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.
Facilitating Change: Supporting Effective & Sustainable Action Groups
Facilitating Change: Supporting Effective and Sustainable Action Groups A 7 day residential workshop in rural Wales, 15th-22nd March 2013. Effective group-work and high quality decision-making. That’s what we all long for, right? Yet bad process is rife in our grassroots action groups and can lead to a lack of trust and respect, frustration, resentment, burnout […]
Group as nation state: newcomer as immigrant
Ever travelled to another country or culture? For some it’s exhilarating, exciting, full of interest and new experience. For others it stressful, full of uncertainty and the potential to offend. Visiting a partners family for the first time can provide a similar experience – especially if it’s for a significant event or festival. You thought […]
How many trainers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Actually the question I’m pondering should be “how many minutes do we need to switch on the lightbulb in the minds of those we train?”. Jo wrestled with this question recently as she wrestled with delivering a short workshop. I spent Saturday afternoon delivering another very short workshop for Greenpeace Network Co-ordinators. The topic was […]
Rhizome, Oxfam, and the power of facilitation
Here’s a guest post from Naveed Chaudhri, Activism Team Leader, Oxfam Campaigns: Oxfam is planning to pilot a new annual campaigning event, and we recently decided to ask our activist network for help in working out what it could look like. Staff had already been through a rigorous innovation process, and we wanted to consult […]
Our Energy Future – Transition Somerset
On October 20th, in Taunton, I facilitated an event called ‘Our Energy Future’ for Transition Somerset. I was keen to do so because it gave me a chance to try out four scenarios about our responses to peak oil and climate change. To start with, I acknowledged, but then ignored, two scenarios at either extreme: […]
Storming into action
I’m a firm believer in the power of experience, of doing, in learning. Nothing new there – it’s pretty standard practice nowadays and variations of experiential learning cycles abound. For me it’s about emotional engagement. I can learn without doing. I can learn from books, videos, presentations and all that jazz. But it’s sometimes hard […]
Oh, time it is a precious thing…
Having limited time to deliver a workshop focuses the mind wonderfully. What can actually be achieved, in terms of getting people thinking differently and then doing differently, if you only have 60 minutes? This was the situation for a short capacity building workshop for LeedsTidal at their Crisis Opportunity event in late October. If it […]
games for activists and non-activists
Inspired in large part by Augusto Boal’s Games for Actors and Non-Actors and Improv practice, we proposed a games workshop to Co-operatives UK for their Big Fun Pod at last week’s International Co-op Conference. Rather than writing a reflective piece, I’m just going to describe what we did and provide some pointers for readers who […]
Learning to co-operate?
There’s loads of valuable support out there for anyone wanting to start up a co-op. It’s certainly easier than it was in 1992 when, along with 2 others, I started the process of co-founding the first co-op of my working life. But even now, 20 years later, the focus is still primarily on the ‘business’ […]
Agendas, access and equality
Craig Freshley’s talking common sense again over on his Good Group Tips blog. This time he has words of advice on agenda setting. Amazing how such a simple concept as agreeing what to talk about can be so fraught with politics, power-plays and confusion! He writes: “In principle, if we are a group of relative equals, […]
Cohousing and consensus – in Scotland
There was a time when I thought nothing of spending far longer travelling to deliver a piece of work than actually delivering it. Nowadays my personal sustainability is a little higher on the agenda so it’s far more of a rarity. Last weekend I made an exception and travelled to Fife to run a consensus […]
The agony of group decision-making
The UK Cohousing Network recently teamed up with us at Rhizome to put on a consensus decision-making training in Birmingham. We’ve extended that relationship by starting to write a column for their newsletter offering cohousing groups the opportunity to share their agony (and their ecstasy!) about any aspect of working and meeting in groups, especially […]
Facilitating Footpaths
Last weekend Emily and I co-facilitated another round of Transition Leicester’s Footpaths project’s Facilitator Training. 13 volunteers had come forward to take on the facilitation of small groups of people wanting to explore reducing their carbon footprint. This was the 4th such weekend we’ve run and we’re definitely crafting a stronger training each time. We […]
Conformity and consensus
Just worked through Dave Pollard’s Links for the Month. TheraminTrees YouTube video (a touch under 10 minutes long) summarising studies on group conformity stood out from some other amazing resources. Probably because I’ve been pondering this stuff of late, including in my recent post on certainty: If you don’t have time to watch, here’s a […]
The danger of certainty
I used to be certain. I knew what was right and wrong and wasn’t shy in saying so. Some people might say I’m still that way – very black and white, not enough shades of grey. But to me I’ve changed a lot over the years. I’m positively full of doubt and ambivalence nowadays. And […]
Another one for the blogroll… Natasha Walker
I found a moment to look around for more interesting blogs to read the other day. Why, I have no idea, as I barely keep up with the couple of dozen blogs already in my feed reader. But I’m glad I did as I came across Natasha Walker’s blog with interesting posts on Teaching facilitation […]
Consensus and cohousing
I spent Friday in the company of 17 folk from 6 cohousing projects in the southern half of Wales and England. We came together for a 1 day consensus decision-making workshop that I was delivering for the UK Cohousing Network. Those of us who do a lot of work with the activist community can sometimes […]
Aspects of autism and neurodiversity
Regular readers of this blog may remember a couple of posts we wrote on autism and social change. Here’s a chance to find out more: Aspects of autism and neurodiversity: a brief introduction for social change groups Saturday 22nd September 7.30pm – 8.30pm Old Music Hall 106-108 Cowley Road Oxford Do you want your group […]
Biofuelwatch and Friends of the Earth event – London
Biofuelwatch and Friends of the Earth are pleased to invite you to a FREE half day event: Forests are Not Fuel: The Limits of Bioenergy in Climate MitigationTuesday 9th October, 9.00am – 1pm Quakers at Westminster, Friends Meeting House, London A morning workshop with keynote speakers and group discussions to learn about and explore the environmental and […]
Class, conflict and confusion
George Lakey’s writing about class over at the Waging Nonviolence blog. 3 recent posts have touched on different aspects of class. In Do we mean what politicians mean by ‘class’? he helpfully gives his interpretation of the different classes and the qualities of each, as well as offering some conclusions on the relevance of class […]
One, two, three
Here’s three posts that caught my attention this evening: Viv McWaters talking about compassion and bravery in facilitation Johnnie Moore on Chris Rodger’s ideas about leadership as an emergent and quite ordinary process And FacilitatorU on the need for confusion as a prerequisite for paradigm shifts
The power of peer-to-peer networks
Johnnie Moore’s talking about distributed models of conversation in meetings in his recent blog A few thoughts on peer-to-peer networks in meetings. Sensible stuff that addresses the problem caused by that common belief that “we all need to hear everything“. In consensus decision-making circles that can be magnified into “we all need to decide together […]
Grassroots Campaigning Skills for Activists Conference
Unlock Democracy and the Electoral Reform Society are hosting a Democracy Grassroots Conference for activists from all over the UK to share their ideas, thoughts and skills on effective local campaigning. Grassroots Campaigning Skills for Activists Saturday 20th October 2012 – 10.30am to 5pm Birmingham Voluntary Service Council (BVSC) Building -138 Digbeth, Birmingham They are […]
Conflict in consensus
Over at the Involve blog Annie Quick’s writing about the necessity of conflict in consensus processes. It’s a great post about a real problem that can render the aspirational (and inspirational) nature of consensus meaningless: “In an attempt to avoid polarisation through dead-lock and the name-calling kind of conflicts, there’s a danger that we attempt […]
The importance of great facilitation for inclusivity and progress
The Edge Fund is a new grant-making body run by its members; who include donors, people directly experiencing and challenging injustice and those working in solidarity with them. From the beginning it was important to us that the power usually held by donors was devolved to those who do not usually have that power, but […]
Group culture and fracture lines
It’s an interesting question for facilitators – how much do you challenge an organisation or group’s existing culture, or how much do you simply reflect it back to them? It’s a question I’ve been asking myself again in recent months, a reflective process aided by the peer review and co-facilitating we try to do in […]
Trusting the 'facilitation mind' and not freezing to death
Recently I helped a UK NGO with their decision-making process to choose between five campaign options they’d prepared and consulted their wider network and allies on. It was interesting to try to get the balance right between giving space to hear summaries of options and feedback and ask questions about both, and getting to the […]
From novice to ninja
I’m doing a little bit of helping out with a project to support people through their journey to being better informed and more skilled activists. The project goes by the name of A.S.K for the World | Activist Skills and Knowledge. The premise is simple enough. Help people to asess their own knowledge and abilities […]
Filthy Lucre
It’s a pretty mad world when a project’s sustainability is measured by its ability to bring in a sufficient amount of money. Forget the changes it makes, the experience, wisdom, energy of the people involved. But there you have it folks. That’s capitalism. And sadly here at Rhizome we’re not exempt. Generally folk in our […]
Together we are stronger
I was recently reminded of the Greener Together toolkit I helped write, whilst wearing my Sostenga hat. This toolkit, written for Co-operatives UK, is designed to support individuals taking practical actions that create change, and to guide working with others, taking collective action. When all around us society atomises, alienates and encourages individualism, is it […]
'Peeragogy' and the Spanish Inquisition
Peer-to-peer learning and elicitive models of education have been on my mind of late. As often happens a couple of highly relevant links popped into my inbox (hat tip to Dwight Towers). The first is yet another excellent post from FacilitatorU titles “It’s not the Spanish Inquisition” on curiosity and questions. It invites us to […]
festival of co-operation
“Co-operatives United is an inspiring global festival of events and exhibitions set in Manchester, UK, to mark the close of the United Nations International Year of Co-operatives. With 1 world premiere, 3 exhibitions, 10 conferences, 45 countries, 150 workshops, 200 exhibitors and 10,000 people, Co-operatives United will inform and inspire everyone building an ethical economy […]
Facilitating strategy planning sessions
Last week Carl and I facilitated a strategy planning meeting for a coalition of international NGOs. We started with an agenda we had put together with the meeting organiser. It covered: – discussion on the external context – what the group wanted to see happen – how they could get there finishing with reflection on […]
The Four Roomed House
There are many ways to prepare people at an event for what may happen. The notion I find myself using most often is the four roomed house: This version is 4rooms.gif from loosetooth.com. Those of you with particularly good eyesight may be able to see that it acknowledges a man called Claes Janssen and his […]
What I’m really thinking – the facilitator
I wrote this for the column of this name in the Guardian Saturday magazine. They didn’t use it, so Rhizome blog readers have exclusive access! Phew, they’ve all settled down at their tables. Was I clear enough on what they had to do? At table 3 that bloke in the suit is doing all the […]
organising an event
You might not agree with all the suggestions, but it’s a good starting point for building a checklist and thinking through yours and others intent. There’s more to an event than logistics and structure by Viv McMasters.
Can consensus really be E-A-S-Y?
“What about consensus decision-making in hierarchical organisations?”. It’s a question that comes up regularly. Most of my work around consensus decision-making is in grassroots, flat structured organisations. And that seems to be the natural home of consensus because of the anti-hierarchical values that thrive in that setting. But it’d be foolish to close our eyes […]
How to Kill the Internet
This from the newsletter of our friends at riseup.net: “Around the world, there is a magic formula for passing laws to severely limit internet freedom: claim that you must block and monitor traffic in order to prevent child pornography. If you are like me, your impulse is to stop reading right now. There is nothing […]
nice stuff
Nice printed stuff from our friends at Calvert’s Print Coop – here
complex, conceptual and contentious
Adam and I co-facilitated a two day workshop with an international NGO about it’s future shape and governance. Two proposals were on the table. As we talked about them a tsunami of thoughts, reflections, ideas and contentions emerged. We scribbled furiously and summarised often and the group began to understand a shape to the discussions. […]
Direct action – on a positive note….
I saw a tweet from Holly at Plan To Win (@HollyPTW) about taking nonviolent direct action (NVDA) for something positive. Is the implication that our actions are usually negative ( “No!”… ” Down with….!” … “Stop….!”). Plenty of folk would say so. It may not be exactly what Holly was pondering, but it made me […]
Where’s the tipping point? Where’s the breaking point?
Here’s a taste of the latest NCIA newsletter: “A friend once said to me that my problem was that my ‘circle of concern’ was wider than my ‘circle of influence’. Maybe this explains why I spend so much time being cross? But consider the following. Over the last week I have heard that: Bob Diamond […]
The Infinite Learning Machine
Last weekend I had the good fortune to spend a couple of days at Oakwood, a small low-impact educational project run by friends in Devon. It’s an innovative and exciting place, and the space in which Mrs H and I tied the knot. One of the most recent developments has been the creation of the […]
The Importance of Nurturing Dissent in a Consensus Process
Here’s the last in our series of 3 articles by Tree Bressen. In an age of unrelenting industrialization, there are reminders all around us of the importance of dissent. How much ecological devastation has been wreaked because no one stopped it from happening? Erich Fromm has written, “Human history began with an act of disobedience, […]
Sustaining Resistance, Empowering Renewal
Tools for Effective Sustainable Activism 9 day workshop in the Catalan Pyrenees 10th to 18th November 2012 This workshop, hosted in a wild part of the Catalan Pyrenees, offers personal and collective tools to make our activism more effective. They can help us stay in it for the long haul, creating personal sustainability and adding […]
social media mix
See http://wefeelfine.org/ clustering, grouping, separating, patterning, colourful, applicable?
Handling Inappropriate Blocks in a Consensus Process
Here’s the second in our series of 3 articles by Tree Bressen. Handling Inappropriate Blocks in a Consensus Process When a block arises the situation is typically frustrating and scary for everyone involved. While the received wisdom says that blocking should only happen extremely rarely (doyenne Caroline Estes says that in 45 years of facilitating […]
Rhizome gathering – ten out of ten
It’s not that long ago Rhizome was just Carl and myself. Then last November Emily, Hannah, Jo, Maria and Perry joined as associates. Then there were seven. We met again for 2 days last week in the straw bale room of Hackney City Farm. It was a dynamic meeting that took in Soma games, an […]