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 […]
Rhizome’s a year old! We did our first work in February 2010, and formally incorporated as a co-op in March that year. At the time we took the decision that rather than write policies detailing our ethics and standards we’d borrow from the principles of open source software and adopt a practice of transparency – […]
I’ve had leadership on the mind this week, mainly due to spending some time writing a proposal for some work developing a youth leadership programme for young people involved in the Woodcraft Folk. For some leadership is a dirty word. It’s too closely related to hierarchy. Indeed there’s a moment on many direct actions when […]
Carl and I met this week for a general catch up and planning session. He very kindly made the journey to Leicester and after an early lunch we adjourned to a local cafe and explored a wide range of topics. Naturally we had to cover the mundane stuff like finance, developing this website, publicising our […]
Rhizome’s still fairly new and there are plenty of organisations and networks out there that haven’t heard about us. We’d appreciate your help to change that. We’ve finally got round to producing some publicity materials – a series of 8 postcards with a little bit of info about Rhizome and a funky photo on the […]
I find myself in two minds about the student protest. On the one hand I’m relieved that there’s some resistance and that it’s (at least for now) sizeable. In recent months and years we’ve missed so many opportunities for making change as a nation, and as a species. The immediacy of climate change should have […]
13 participants and 4 facilitators, including myself, gathered in Oxford this weekend for Consensus: in at the deep end a full weekend workshop to explore consensus decision-making in more depth than consensus training usually allows. Of course consensus is a widely used word. You hear it everywhere – the Blairs, Browns and Camerons of this […]
Upcoming workshop: 8th-10th October 2010 Plunge into a deeper exploration of consensus and facilitation in activist movements – whether in small or large groups, networks, open or closed groups. This weekend is for people with experience of facilitating consensus who want to deepen their skills and understanding, to share problems and look for solutions. It […]
For us the key message is that people need to be involved in their own learning. As facilitators we need to bite the bullet and accept that it takes more time, but participation gets better results….
We facilitators can be as guilty as anyone of stereotyping people as ‘difficult’. We write them off and try to either ignore them or marginalise them so they cause as little disruption as possible. But if we take the time to think about what’s going on then we can see that the problem often lies with us, or with the group as a whole.
At Rhizome we believe in making change in the world. Specifically we believe in ordinary people and communities taking control of their lives, environment, and destinies. Change from the grassroots up is powerful and sustainable because it’s rooted in a community. It’s rooted in their values and aspirations. The people making change believe in it. […]
