Consensus Mini Lessons

Around the middle of 2006, the Council decided to begin each meeting with a 10-minute mini-lesson on the consensus process. The mini-lesson outlines may be recorded below. They're most likely based on the documentation we already have.

Lesson 1

• Here's where the documentation lives Meeting Tips Scribe
  • If you think you know it already, add to it
  • It's helpful for everyone to know something about facilitation, because it eases the decision-making process.
• Facilitation = making the conversation go towards a conclusion, not just giving everyone a chance to speak
  • It's not just about letting everyone speak/make things feel fair
  • There are tools for making this happen: queue/stack, summarizing the conversation, asking pointed questions, cutting people off
• Scribe = records the decisions so they may be referred to later
  • The scribe writes our history, so it's important that decisions are recorded correctly. Facilitators need to have the scribe read back proposals before final consensus is reached.