Hi @reef-coordination group,
After your request, I reached out to the some groups that I know of in Brussels who work with organisations like ours, to check availability, suitability and cost. I wasn’t able to find anyone who would specifically facilitate a sociocratic meeting, but there are external facilitators for decision-making in small organisations; however, none available at such short notice.
We had a Team Facilitation meeting last night, and discussed the pros and cons of having a non-sociocratic facilitator for this particular meeting. Some of the team members have experience of inviting external facilitators to particular meetings, with mixed results. The external facilitator needs to be extensively briefed, and even then will not completely understand the group’s dynamics, aims and challenges.
It’s also still not clear what the problem is that we’re trying to solve. I imagine it will essentially be a series of selection processes between two or more options, where there will inevitably be a tension between spending money, on the one hand, and sustainability, beauty, etc., on the other. It’ll be challenging, but not necessarily complicated. From talking to various members recently, my personal opinion is that the common spaces decision that we made has given people more appreciation of allowing the group intelligence to guide us and accepting the collective decisions. That may be a wildly optimistic take on things. However, if it turns out that there is an irreconcilable tension between the less affluent and those willing and/or able to spend more on sustainability/beauty/etc., then I’m not sure an external facilitator, sociocratic or otherwise, will be able to resolve that on a decision-by-decision basis.
This post is becoming way longer than I intended :-/
There are still three options on the table:
Option 1, we ask Collectiv-a again. It turns out that Joannes knows them quite well, so they may be more receptive to helping at short notice if he asks them.
Pros
Cheap
Experienced
Cons
Non-sociocratic
May not solve the problem
Option 2, we could ask Sociocracy For All to provide someone. As they have quite pool of trained external facilitators, they could probably provide someone at short notice. But it would not be cheap and would almost certainly involve an online meeting.
Pros
Probably available
Sociocratic
Cons
Probably expensive
Probably online
Option 3, Team Facilitation takes responsibility for the meeting, with input from the Coordination Team, and with more preparation with regard to the various scenarios we might face. Both Joke and Joannes have training and experience in facilitation, decision-making and group dynamics, so we could approach this meeting more as a team and with greater flexibility.
I think the pros and cons are fairly self-evident.
Happy to hear more from you on this topic…
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