'periodical report' could include name changed scenarios. Help the community link the things we do / know (substance info, workshops etc) to real life happenings.

@Sam Lee - thanks - I really appreciate your input too

What's your thoughts on the appropriate level of transparency?

Re the scenarios... to be clear - these hypotheticals are exactly that... they are not things that happened at CB, but they are three fictional scenarios that were made from incidents that I know to have happened at the various burns I've been to (including CB).

@Sam Lee I think this is a great point, Sam - that it would be good to find some way of funneling back to the community the type and frequency of these issues, without breaching confidentiality, or anonymity at least. I think at its best, it would allow us to retain a sense of awareness, transparency, and collective responsibility about it, while protecting individuals. I do worry, however, about how much speculation and gossip it might lead to, and how to avoid or minimise that. It's almost humanly impossible to hear "X violated Y's boundaries by jumping naked on them in the hot tub when they don't have a prior relationship/agreement about such physical contact" (COMPLETELY made-up example, btw), without wondering who X and Y are, and whether something you yourself saw was part of the anonymised incident. And even talking in hypotheticals leads to feelings and queries, as we've just seen haha.

Maybe if it's just a report at certain regular intervals, not directly after an event. I wonder if anyone else has thoughts about how best to approach this.

I second what you said about having procedures/policies that are transparent and agreed by the broader community, which the CT utilise/follow, so we all feel some ownership of the process and some satisfaction that we're doing the best we can - I had already written similar in my last comment below, before I properly read yours :D

Thank you for the work that you've put into this already.

I'm going to keep my thoughts short as there have already been some very eloquent, longer posts and I'd be repeating things.

1) Consent issue should be dealt with separately to conflict and direct conversation or mediation should be an opt-in choice for consent issues, not the expected default. There are wider power dynamics at play here, consent issues do not exist in a vacuum and I see it as intellectually dishonest to behave as though consent issues are built on the same foundations as other conflict.

2) There should be a consent team. I would suggest there should be an elected consent team but it's worth keeping in mind that not many folks regularly step forward for the level of work this sort of role requires, so it might end up being people just stepping up*.

My reasons for saying we need a team:
-Privacy of everyone involved in an incident
- A calm and measured environment to gather information and discuss, without heightened input from the entire community
-To attend wider burner community conversations re. consent and potentially engage with the Consent Network if the CB community chooses to be part of that initiative
-To allow ongoing monitoring of repeat offender's behaviour and potentially suggest sanctions / removal from the environment if deemed necessary

*Any individuals with ongoing or repeat consent issues raised around their actions or behaviour should not be eligible to sit on this team.

3) I agree that the focus should be on education and 'calling in' but there are limits to this. An individual can have all the same information, be given all the grace to fuck up and opportunities to do better as anyone else... and sometimes some individuals will still just not do that. Radical inclusion has on occasion meant inclusion of people in burner community that consistently cause harm and frankly, I don't see why the rest of us should have to continually put up with their inability to care more about their community's wellbeing than their own ego and desires.

For education and attempts at call ins to be consistent and effective, there needs to be a structure around it - we need a consent team. For boundaries to be put in place with folks consistently acting outside community wellbeing, there needs to be structure and a 'memory' of events. We need a consent team.

@Hannah Rebecca 100% agree

Dear all

We have not yet reached a consensus on this, and only a small minority of our community have participated in response to this AP. Thank you to those who have taken the time to do so.

Points have been raised so far around the following: the risks of self-selecting and power dynamics, legal and ethical implications, and the dangers of diffusing accountability in lieu of personal responsibility and growth. There seems to be shared values here in creating nuanced understanding and responses to conflict vs consent, emphasis on restorative processes, confidentiality, upskilling and transparency.

I’d like to add that the burn as a whole is already self-selecting as individuals volunteer for roles and responsibilities that align with their values, skills and interests. Implicit dynamics of perceived ‘authority’ therefore already exist, as this foundational level of do-ocracy creates inadvertent figureheads across self-selected areas of contribution. These people will be harder to approach with grievances in a decentralised network. I think it is important for this point to be acknowledged, otherwise we risk framing discussions from an overly utopian viewpoint. One of the purposes of this AP was to devolve the unofficial consent group that naturally formed from this year’s Celtic Burn.

It seems that we, as a community, want to encourage and enable individuals to navigate through conflict independently and reach internal resolutions. This is of course the ideal scenario, where all individuals have equal voice and power, and all are willing and able to engage in non-defensive, non-attacking compassionate dialogue with each other. Our social ecosystem, despite our principles, mirrors that of the wider world, where imbalances of power (e.g. how connected someone is, perceived position in the community, differences in communication style, expertise etc) create barriers to the ideal, civil conversations we all want to have. 

The barriers will be even more prominent where there are significant transgressions of personal boundaries, which then moves out of the realm of conflict and into trauma. Deeper hurt is simply harder to talk about. Conflict resolution processes should be prioritised, yes, alongside an underlying culture of education and respect. These could be considered steps before or alongside what is being proposed here in the AP.

Just wanted to add appreciation for the very clear and compelling explanations and clarifications by Sophie, Rachel and Sue. I think this conversation has grown increasingly complex because of the overlapping needs/levels of analysis involved, but to summarise what I'm hearing:

• Conflict resolution and mediation is an entirely separate conversation (which we should definitely be having). One-off, low-level incidents; incidents where both parties are open to communication and growth; and public events that affected many people and are already part of open discussion; might particularly benefit from community participation in this rather than turning to a closed council.

• Policy/procedure, community guidelines, healing and growth are still the ongoing remit/responsibility of the community at large.

• Connection with or reporting to the centralized consent network, plus officially becoming a member of the broader official burn community, are both still also up for discussion, separately.

• The proposed consent council (which already exists as a natural consequence of our do-ocracy, ...and as a minor side comment maybe let's pick a less authoritarian name?) would specifically and exclusively deal with actual consent violations, particularly moderate to severe accusations and cases of individuals with repeated patterns of unacceptable behaviour and resistance to feedback or growth. This is necessary to protect the vulnerable, maintain confidentiality (which also protects the falsely accused), and make our best attempt at fairness, consistency, and safety within a community that has several aspects that raise risk by its very nature, much as we love the benefits that our freedom can bring.

  Whithin this understanding, and with the clear knowledge that there have been incidents within communities like ours that qualify for the above and need dealing with (and in my past experience running a BDSM community, it IS necessary to place restrictions on some people for the safety of others; whether you view that as punitive or remedial, the result is the same); I agree that a "consent council" needs to exist in some form. Maybe that's the answer to the main point of this AP haha. Relevant questions that remain for me though, are:

  1. How is this consent team going to be chosen, regulated, and maintain necessary transparency, while also protecting confidentiality?

  2. Should we, as a community, come up with guideline procedures (perhaps in 3 cases: for people who experienced violations, people who have been given feedback about not-ok behaviour, and the consent team themselves) in order to aid transparency, consistency, fairness, and community ownership of the process? If so, how to approach this?

I wonder if answering these questions might help others to decide whether they agree with the basic principle of having a consent team and policy in the community, or feel more comfortable with it. I'm willing to volunteer some time and energy to helping with point 2, if needed.

To answer what seems to be the core question: I think that the completeness of the info given in the initial post may ironically have lead to more questions than answers, because there is so much about each point that needs to be discussed. Plus of course the AP dropped at a particularly charged time. But in principle, a consent team of some form, and a policy(ies) - within an understanding of its bounds and a continued commitment to constructive growth within the community in general - seems like a reasonable and constructive move to me. We just need to hash out the details.

@Zoe Ironstone - Hey Zoe - Thanks for your comments.

Re your point about naming. I 100% agree & this was on me - you might have noticed in my long post, that I switched to using "Consent Team" as I definitely feel that the name has not done the AP any favours.

Hi all,

Thank you for your patience with our update on this AP, as we originally planned for it to stay open at least an extra week until the 28th.

As initiators of this AP, Su, Sophie and I have discussed the responses thus far and have felt that while there is a marginal majority in support of this initiative, we’ve not had a clear consensus on the next steps and whether we replace the current do-ocracy based consent team with new official one with an agreed mandate.

Thus, we will be holding a Town Hall on September 4th from 7:30-9pm on Zoom, to discuss openly as a group. We will keep this town hall focused and will begin with a summary of the activity on the AP, an explanation of why we feel this issue is important and how other burns handle this and specific questions for all in the discussion to consider and share views on. Each person will have a couple minutes to share their perspectives.

We will also keep the AP open for any desired further discussion prior to the town hall and we ask you to particularly consider - after having read through the discussion - the question of whether you feel a consent team should exist at all, separate from any concerns about how it would function. This AP is first and foremost to determine whether to create such a team, and then to collectively think through the main concerns and hopes of how it would function. Please also think about what you might need to know/clarify in order to feel able to potentially be on a hypothetical consent team.

After the town hall we will summarize all discussions and conclude the AP with a plan to move forward with.

As I will not be able to attend the town hall on September 4th, here are my thoughts on AP:

I strongly support the establishment of a consent team for our community. While much has already been said about the necessity and general structure of such a team, I'd like to offer some suggestions :

1. Diversity and Representation: I agree that the team should consist of at least 3 people, but I want to emphasize the importance of diversity. The team should strive to represent various genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and age groups. This diversity will help ensure that the team can relate to and understand a wide range of perspectives and experiences.

2. Training Support for Prospective : To ensure inclusivity and diversity in our consent team, Celtic Burn should offer financial support for official training programs to those who are interested in joining the panel but lack the necessary training and/or experience in this area. This approach would make the role more accessible to a wider range of community members who might otherwise be unable to participate. Additionally, we should aim to include at least two people on the team who already have substantial capacity and experience in consent-related matters. These experienced members can provide mentorship and guidance to newer team members, ensuring a balance of fresh perspectives and established expertise.

3. Transparency and Accountability: To maintain community trust, I propose a system of anonymous feedback for those who interact with the consent team. This could help identify areas for improvement and ensure the team is meeting community needs.

4. Proactive Education: While the team's primary role is handling reported issues, I believe they should also lead proactive consent education initiatives. This could include pre-event workshops, informational materials, and collaborations with other burn community groups to foster a culture of consent.

5. A Tech Idea for Consideration:I recommend a digital tool for AP panel members to record incidents, communicate, and store information securely. This solution would streamline our processes, improve information sharing, and help identify patterns. (GDPR-compliant.)

8. Regular Community Updates: To maintain transparency without compromising confidentiality, the team could provide regular, anonymised updates to the community about their work, trends they're seeing etc.

I've identified a "motte and bailey fallacy" happening on this AP and have lost interest in further engaging with it publicly.

I hereby withdraw my statements posted previously on this AP, and state that my official public position going forward is simply support and amplification of what Isa said.

Of course anyone/everyone is welcomed to speak with me directly/privately on any matter at all.

I support the development of a Consent team and some sort of conflict resolution team/process for Celtic Burn in general. We do need such a process, for without it, the work of doing it falls on whoever is available. That's often the more experienced people, but it means the level of support people receive is random and depends on who they speak to.

But I caution you: how far do you really want to go to do this work? As many of you are aware, I was involved in a very involved process to address an alleged incident at Wee Fest. The vast majority of that time was spent investigating - asking difficult questions and listening to upset people - and also stopping speculative, open conversations that had potentially huge negative, life-impacting consequences for those involved. I was motivated to both protect the community and its members, and that included preventing unfair impact once the facts made it clear that sanctions were not appropriate.

This work is not trivial, not easy, and not fast. Please consider the kind of communication and conflict resolution training this consent team will need to take on.

We absolutely should not work with the UK Consent Network as it stands today.

The UK Consent Network is led by CK Nam, and until very recently, consisted of just him. This is not a critique of CK, but of the processes of the network he operates. I appreciate that CK has his heart in the right place - to protect Burners from abusers - but the result creates ethical and legal risks for Celtic Burn. I'll list those in a moment.

CK maintains a list of anonymously reported incidents (with optional self-identification). See the report form at: http://tinyurl.com/ConsentReportForm

As part of preparation for Wee Fest, I contacted CK to discuss an incident at Nest. CK offered to check my Wee Fest invite list against his list of alleged consent violations. I shared a list of email addresses with him, believing that I was following an established process used by other UK burns. I was aware that this was questionable, but I was motivated by the need to protect my people, my event, and my home. I'll say more about this elsewhere but this is not about me.

CK checked my list of attendees, and at that time I expected him to reply to me with a list of people that may be of concern, or perhaps high-level information about past actions of those individuals. That is not what happened. CK identified two "hits" against his list. He reported one to me as "resolved / doesn't need following up", and did not identify the party. This is fine - although I wondered why he maintained a copy of the report if it was resolved.

On the second hit he did not give me a name. He said that event was more serious, and he wasn't sure if follow up had taken place. So - without asking me if I wanted him to do anything, or giving me the information I needed to make a decision - he contacted the consent team at the appropriate burn who was involved, and asked them to conduct any needed follow up.

Thankfully that team contacted me, assured me the situation did not require follow up and that person was not a risk for my event. I have since had - through other conversations - identified these people and discussed this process openly. I do not believe either complaint belongs on an ongoing list that will result in repeated future escalations to consent teams.

CK gave no indication that he understood the irony that he acted without my consent in contacting third parties and asking them to act, whilst not actually providing the information I asked for.

Here are my concerns with the UK Consent Network:

1. The UK Consent Network does not meet the requirements of the GDPR. The consent network maintains a database of complaints, and does not meet these requirements:

1a) Limitation of purpose, data and storage - there is no process for complaints to be removed or age out of the UK Consent Network's database, even when resolved. Individuals placed in its database will be discussed in all future checks against attendees - at least by CK internally.

1b) Rights of the subject to be informed, to access, rectify, and erase data - none of this is offered. The UK Consent Network is not a law enforcement or government agency, and they do not have the right to hold this data even over the objection of the subject.

2. Creates legal risk for Celtic Burn, via the GDPR. We must notify all participants that we intend to share data with the UK Consent Network, and the user must affirmatively consent (e.g. check a box that is default unchecked). Until we implement this, we would be in violation of the GDPR to work with the UK Consent Network. Knowing what I do now about how the UK Consent Network operates, I will not check this box, or attend Celtic Burn, if I am required to.

3. The UK Consent Network has no formal governance structure or transparency that allows any of us to object to or change its processes. It is opaque, not democratic, and not community-led.

I cannot ethically support participation in this process.

I will attend the Town Hall on September 4th. I will be happy to discuss my interactions with the UK Consent Network in more detail, but I will not reveal the names of anyone else involved.