[Street] [Obgroups] [Facilitation] [ob-facilitation] GA summit update? How about a Community Gathering?

obgroups at lists.occupyboston.org obgroups at lists.occupyboston.org
Sat Nov 26 03:04:06 EST 2011


Forgive me OB Working Groups, but in this email, I am opening up a
dialogue, that though FWG centric in this email string, pertains to the
greater Dewey Square community . . . a dialogue which I believe most of us
are having in our own concentric circles. The background needed to jump in
to this email is simply that FWG has been thinking about scheduling a GA
Summit, to help the community understand and come to terms with the unrest
that often accompanies our GAs . . .

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Per a GA Summit, as I stated in a previous email string, I am unsure
whether World Cafe is the best style for the dialogue we have in mind . . .
many people who attended the OB Summit were unhappy with the process and
felt it was a bit too controlled . . . it was my first WC session, so I am
looking forward to learning from the Summit facilitators debriefing.

Those of us in camp and working daily in and around camp did not experience
what we expected to, at the OB Summit - a dialogue between all camp
stakeholders, and I think am not alone, in my disappointment.  Yes, one can
argue that a middle aged person from the burbs, who had never been to Dewey
Square before, but is a supporter of the Occupy Movement is a stakeholder,
but there was too strong a contingent of people like that (percentage
wise), and it brought the conversation in other directions, than the issues
of division we experience, daily. For example, I sat a table with a young
woman who was quite peripheral to the Occupy Movement, who was invited
because she was on a World Cafe mailing list.  In some ways, though
hopefully not so very intentional, the event had a feeling of self
promotion, by (some of?) the WC facilitation team.  Again, I look forward
to learning more.

All of us near and dear to Dewey Square need clear, directed, empathetic
and facilitated dialogue with each other.  The distress at GA is a symptom
of deeper divisions, experiences and feelings:  feelings and experiences of
being left out, feelings and experiences of being co-opted, feelings and
experiences that one's voice does not count, feelings and experiences which
are being evoked by all the isms which abound, feelings and experiences of
oppression, feelings and experiences of being shunted aside by people of
privilege, feelings and experiences of powerlessness, feelings and
expereinces of frustration at our community's response to the social unrest
so apparent at the encampment.

>From my perspective, what Facilitation has been calling a GA Summit, is
really the OB Summit which many of us wanted, on the 19th. Similar to the
19th, I think most of us feel we should lean on the help of "outside"
facilitators.  We need more conversation with the OB Summit facilitation
team to help figure out who is best suited for the task at hand.  I know
Maureen White will have insight and knowledge about the OB Summit
facilitators' skill set, and we should discuss our needs with her.

I suggest we plan for, not a GA Summit, but rather a Community Gathering on
Sunday, December 18, maybe of a length longer than 4 hours. I think our
collective vision is to come out of such a gathering with a clearer
understanding of the underlying structures giving rise to all the tension
and distress we, as a community, are experiencing, and a stronger sense of
community itself - a community built on trust, respect and understanding.
At some point, and maybe it's in a follow up session, we, as a community,
can actually focus on GA process and how to improve it, but right now, our
goal is to really, really hear each other, to learn from each other, and to
start to melt the walls between us, and to truly become the "exemplar
society" our lawyers will be arguing that we are, in court, on 12/1/11.

*I call for a team of people  (of maybe 2 representatives each) from
Facilitation, Anti-oppression, Campers Caucus, Direct Action, Indigenous
Solidarity, People of Color Caucus, Queer and Trans Caucus and Women's
Caucus, together with a few facilitators from the OB Summit team, to meet
and to begin to plan for a Community Gathering, on December 18 - if, we as
a planning team, agree that we can produce the Gathering by that day.

If my request resonates with people, please let me know. As a person of
privilege, at first I hesitated at being so outspoken . . . and I hesitated
quite awhile before pressing the Send button. My clarity and the sense of
urgency we feel carried the early morning, so to speak. And with that sense
of urgency, I ask that the WGs mentioned, select their 2 Community
Gathering representatives, and we hold out first planning meeting,
sometime, on Friday, December 2.

*
Gregory Murphy


PS -  all forms of inreach and cross cultural efforts are needed, e.g., the
Community Cuppa. That said, the rewards of the Cuppa will mostly grow over
time. I am thinking we are in crisis mode and a larger gathering, together
for much of a day, is indicated.

PPS - I understand that many at Dewey Square will be loathe to leave camp,
for a long stretch of time, because of concerns for their property. What
can we all do about that?

PPS - All the above said, I did find value in the OB Summit, much of the
dialogue got my creative juices flowing!






On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 4:39 PM, Jorge Alvarez <eghm627 at mac.com> wrote:

> Eli: as you witnessed at the summit last Saturday, as much as I enjoyed it
> (and I did plenty), I don't necessarily believe that "an extended session
> to make real progress in improving facilitation" will do it either. I love
> the idea. But our problems run much deeper than that. Get a load of this
> excerpt from the New Yorker piece Greg emailed us, and witness that the
> prowls are not endemic to OB, but to OWS and I believe the entire occupy
> movement because we're attempting to assimilate such a heterogeneous bunch:
>
> The voice came from a man in his mid-twenties wearing a camouflage jacket.
> He was sitting on a concrete bench in front of the facilitation team, one
> boot resting on his knee, eating sweet-potato chips and drinking from a
> Starbucks cup. He had the haggard look of someone who had spent a few weeks
> sleeping outside in a city. Known to other occupiers as Sage, he had
> written “SAGE’S” on the brim of his baseball cap in marker. Sage
> continued speaking as Holmes presented the proposal. “These are all
> tourists,” he said. “You do not live here.” Every time he spoke, the people
> sitting next to him stiffened and frowned. Sage did not seem to notice.
>
> During a twenty-minute breakout session to discuss the proposal, Lisa
> Fithian, a fifty-year-old organizer who works with Holmes, made her way to
> the bench in front and told Sage about her success with the Spokes Council
> model. She said that she had worked on the nineteen-seventies anti-nuclear
> campaign and the W.T.O. protests in Seattle, in 1999.
>
> “This is not a fucking college dorm,” Sage said. “Until you can speak
> honestly with me, I’m not having a conversation.”
>
> “Shut the fuck up,” Fithian said. “I don’t need this shit in my face.”
>
> I believe Allison's community project will be much more effective than a
> dozen summits -- and I'd love a dozen summits. But aggregation and
> assimilation, as you know, are two sometimes very disparate animals.
>
> Greg: I like both 1 and 2, if doing #2 means we get it done faster, then
> I'm all for #2.
>
> With peace,
>
> Jorge
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Nov 25, 2011, at 4:24 PM, Gregory Murphy <gsjmurphy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> FWG,
>
> I reached out to the OB Summit facilitation group to see if there was
> interest from that group (to help plan and to facilitate a GA Summit) and
> had planned to attend an OB Summit facilitation review meeting, which was
> scheduled for last Tuesday, at which I was going to follow up my email
> request and (hopefully) get the process started. (Please see the earlier
> email I sent to FWG, about my communication with this group.)
>
> That post-Summit review mtg was cancelled, because many in that Summit
> group opted for showing up at GA for last Tuesday's anti-racism,
> anti-oppression plea.
>
> It would be helpful if folks from the Summit group played a role. It is
> important that FWG not facilitate this GA summit. I will follow up my email
> to the Summit facilitation group to see who wants to help out - I did hear
> from one member, Cynthia Parker, who had expressed interest.
>
> Do others in FWG agree with this approach?
>
> I can not cc FWG on my email to this group, because I do not have
> permission to share those people's email addresses.
>
> I think, at this point, we have two different approaches to planning for
> the Summit.
>
> 1)  FWG set a meeting date and see who from the Summit Facilitation group
> can join us, or
> 2)  Let the Summit group set the first planning meeting date.
>
>
> Maureen - what do you think?   (I ask Maureen because she is a "member" of
> both FWG and the Summit Facilitation group.)
>
>
> Greg
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 4:04 PM, Elias Feghali <efeghali at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I've been reading all of the great and heartfelt emails going back and
>> forth about problems with GA. *Rather than dive into those issues in
>> this thread, I want to ask whether someone could provide an update as to
>> whether a GA summit is happening*, and if it's not, what can be done to
>> make it happen?
>>
>> No serious problems can be resolved in emails or in FWGs. I'm eager for
>> us all to come together in an extended session to make real progress in
>> improving facilitation.
>>
>> Eli
>>
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