WELCOME and getting started

Hey 😊 just having a little look at your site 👍😊. Looks very interesting. Looks like it is a good way to develop lots of mini peoples assemblies from different areas and obtain mass feedback 👍..but what do you do with this feedback to further progress?

Hi Danielle

Good question! This is something new that we've only done once so
far. With our Funding Social Care kit, we're collecting all the
data from those who used it and collating this to go back to
Parliament (as they commissioned the original Citizens Assembly).

What we've recognised is that many people won't join this kind of
discussion unless there's some kind of result ie feedback to, or
influence on power.

See this
article in The Alternative ( https://www.thealternative.org.uk/dailyalternative/2019/4/21/how-would-a-talk-shop-work ) for a bit more on this.

And if you'd like to talk more we can arrange a phone/ zoom call.

Best wishes

Bob

Hi, I'm Rosa Zubizarreta. I practice, teach, and research a relational approach to group facilitation called Dynamic Facilitation. This approach has been used extensively in Austria and now in Germany, for sortition-based participatory policy-making. It is a very useful way to encourage creativity among diverse perspectives. If you are interested, you can find more info about it on my site at https://diapraxis.com/home/translations-of-germanlanguage-resources-on-df-and-cccs

Hi Rosa! Great to see you here :D I have your book on my table right now.

Hello Lyn. I admire all you're doing. Please will you tell us a bit more about Site 9? Is there a website? Thanks. Bob

Thanks so much for your kind words, Bob. There’s not a Site 9 website per se I don’t think and everything’s at the organisational stage at the moment but fingers crossed we’ll have some wonderful events etc to offer. If you can add to the mix that would be great!

Lyn Dade
[email protected]

Hallo, I'm Lyn Dade. I'm 70, a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and survivor of many years of political activism. I am not a member of any political party though my heart is Green. I'm in a couple of Site 9 WGs and have asked to be there because of my passion for visioning a new democracy. Forgive me for being linear - it's my age and inclination as I like clarity - but my interest lies in the transition between where we are now - 'elective dictatorship' as Lord Hailsham called it - and where we might vision a future democracy. Because our constitutional and institutional arrangements are arcane and not written down in one place there is a level of general confusion about what they are and where power lies. For example, those calling for 'the will of the people' to be respected re: Brexit appear not to understand that 'the people' are not sovereign in this country. Indeed, we are not even citizens, but rather 'subjects' of the monarchy. I believe the more we know the more powerful we are. I am working with the World Building Team on Site 9 to put in place some talks, staged readings and workshops around what currently passes for democracy in this country so that people are aware of the battleground and start to reclaim 'their' democracy. I have invited Caroline Lucas and Jean Lambert, both of whom I have known for 30 years, to come and talk about why democratic renewal is so critical to a Green future. I am writing today to Anthony Barnett, founder Director of Charter88, for whom I worked in the 1990s, to talk about what has been done thus far on an institutional level and, maybe, to help with the writing of a Charter2020 - a roadmap for institutional reform. I am also planning to organise some staged readings from those who have gone before us - the Levellers, the Chartists, Tom Paine, the framers of the American Revolution. And finally I'm hoping to introduce the Eye Contact Experiment to the site (see The Liberators) and maybe some Free Hugs. It all begins, for me, with real contact between people - the micro-actions that demonstrate that we are one. I'd love your feedback on all of this. Thank you for reading it and thank you for being. Lyn

Hi Lyn, this sounds great. Two suggestions from me:
* Thomas Rainsborough at the Puteny Debates:
“ For really I think that the poorest 9s)hee that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest (s)hee; and therefore truly, Sr, I think itt clear, that every (Hu)Man that is to live under a Government ought first by (her)his own Consent to put (herself) himself under that Government; and I do think that the poorest (hu)man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that Government that (s)he hath not had a voice to put (herself) Himself under.
* Visually, I find Lorenzetti's frescoes of good and bad government, painted in Siennea at the end of the C14, very powerful. In the latter, there is a woman with Yes and No on either side of her dress who is attempting to saw herself in half.
Hope that's useful, Perry

Hi everyone, I'm Andy Paice - I a London based facilitator convener and advisor for public participation and I work with local authorities. I'm very interested in how collectively we can evoke wisdom and intelligence to see us through our civilisational challenges. I explore these questions with friends such as @rosazubizarreta and Tom Atlee and the work he's done with the amazing Wise Democracy Pattern Language www.wd-pl.com

Hello Lyn,

You are very welcome to ask, but I'm afraid I'm fully committed at present. If I took it on, you'd probably get a reply in about 18 months.

I have two suggestions:
1. Put out the request more generally
2. Get hold of Democracy in Britain, A Reader, edited by Jack and Adam Lively, Blackwell, 1994. I think my copy cost £5. Most of the readings you want are there in one place.

Hope that too helps

Perry

No worries, Perry - and thank you so much for the heads up on the book. Sounds really useful. I wish you well in all you do and hope to meet you sometime. Lyn

Lyn Dade
[email protected]

Hi there,
Emil from Denmark, a rebel enrolled in Enterprising Leadership-program at KAOSPILOT. I'm a student and practitioner of creative process design and adaptive leadership. Currently working with Social Labs (inspired by Reos Partners and 10-in-10) and Theory U (Otto Scharmer et al). I'm interested in how such action-oriented, relational approaches might inform the work of Citizens Assemblies on green policy and governance. I'm in the process of sketching out a concept and identifying partners. I'm trying to connect with groups that are looking at convening assemblies across Northern Europe and have the ethos with local institutions and grassroots to do it. I'll be following around here on the XR Future Democracy Hub, learning from you and joining the dialogue. Please let me know if you know someone I should connect with.
Best,
Emil Kragh
[email protected]

I'm Colin from Manchester, UK.

I am a PhD student studying sustainable transport at the University of Leeds. I also have an academic and professional background in computer science and programming.

I'm interested in learning about existing participatory democracy programmes and maybe introducing some to Manchester.

Hi Colin, A good place to start is the companion website to this forum: https://www.xrdemocracy.uk/ Click on the tools tab. My own organisation, Talk Shop, appears at the top of the list. Have a look, and if anything appeals, we can tell you more. You will also see several other organisations/tools. Hope that helps. With my best wishes. Perry

Hi I'm Rob from Peterborough. Nice to meet you all.

Hello! Luke Flegg from XR UK - Strategy Stewardship Team

I'm not sure where to write this:
I've set up XR UK's main Loomio group tiny.cc/xrloomio and would love this link to be added to the Group description for XR Future Democracy if that sounds good? Just so we're not working quite so much in isolation - we are at least aware of each other and can join our various spaces if we want to!

I actually personally would suggest this group be a SUBgroup of XR UK...unless this is an international group?..

"Sorry, the page you were looking for doesn't exist."

Hi @lukeflegg I'm guessing this is the group you're referring to: tiny.cc/xrloomio ?
Also found: XR People’s Assemblies
Any others it'd be useful to know about? Just about to read through these two. Thanks for the invite.

Hi @lukeflegg Might be useful to have (or know how /where to easily find) links for any local groups as well?

thank you - yes, link corrected now; it seems to require you to add http:// at the beginning of hyperlinks, unlike most other sites I use

@Phil Green yes that would be great. I'm not sure how many local groups use Loomio, but I think it'd be possible to create subgroups in this XR UK group for them and we can move them across. If you find them and see if they'd like to do that I'm happy to help with the migration

Hi there,

‘I am new and hitched up with the ‘Cave’ down in South London, design activists, plaquateurs and rebels to the teeth. I am interested in regenerative community-led housing cooperatives guided by community interest companies and benefit societies. Right now I am fascinated by mutualism anarchist libertarian thought. With a green heart to it. Can we somehow integrate some of those ideas into XR democracy ?explain more later.

Hi I m an xr activist from switzerland and would be interested to learn more on how the third demand is planned in the different countries as well on how can we have an international CA realized :)

Hi, I'm Chris Johnson, a psychotherapist living near Fareham on the south coast of the UK. My work is involved with helping individuals come to terms with their own "shift in consciousness" as humanity moves through its collective shift.

Our collective shift has been accelerating since the turn of the century - and very simply means we are changing the way we think, how we (internally) process information, and what beliefs we put our energy behind in the forming of our reality.

The global crises (ecological, sociological, economical, educational, religious, political) we are experiencing are a reflection of the need to dissolve the in situ belief systems that have got us into such crises and begin a radical reformation of how we express ourselves as human beings.

I see the XR movement as the beginnings of a much needed reform in the democratic system (Trump and Brexit reflect this crisis) and hope to contribute in whatever way I can over the coming months and years. My contribution would probably be related to helping groups of people understand the bigger picture of our 21st Century reformation of humanity.

More on me: cwejohnson.com

Hi, my name is Carlos and I live in Machynlleth (Mid-Wales). I am really pleased with the Future Democracy initiative. I signed up into Loomio before Christmas but only now I have had the opportunity to get into it.

I live in a vibrant community. Despite of the size of my town we have a very strong XR group in which I am very involved, we are all very committed with the cause and with lots of great ideas. I am also active in the Climate Emergency Consultation (which fits in what it's called Action Group in the LDWG guide) that our local council launched in Feb 2019 after declaring the Climate Emergency, I was part of the set up of the working groups of the consultation and now my focus is the Energy in Building working group where we try to bring together all the relevant actors in the building environment: County Council, housing associations, private landlords, households and trades. We think that it's only through participatory processes and involvement of all those actors that the town will be able to find how the local housing stock can contribute to deal with the climate emergency.

So we have a sympathetic (although powerless) council and an already ongoing process of participation (which to be honest haven't really been able to engage beyond the echo chamber) and I think there is great potential to implement real democracy processes here. My main issue is: what can we achieve in our little town with these processes?

I was with some other local XR friends in a zoom call in December (I think hosted by @willfranks) and I really want to be involved in this process of building democracy from the bottom everywhere. We have strong connections with other XR local groups: Borth, Llanidloes, Aberystwyth and Tywyn, the latter is not a XR group but they are very cool.

As said above, I am super up for building radical democracy which has always been my political commitment. So yep yep, I am very up to do some work in my region and if I find the time I will work out an outreach plan beyond my surrounding towns. I have signed up for the facilitators network and look forward to be part of the coming zoom calls.

Hi, I'm Jen from Horsham, UK. I'm living in quite a conservative (and Conservative) area. The Council have committed to reach net zero by 2030 which is great so i want to do all i can to help the community get behind this target.

Hey Jen. Andrea here from Horsham.

Are you coming to our local XR social on 5th February?

Hi, I'm Julie from the Isle of Wight, I'm the IW coordinator for XR. I posted recently about gender imbalance and it's something I want to focus on in the local council elections happening May 2021. I feel a 'Politics without colour' message is positive, I did the flatpack democracy zoom call last week and felt exhilarated after it, very inspired: I've shared the video with XRIW. I feel tackling the imbalance in our local Council chamber (currently 15% women) is critical. IW is the largest constituency in the UK with 1 conservative MP and a conservative ruling council, and 1/3rd of residents are of pensionable age and over, I think 15% of residents are school age. Most kids leave the Island at 18/19, we have a real struggle to keep them here as wages are lower than the mainland and house prices are high due to holiday home ownership. I'm very, very happy to be here.

Hi Everyone my name is Paul. I hope we can all come together to provide an irresistible force of nature (humankind one of the most powerful). We are after all, unbelievably, part of that nature. All groupings whether political, religious, gender, NGO's, pressure groups, countries and all other movements Sum of Us etc need to come together under one banner to stope this climate crisis. By diversifying we will never be that force. Please everybody 🤞if this really is 'the crisis' then maybe we should put our personal interests aside until this matter is sorted. We are having an effect on the UK politicians already with public transport becoming a matter of importance to them. Please let us not argue about the benefits and negatives as this dilutes other more important issues. We now need to influence areas including tree planting, human diet, agricultural diversification, waste reduction, sustainable energy generation and distribution, green economics and sustainable investments and then I personally think last and the most difficult to change the political system. Lets not turn immediately into the politicians we despise. I am all for change NOW but we have to be realistic as to where we can have the biggest and quickest effect. I hope you will have some understanding of my points of view. 🙈🙉🙊 Paul (The grumpy one)