Rhizome Blog
Here you’ll find stories of successful organising, training and facilitation, what’s new in these areas already helping us build the world we want, news of Rhizome’s activities, and news of upcoming events. Have a browse or use the search for interesting topics we’ve written on. Please do feel free to comment and leave your own reflections – we feel that we’re on this learning journey, together.
HOWTO – enhance your organisation
We think most organisations can be better at what and how they do things. We specialist in decision making by consensus, conflict resolution, facilitation and participative ways of working, co-op development and a host of other relational skills. We recognise that most of our potential collaborators are skint or exist on shoestring budgets. As we […]
Truth and reconciliation in consensus
Nelson Mandela has been laid to rest. Countless words have been written about his life and his legacy, and with good cause. I’m not going to try to add too many more to that count. What’s clear is that he (and those around him) inspired a nation to act against expectations, against self-interest, for a […]
Solidarity Activism Workshop
Solidarity Activism Workshop, Sunday 1st December 2013, 12-6, Leeds University Union A space for reflection on our experiences of solidarity activism and working mindfully with communities facing oppression/opposing environmental destruction. This workshop is not a training. It will not tell you ‘how to do solidarity activism in ten easy steps’ but it will allow experienced […]
Of the people, by the people, for the people?
Democracy’s a word that can divide almost any group of people. What does it mean? Is what we do now real democracy? Is there one right way? Here’s a nice video (4 mins) about one town’s experiment with participatory democracy. What do you reckon? hat tip to NatCAN
A lurch to the dwight
Our journey through the community that is the Rhizome blog wouldn’t be complete without talking to the blogger Dwight Towers. We’ve interacted with his blog, and he with ours for almost as long as we’ve been around. Here’s a brief interview: It’s obvious from your blog that you’re an avid reader. So… your favourite dystopian […]
Participation, prison and parlour games – an interview with Adrian Ashton
We recently asked readers of the blog to become contributors. Not only are we fascinated to find out who you all are, what you do with your time, and why, but we thought you’d enjoy sharing the discovery. It’s always a risk asking for participation – even from a community who in one way or […]
Kind words from Labour Behind the Label…
Ilana, from Labour Behind the Label, kindly sent us a blog post with their perspective of the session we facilitated for them a few weeks ago (which we wrote briefly about a few posts ago). Always great to hear directly from the people we work with on our blog – positive and not so positive […]
Just what do you want?
The Rhizome blog’s been kind of quiet of late. One thing that might change that is you. We asked ourselves what was stopping us posting, and for some of us it’s as simple as not knowing enough about who you are and what you want. So why not tell us? In fact, why not use […]
Workshop: Diversity & Oppression in Grassroots Organising: 15-17 November
Diversity & Oppression in Grassroots Organising. Seeds for Change workshop 15th – 17th November (Buckinghamshire, 25mins from London) 28th Feb – 2nd March (Leeds) “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time; but if you are here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” Lila […]
Training activists with Labour Behind the Label
A few weeks ago I spent a weekend with Labour Behind the Label a Bristol based co-operative who campaign to support garment workers. They focus on efforts worldwide to improve working conditions and campaign on a range of issues, from getting compensation for the survivors of the Rana Plaza disaster to fighting for a living […]
Mainstreams, privileges and exclusion in radical groups
The folk over at German based trainingskollektiv have written a detailed reflection on the week-long ‘Facilitating Change’ event which took place earlier this year. They’ve called it Mainstreams, privileges and exclusion in radical groups and just translated it into English. It’s worth a read and you don’t need to have been there to find some value […]
Virtual facilitation
I recently found myself facilitating a two day meeting for a large campaigning organisation where the group were discussing strategies for a potential new campaign. Most of the participants were in the room, but three joined us by video from two different locations. I was a little apprehensive about this as I have never facilitated […]
I say, I say, I say…
I-statements. To quote Wikipedia: “I-messages are often used with the intent to be assertive without putting the listener on the defensive. They are also used to take ownership for one’s feelings rather than implying that they are caused by another person. An example of this would be to say: “I really am getting backed up […]
Sustaining Resistance 2014 – deadline 31st August; fully funded places
Sustaining Resistance, Empowering Renewal 26 April – 4 May 2014 This training offers personal and collective tools to make our activism more effective by supporting us to: – stay in activist work for the ‘long haul’ by avoiding burn out through creating personal and group sustainability and adding continuity to our movement building, – ensure […]
Consensus: if it ain't broke, don't fix it?
Over at Organizing Change, Drew Serres is writing about the problems of consensus and how to fix them. It’s good stuff and I’d urge you to read it and join the conversation. He shares some of the problems of contemporary consensus and offers five thoughts on dealing with those problems. Critiques of contemporary consensus are […]
Crowd Wise brings out the wisdom of the crowd: the case of Transition Town Lewes
The curse of the consultant is to be forever moving on, often never hearing the results of his or her work. So it was a great pleasure to hear from a couple of people who had been involved in something I helped with in 2010, all the more so as they were so appreciative: I […]
The Facilitator's Dilemma
In Rhizome we have recently been sharing with each other the work we have done and how we felt about it. Common to us all of course is working with, facilitating, training, supporting groups of people. Some groups have many tensions unexpressed within them , power struggles, individuals feeling excluded or disregarded, mistrust, misunderstood or […]
essentials of conflict resolution
Matthew and I have been doing some work with a food coop; helping voluntary team leaders review and add to their conflict management tools. We’ll shortly be running our third workshop. Here’s what we work with people on – Aims To develop the understanding and application of appropriate states of mind (consensual, non-judgemental, solution focussed) […]
Time: the currency of social change
“What links the Spanish 15-M protest movement with a Time Bank in West Yorkshire?” An intriguing question answered in the post The edge between protest and prototyping solutions over on the REconomy Project blog. Faced with high unemployment in Spain, ridiculously high in young people, time banks have come into their own. To quote the […]
Dwight Towers has been envisioning more participatory formats for events s/he’s attended. The latest reads well and suggests some easily achievable tweaks to the usual ‘sage on the stage’/ ‘chalk and talk’ events we still attend and invite others to attend. We’d love to hear your forays into formats new. What worked? What obstacles (internal […]
The Beginners Guide to Consent
The following came round an email list I lurk on, so I visited the website and am very glad I did so. Take a look yourselves. I’d redcommend the interview with Oxford based activist and facilitator Clare Cochrane. Any way back to the main business of this post: “The Beginners Guide to Consent is a […]
Rhizome reviewed – "Decisions, decisions, decisions"
We usually invite those we work with to write a post for this blog. They don’t always find the time. But the folk at Hackney Cohousing Project have reflected on the work Perry and I did with them back in March on their own blog. I’ve pasted it below for ease: “As an informal group […]
Is your organisation agile?
We’ve mentioned Holacracy a few times of late and explored how it relates to formal consensus decision-making because Rhizome’s Nick Osborne has been exploring it in-depth. He’s now offering a series of one day introductions to Holacracy through Agile Organisation.Over the next 18 months workshops will take place around the UK and Ireland in such […]
A Facilitator in Conflict
Conflict. It sees to be the thread that’s connecting most of the work I’ve done this year so far. I seem to be naturally adept at getting into conflict. Less so at getting back out of it. So facilitating conflict has always been something I’ve simultaneously been anxious about, and something I’ve been keen to […]
Exploring Shared Values
Craig Freshley’s latest Good Group Tip popped into my inbox this morning. As ever, a useful reminder of what makes a good group. This time Craig talks about shared values – something we also talk about from time to time. He says: In principle, values are those things most important to us, the things we value. […]
Consensus Handbook
Our friends at Seeds for Change have compiled their excellent briefings on consensus decision-making into one place – a new book on consensus and facilitation: A Consensus Handbook – Co-operative decision-making for activists, co-ops and communities Here’s what they say about it: After decades of facilitating, years of planning, months of hard work and days […]
Sustaining Resistance, 2013
Tools for Effective-Sustainable Activism,12-20 October 2013, Catalan Pyrenees !! Deadline to apply for fully funded places, including travel: 20 April 2013 !! This residential training, hosted in a wild part of the Catalan Pyrenees, offers personal and collective tools to make our activism more effective. Sustaining Resistance helps us: stay in it for the long […]
Campaign Bootcamp
Campaign Bootcamp is a week-long training programme for young campaigners. They’re looking for young people who care about social change, want skills training, mentoring and are ready to work hard. The first Campaign Bootcamp will run from 16th-21st June about 30 minutes outside of London. For more info and full application details -check out the […]
A voice from the edge (fund)
The Edge Fund has just completed its first round of funding – supporting 28 grassroots groups. Here’s a quick interview with Joe, one of the Edge Fund community: What’s the vision of The Edge Fund? Our long term goal is to achieve systemic social change. This is not an easy task and will have to […]
CounterAct
A new resource for activists in Australia is now up and running – CounterAct is “a new project launched to support communities in taking effective, creative, strategic nonviolent direct action on issues of environmental and social justice.” We look forward to learning from them and collaborating wherever possible!
Facilitating Change: Changing Facilitation?
On Thursday I got an early train to Manchester to meet with Adam, Kathryn and Lucy – my ‘Facilitating Change’ co-facilitators before travelling to Wales together the following day. On Monday evening I got the train back from the event – a little battered and bruised from the experience, oddly exhilarated too, and very tired. […]
Common values, Common Cause
I spent a stimulating day at the Common Cause Assembly in London on Friday discussing the case for working with values and what this might mean in practice. Common Cause is an initiative led by the Public Interest Research Centre that grew out of a report published by a coalition of NGOs in 2010 that makes the […]
Facilitating Change
Tomorrow I head to Manchester to meet up with my 3 co-facilitators for the Facilitating Change event. Facilitating Change is an exploration of the values that underpin and support effective facilitation. It’s an antidote to the view of facilitation that’s all “tools and techniques”. For a while the event had a nickname – a working […]
Funding from the edge to the edge
We’ve mentioned the Edge Fund before. Time to mention them again as their second funding round has just opened and decisions will very soon be taken as to who gets what from their first round – in fact the decision will be taken on Saturday. So who are the Edge Fund and what do they […]
Expert and expertise
I’m wary of the role of expert. It has connotations of power over a group. And let’s be honest there’s a part of my ego that would love to fill the role of expert for the affirmation it might bring. Expertise I’m more comfortable with – it’s just a statement of competence. The feedback from […]
Consensus: on being right
Perry like’s stories and uses them to great effect in his facilitation and training. We co-facilitated this past weekend and decided the time had come to post some of them on the blog. So from time to time we’ll add a story or saying that offers insight into the process of coming to consensus. Here’s […]
Confidence, community, consolidation…..and cop-outs
It’s been a busy week. The last 8 days have seen me working with Hannah co-facilitating a days training for Greenpeace volunteer Greenspeakers – building their skills and confidence in their role as public speakers. A few days later I spent an afternoon with Warwick University students helping them prepare for nonviolent direct action on […]
Form an orderly queue (but not a democratic one?)
A few Saturdays ago, Maria and I were at the Springhill Cohousing community facilitating a day on consensus decision-making. One issue arose a few times in both full group and small group sessions. And I don’t think we addressed it adequately. Other issues dominated – more on those another time, perhaps. And the issue? How […]
Liberating structures… holacracy and consensus
I sat up late chatting to Nick Osborne last night. Nick’s recently become a certified practitioner in Holacracy and I wanted to get a better sense of the Holacracy model and ethos. According to holacracy.org: “Holacracy is a real-world-tested social technology for purposeful organization. It radically changes how an organization is structured, how decisions are […]
"What the hell do we do next?"
If you’re part of a group or organisation Rhizome works with, the chances are that you identify yourself as part of the Green Movement in its broadest form. If you’re a trainer or facilitator who read this blog, the chances are that you do a lot, if not all, of their work for that same […]
Presenting issue versus real issue
What I found really interesting is that, for some time now, various conversations between co-workers and with clients have brought one clear issue to the fore. The Co-ops Practitioner networking session on ‘Governance and Participation’ that I facilitated on Tuesday 22nd January raised it yet again. Having worked through a process to define, develop and […]
Strategy……or evolutionary purpose?
We recently blogged about Rhizome’s internal discussions on strategy. Here’s more on one perspective in that discussion: Values are obviously very important in helping people make decisions about how to prioritise one thing over another when there are various options. But to continue the metaphor, if you arrive at any place on a map, and […]
When is a question not a question?
When you don’t leave room for answers to percolate to the surface or you don’t persist with the question if the response isn’t immediate When you signal in all kinds of subtle ways that you’d rather just provide the answer yourself When you abandon the questioning process because the first couple of questions don’t open […]
Strategy…….or Unstrategy (here be dragons!)
Strategy, emerging strategy or unstrategy? 3 approaches the Rhizome coop discussed at our last meeting. We didn’t reach unanimity. We didn’t push for a consensus decision – in the relatively short time we had together it’s unlikely we would have reached consensus anyway. We’ve grown in recent months and at the meeting potential new coop […]
The practice of nonviolent direct action
Saturday’s ‘peaceful resistance’ session for the Combe Haven Defenders went pretty well. We got very practical very early on in the day. Nothing new there, at least not in a nonviolent direct action workshop. But we started with the stuff that’s often seen as more “advanced” – locking on. That’s bike locks, handcuffs and all […]
Defenders, destruction and deja vu
The Combe Haven Defenders are making news in their resistance to the new Bexhill to Hastings link road. I’m getting a strong sense of deja vu. It’s all a bit 1990s – people being evicted from trees, tunnels being built. It’s even being called the Second Battle of Hastings echoing the Third Battle of Newbury […]
How does it feel to co-operate?
Back in June I posted about a conversation on the challenges of co-operation. Last week the conversation continued as 2 facilitators from a number of UK training organisations – London Roots, Seeds for Change Lancaster, Seeds for Change Oxford, Tripod, Turning the Tide, and of course, Rhizome – came together. Most are structured as co-operatives. […]
A Eulogy for #Occupy
Just read Quinn Norton’s A Eulogy for #Occupy at wired.com, via the boingboing blog (hat tip to Marc). It’s a powerful litany of brutality and hope (theirs and ours). It doesn’t shy away from holding up the mirror to how our dynamics mirror those of the 1%. Is that an inevitability? Maybe folk from the […]