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.
The Special Place of Blocking in Consensus
For many groups working by consensus “blocking” is a dirty word. To help rehabilitate the block in consensus, over the next couple of weeks we’re reproducing 3 of Tree Bressen’s articles on the role of the block in consensus decision-making. Enjoy! The Special Place of Blocking in Consensus Funny as it may seem, people who […]
Creativity in Action
Just in from some friends: Creativity in Action is an experimental workshop hosted by the D.I.Y. Collective, Wednesday 11th July – Friday 13th July. This is a two-and-half-day experimental workshop based out of a London location. From 6pm Wednesday 11th July till 8pm Friday 13th July a group of curious and adventurous beings will: Experiment […]
crowd-wise.org
We’ve blogged about Crowd Wise, a consensus voting technique, on a number of occasions on this site. And indeed, Perry Walker its originator is one of Rhizome’s members nowadays. For those keen to learn more crowd-wise.org is now up and running complete with several case studies to show you how it’s worked in practice in […]
Linking arms. Stopping arms
Lat month Adam and I co-facilitated an nonviolent direct action training for activists from the Stop The Arms Fair coalition. These dedicated folk work hard to pop the bubble that surrounds the arms trade. You know the one – it allows those that work for the trade to pretend that it’s all about our defence, […]
Occupy London – series of community themed assemblies
Occupy London are inviting people to a series of assemblies to discuss ideas, experiences, visions and strategies that will make better social living a practise. Everyone is welcome, especially those working at the grassroots, as activists or within organisations and community groups. The sessions will take place every Saturday afternoon from 2 – 4pm on the […]
deep:black
Just a quick heads up about deep:black’s new blog. deep:black are a fellow co-op whose work overlaps ours. In their own words: “deep:black works using the arts to create dialogue, develop communication and build connection across difference and diversity.” If that sounds like your kind of thing, take a look at their workshop programme.
The challenge of co-operation
Just got off the phone to Richard at Seeds for Change. We had a long and useful conversation that ranged far and wide. Lots to think about. One theme we kept returning to was the challenge of co-operation. Seeds is a network of 2 co-ops, Rhizome is a co-op. There’s also Tripod and a newly […]
Gaining power: challenges facing activists
National Coalition For Independent Action (NCIA) is joining forces with National Community Activists Network (NatCAN) to bring together activists to look seriously, and not so seriously, at the question of power and how to challenge the status quo. Where and When Thursday 19th July 2012 Resource for London, 356 Holloway Road, London N7 6PA FREE […]
What's your agenda?
Later this month the Rhizome co-operative will gather for a 2 day meeting. 6 out of the 7 current Rhizome folk will be there plus 3 others who may well sign up by the end of the 2 days. We’re scattered across the UK. Of the 9 folk attending 2 are from Manchester, 2 from […]
Facilitation training: the importance of practising your practice
My experience this week with members of the Detention Forum, working with fellow Rhizome member Hannah Clayton, crystallised some emerging thoughts about facilitation in general and facilitation training in particular. First, I feel that some facilitation training sees facilitation as a discipline, as a body of knowledge to be passed on, albeit that that knowledge […]
Formal consensus and Crowd Wise
Perry and I were delivering a day’s training on consensus for Talk Action yesterday. The day covered an overview of formal consensus (often simply called consensus or consensus decision-making) and an introduction to Crowd Wise. We rounded off with a ‘clinic’ – collectively troubleshooting a consensus-related issues for one of the group and trying to […]
A forum for consensus
Hannah and I were at work with the Detention Forum on earlier this month, facilitating a 5 hour session on consensus decision-making. The Forum is “a loose network of over 30 NGOs who are working on immigration detention issues” and as such is evolving its processes all the time. The co-ordination group are trying to […]
Ayanna – workshops to nourish and inspire
Just in from a friend of ours: The workshops/film nights aim to provide a nourishing and inspiring space, a time to slow The workshops/film nights aim to provide a nourishing and inspiring space, a time to slow down and breathe, to learn something new and have some fun. Most of them are being held at […]
mediating and meaning
Mediated a dispute between members of a core group in a direct action group. The agreement was to keep the content and fact of the mediation confidential, so I can only talk about the process without any reference to the members of the group or the group. One member of the group, that had agreed […]
Civil disobedience, hard work and time
http://kindertrespass.com/index.asp?ID=37
We tend to forget how long it takes for the dreamed of, planned for, struggled for change to actually take place. It is very easy for activists to feel disheartened and defeated after the early exhilarating stages of a campaign, or the excitement of an act of civil disobedience. It’s a long slog and much of it is just sheer bloody minded persistence. The anniversary this week of the mass trespass on Kinder Scout in 1932 reminds us how very long it can take. I don’t just mean the 68 years from 1932 till the Countryside and Rights of Way Act was passed in 2000, but all the centuries of struggle by working people, the poor and the dispossessed for equal rights to the land, appropriated by the wealthy and powerful for leisure and profit. From the Peasants’ Revolt in the 14th century, which conjures the names of Wat Tyler and John Ball, through to Wynstanley and the True Levellers in the 17th, radical writers such as Blake and Thomas Paine in the 18th, and the work of Victorian liberals and radicals who founded the Open Spaces Society
Autism and the social change group: Part 2
After the workshop I participated in at the end of March, I’ve continued a dialogue with Caroline from Insider Autism Training. We spoke about ways in which the training could have been made more experiential. That led us to the question of “experiencing what?”. Experiencing autism is clearly not possible, and we agreed that there’s […]
Occupying direct action
I spent Sunday morning in Southend-on-Sea at the Occupy National Conference. I was there running a short (2 hour) nonviolent direct action (NVDA) workshop, as well as getting a feel for this particular moment in Occupy UK. Whilst you can’t satisfy everyone in every workshop, the energy, engagement, and conversation afterwards spoke to a decent […]
Trainer as social engineer?
It’s been a funny few months in terms of feedback on training I’ve been involved in facilitating. In February myself and a co-facilitator received one of the most affirming pieces of feedback I’ve ever received. To paraphrase we were told that we didn’t teach the group anything, but they learnt loads. Music to the ears […]
The power of provocation
The UK government lurches from crisis to crisis. They announce a policy initiative. There’s an immediate and fierce backlash. And then they fudge something to avoid too much humiliation whilst letting the powers that be go about business as usual. Hardly what I’d describe as ‘government’. However on one level I like the aspect of […]
Giving Up on Environmentalism
The destructive power of hope? The futility of environmentalism? Sustainability as preserving the world we know, a “project designed to keep this culture — this lifestyle — afloat”? Dave Pollard’s latest post Giving Up on Environmentalism over at how to save the world, in which he extensively quotes Paul Kingsnorth is a challenging read, but well, […]
Spring into action
The 99% Spring has started. From 9th to 15th of April, US activists will: “gather across America, 100,000 strong, in homes, places of worship, campuses and the streets to train ourselves in non-violent action and join together in the work of reclaiming our country.” http://the99spring.com So what about here in the UK? What if you’re […]
Rhizome: another year in the life
Rhizome is two years old! This year has been the year of cuts, Occupy, the Dale Farm eviction, riots in the streets of several UK cities and so much more,an interesting year to be doing the work we do. The biggest development in our second year as Rhizome was our expansion from just 2 to […]
Action tactics – going full circle
I noticed a link coming into the Rhizome blog from another blog talking about the recent UK census and resistance to it. The author and some of the folk they quote liken the tactic of messing up the form to ensure it had to be read by a person rather than a machine and generally […]
Dealing with power
DEALING WITH POWER Anti-oppression training and large-group work An advanced training for trainers with George Lakey, Manchester, UK. 20-22 July 2012 Legendary US activist trainer George Lakey is making a rare visit to the UK, where he helped to train a generation of nonviolence trainers in 1970. As well as increasing the number of training […]
Resisting NHS reforms – join the 'health resistance'
A few weeks ago I was talking to activist and organiser friends about the National Health Service “reforms”. We talked about what civil disobedience might look like for healthcare professionals and others working for the NHS. Given that even then it looked likely the government’s bill would be passed, we talked about how an individual […]
Securing our civil liberties
The UK government has plans to extend its powers over email surveillance. According to Big Brother Watch: In an unprecedented step that will see Britain adopt the same kind of surveillance as China and Iran, police and intelligence officers are to be handed powers to monitor people’s messages online. Now plenty of other, better informed […]
Autism and the social change group
I spent the afternoon in a workshop on autism and social change groups. The trainers were all on the autistic spectrum (diagnosed or undiagnosed), as were several other participants. The rest was a motley crew of activists and activist facilitators like myself – or NT’s as I now know that we’re known (neuro-typicals). As well […]
Peace News Summer Camp 2012
It’s that time of year again when we plug the Peace News Summer Camp, not just because we plan to be there running workshops and facilitating discussion sessions. It’s a great gathering: purposeful but unpretentious, relaxed, small enough that you get to build relationships, and the programme’s good too. See you there?
Occupy London – 3 weeks of Truth
This from the latest National Community Activist Network update (well worth a read – why not sign up to NatCAN?). I’ve reproduced the full article…. Occupy London – 3 weeks of Truth, by Robin Smith Few understand what made St Paul’s a model of a society that could really sustain itself – me neither until […]
Strategic direct action – new guide
Tools for Change have uploaded a new Ruckus Society guide to strategic direct action. An initial glance says it looks promising – accessible, well formatted and coherent with case studies to boot.
Facilitating from privilege
I’ve commented before that training around power and privilege in groups and society has been gathering momentum in activist circles here in the UK. We’re lagging sadly behind our peers in the States and elsewhere, but at least it’s happening. I’ve been consciously building elements of this work into my group-work trainings for a while […]
Take the flour back….
The campaign against a resurgence of GM crop trials in the UK is gathering pace. If you missed out on the action the first time around, now’s your chance. So dust off your gardening gloves and take a look at the Take the flour back website for details of the action.
Spokescouncils – learning from Stop New Nukes: Part 2
I was back at Hinkley power station this weekend for the Fukushima anniversary action. Actions at Hinkley have a new poignancy – the site for the new and much bigger Hinkley C reactor has now been cleared, despite valiant efforts to hinder it (a tree-sit and occupation of some farm buildings), and G4S security guards […]
Hearing voices: activists engaging communities
Yesterday I was facilitating at the regular meeting of the Building Activist Networks Forum. The theme of the session was supporting activists in engaging with their communities. To be precise, I was co-facilitating – with Naveed from Oxfam UK. Right from the start we identified that all we could do in the time that we […]
Strategy: Hold the front page!
I had the pleasure of working with trainers from Belgian Peace network Vredesactie recently, as part of the work I do for Turning The Tide. Steve, my TTT co-facilitator, and I travelled to Ghent to support a group in delivering strategy workshops to activist groups. We were quite clear from the start that it was […]
The perfect group? A dangerous fantasy?
The MindTools website is a useful source of all kinds of resources, articles and ideas. I’ve just read the latest e-newsletter on beating self-sabotage which has a great article on perfectionism in it. Read the article and then translate it from the business world to grassroots groups. Recognise any situations? Here’s a few of the […]
On being a facilitator
In early February, Matthew and I delivered a facilitation training for staff at the World Development Movement, which had developed out of a Rhizome discussion last November with all seven facilitators. We had talked then about the difficulties of delivering meaningful training in a few hours, a single day. We understand why this happens – […]
Empowered communities
A month ago I started watching this on Casper ter Kuile’s blog. I soon realised it was a powerful video, but have only just found time to finish it. We don’t hear enough about community organising in the UK activist scene. Much of the activist movement is about mobilising people who, in the grand scheme […]
Beautiful Trouble
I’ve been sent quite a few links to the Waging Nonviolence blog of late (thanks – you know who you are), and whilst meandering through saw a link to Beautiful Trouble – a new toolkit in book and accompanying website format. Looks like it could be worth a read… If we get to it soon, […]
Group as expert
I’ve just debriefed with Denise and Annie, fellow Turning The Tide folk . This weekend we co-facilitated a residential on “effective group working” as part of a year-long course that TTT offer. A lot was learnt – including about the vulnerability of the facilitation role as well as the need to sometimes tell a group […]
Another year older…..are we any wiser?
Rhizome’s second birthday is more or less upon us, depending on how you measure these things. It also means I’ll be writing up what passes for an annual report here in the rhizosphere. So before we blow out the candles and tuck into a slice of cake, what do you want to know? What would […]
The 99% Spring
100,000 Americans trained in nonviolent direct action? It’s not a fantasy. It’s planned for 9-15th April. Thinking that we need the same thing here in the UK? You’re not alone, and the conversation is in a fairly advanced stage. What it lacks at the moment is funds. So, in all seriousness, if you have a […]
This is where the battle to stop a new generation of nuclear power stations will be won or lost
The campaign against the building of Hinkley C nuclear power station is hotting up. Campaigners have occupied land that’s due to be cleared for the new site. The campaign is about far more than the building of one new generation nuclear power station. To quote the short video below “This is where the battle to […]
Learning facilitation from Delia Smith
Charles Leadbeater, an expert on innovation, once wrote that just as Adam Smith was the key to the eighteenth century, so the key to our era is Delia Smith. Delia, he said, is the example par excellence of how we can learn say cookery from recipes, whereas our ancestors mainly learned from their mothers’ knee. […]
Counterpower – an interview with Tim Gee
Last year saw the publication of Tim Gee’s book Counterpower: Making Change Happen. We asked him to share his thoughts on the blog and here they are: Why write the book now? Does the timing reflect your observations about the state of the social movements right now? I began researching the book a few days […]
Right to Refuse to Kill – job opportunity
War Resisters’ International is looking for a Right to Refuse to Kill programme worker (full-time) The RRTK worker will share the responsibility for organising work from WRI’s international office and have specific responsibility for running WRI’s international work on conscientious objection and military recruitment. A commitment to pacifism, good computer skills, and language skills are […]
Standing up for our rights
The language of human rights has proved powerful for community activists seeking to change conditions and challenge unequal power relations in many parts of the world. From national NGOs working locally in communities like Treatment Action Campaign to the Deep Sea Community in Kenya to the creation of Human Rights Cities – people are expressing the […]
Nonviolent direct action and action consensus – training materials
Earlier this year we worked on some example training materials for Stop New Nuclear to use in preparation for their Fukushima anniversary blockade of Hinkley power station. There are trainings planned for Oxford, Leicester and Birmingham, and hopefully more in the pipeline. It seemed a shame to use the materials for just one campaign, so […]
Camcorder Guerillas: Video Training
Thanks to Anna at Changemakers for bringing this to our attention, so we could bring it to yours…. FREE VIDEO TRAINING FOR ACTIVISTS : Are you involved in a grassroots or community struggle? Learn how to make short online films to boost your campaign. Book your place by February 10th! Camcorder Guerillas are running a […]
Campaigning with Common Cause
This in from friend of Rhizome, Casper ter Kuile: Download these details as a pdf