Assembly Facilitation Guidelines

Lessons from decentralised organising emphasise the value of cultivating clear and flexible processes that help us have better meetings.

While these types of meetings can feel formal compared to our everyday conversations, they can help us cultivate intentional collaborative spaces to practice relating well across our differences.

One of the well-established facilitation tools for creating collaborative spaces is to adopt a structured ‘container’ that starts with an opening circle to signal our move into this deliberate collaborative space and ends with a closing circle that will bring us back to more familiar ways of conversing.

For our initial assemblies, we adopted a structured container to support us all to take turns co-facilitating assemblies. As we co-create our agreements and processes, we can also adjust these Assembly guidelines and add more examples. Since then, we have added additional processes (such as a ‘check-in round’ that includes an opportunity to express ’twinges’).

The Agenda for each Assembly is shared by the Process & Strategy Crew on our Loomio forum in advance (along with any links to current discussion), and meeting notes are added to the same thread within the following week.

Agenda Template

Logistics

Date and time: Venue: Venue mobility accessibility info: Facilitators: Scribe: Intentions: Attendees: Apologies:

Agenda

Opening circle (15min)

Landing: “How are you arriving today?
Acknowledgement of Country
Arriving circle prompt Standing items (20min)
Stars (noticing gratitude)
Twinges (noticing grief)
Pair check-in for reflections Main Agenda (85min + 15 min break)
[time (Name of person presenting)] Item
[time (Name of person presenting)] Item Closing circle (15min)
Confirm participation: opt-ins/outs, buddy and supporter allocations, crew opt-ins, and facilitators and scribe for next Assembly
Leaving circle prompt (variable)
Closing ritual

Facilitation Suggestions

All times are suggestions, you can change and adapt as needed.

Opening circle

Landing prompt

“How are you arriving today?
This is intended to help us open the circle and be grounded and present to Acknowledge Country and participate in the Assembly.

Acknowledgement of Country

Research specific stories or connections between Country, Culture or Community and the theme/s of this Assembly (eg if discussing values, are there any lessons around values to be shared from First People)

Arriving circle prompt

Choose any way to help people arrive for the Assembly, whether a reflective question, a movement, and activity etc. (See the Liberating Structures website for some guidance if needed)

Standing items

Stars

What did you notice that was done well in the Brassica project over the past interval? Who or what were you grateful for?
Reminder: try to name appreciation that are specific to the Brassica project rather than to specific people. For example: I am thankful for the way the last workshop was run - I’d not experienced that type of activity before and I learned a lot; I appreciated the way that my buddy suggested an activity that combined participation-support and a getting-to-know-each-other activity.

Twinges

What did you notice that irked you in the Brassica project over the past interval? What have you been grieving about in relation to the project?
Reminder, if needed: A twinge is something someone is having feelings about big or small, we share these to help us practice bringing even the most minor discomforts or awkwardness into the awareness of the group. The point is to name the twinge and have it witnessed, not fixed or solved. For example: I feel disappointed that there wasn’t much engagement in the social activities I tried to organise; or I felt uncertain about whether or not to comment on discussion thread about our values because I found the instructions confusing and didn’t know how to ask for clarifications

Pair check-in for reflections

Use pair check-ins for reflections of the last interval, what went well, what didn’t, what would you like to do differently next interval, how was your participation, etc.
Sharing-context prompt: “Thinking about things that will impact your well-being and focus between now and the next assembly, please share how you are feeling about your capacity to participate in the Brassica Collective (along with any relevant context you’d like others to be aware of)”

Main agenda

Check in with the people bringing agenda items on if they’d like to facilitate that. If not, choose a faciltiation approach that you think suitable - the Liberating Structures website has some guidance on different types of potential activities https://www.liberatingstructures.com/

Example Main Agenda Items:

Presentation, clarification-questions, and sense-check of a proposal by the Solidarity Crew for a collective-action in support of the Save Public Housing Collective (30min)
Discussion and Sense-check of upcoming decision proposal to adopt amendments to the conduct agreement (40 min)
Facilitated activity using rounds of the 1-2-4-all facilitation pattern to explore possible ’themes’ for different houses within the collective (25 min)
Facilitated activity exploring the critical uncertainties of our project - 100 min
Facilitated activity to help us calibrate our values as they relate to this project - part 1 (30 min)

Closing circle

Confirm participation: opt-ins/outs, buddy allocations, crew opt-ins, and facilitators and scribe for next Assembly

Time for people to fill in radicalise if not done already, get someone to run the buddy allocations at the same time then announce, ask for a facilitator and scribe for next Assembly. Leaving circle prompt (variable)
A final reflective question, a movement, or activity to ease-us out of the circel Closing ritual
Choose any way to help people wrap up and close the circle for the Assembly and re-enter their broader contexts

Communication Tools Guidelines for Non-participants