ECA Madrid: EMBODIED COMMONS workgroup - Health, Food, Land, Recreation

P.S. If people want to work on the Embodied Commons more generally can someone please start a separate thread making that clear. There is a thread for additional events at Madrid https://www.loomio.org/d/BvXZIf1Q/events-in-and-around-the-eca-madrid

Perhaps it would be good to create a loomio sub-group for each of the work-groups. That would be also useful to open the discussions of the work-groups in Madrid for remote participants and also for follow up discussions post-Madrid...

I fully agree but I think that ECA is not using paid version of Loomio and not sure if subgroups can not be created now and with which limitations... @nicoleleonard please correct me if I am wrong and maybe consider to propose for ECA governing costs to include budgeting this for Loomio in future - OK?

I think remote particpation for the Madrid ECA is being discussed elsewhere but I think it is an excellent idea to have it - I am not sure about if it should be in Loomio though or something more suited. I think follow up discussion post Madrid could happen here. I think we need to create a distinction between Loomio threads in order to come to a decision about something including voting and a Loomio thread that serves other functions such as introductions or discussions. (or if indeed they might be better elsewhere)

Dear Tim, Nicole, Madrid ECA-registered-workshop participants and any others who might come to this thread (this way or another) - I think it is obvious that without people committing time to pre-event participation, then also some focus on how Loomio functions (or not) and finally and most importantly how on-line work communication functions (be it email etiquette or forum posting in setups like loomio) not much will be done. We are 3 weeks away from event and it is last moment to self-organize online work model.

Loomio is far from perfect tool for general web discussions as it is built for casting votes and very very specific discussion on arguments around given voting options...now we are faaaar from such use. Actually the only reason why Loomio is/could be considered for this more generic discussion used is because one of its interfaces (alternative to web) is email - so it might look like a mailing-list-server, but in reality it is not quite the mailing-list-server setup you would want to have :-/ So by not having clear methods of operations and communication this feels like everyone is either inclined to remain passive observer or is randomly doing off-topic posts and/or private one-to-one communication.

My proposal for sorting this chicken-and-egg situation with Loomio is to have an urgent meeting in next 2 days (including maybe purchasing paid Loomio subscription - needed for subgroups creation) and then decide on if and how Loomio will be used towards Madrid event and try to inform all participants on clear protocol.

Best Zeljko

Thanks Zeljko for the clear words. Just read an interesting document, the Guidance Notes to the Co-operative Principles: https://ica.coop/sites/default/files/publication-files/ica-guidance-notes-en-310629900.pdf
Here is a quote that I found relevant for ECA (page 16 in the document):
"... one of the biggest challenges facing co-operatives in implementing the Principle of Democratic Member Control is creating a culture that welcomes and encourages debate, rather than stifles it. Lively challenging debate should be seen as a sign of a healthy democracy that needs to be reflected in the more formal parts of a co-operative’s democratic structure...." The current model is - as you observed - rather passive and random. I tried to activate the Participatory Tools for Democracy work-group, I even wrote emails to the people that signed up for this work-group, but to not much effect. I guess it would be important that the "point" people step up the effort and facilitate the discussion. I also think the discussion of which platform is best can be eternal; so for the moment I would stick with the previous decision on Loomio and make it work as good as possible.

When you say "...to have an urgent meeting in next 2 days" - who should join and where should it take place? Here in loomio? Or...?

Hi Zeljko and others

I agree with you Loomio is at the moment being used for more purposes than it was designed for which was primarily for voting /decision making purposes. What did not help as well, was confusing this sub-thread on the Embodied Commons as a specific Madrid ECA workshop which is what it was set up to be by Nicole and a general topic about the Embodied Commons which is what happened when the poll was set up.

I do not think we have time now to rejig our online communications - Loomio can also function as a way to have conversations between everyone in the group and as a way for people to discuss things.

I am sending out now an introduction by email so people can communicate via Loomio. Lets see how it works for now.

Best

Tim

I'll be present at the ECA workshops :-) Just a question about facilitation, it is not clear to me what are the aims of those workshops : is it to map and see the connexions of the various commons working on this field ? How they "make ecosystem together" ? And see what synergies can be found, in terms of political influence (local / european, what political vision do we defend all together?) or fundings (can we pretend to bigger and ambitious fundings all together ?) or mutualizing ressources if we see overlaps in what we do ? Will there be a facilitator for the workshops ? Which facilitation method has been thought about ? I don't have so much time for the preparation phase, but I think if we want to be efficient while working together we need to prepare that carefully ;-)

For me there are three main questions :
- what do we expect from those workshops ? Deliverable ?
- who is the facilitator ?
- what is the facilitation design ?
That's the main things we should work on IMHO before we meet in real life :-)

@malashierbas wrote in the thread for the "Participatory Tools for Democracy" work group following: ".... According to this different experiences, for the ECA in Madrid we are developing a methodology that, alas, relies very much on the actual participation of people in the workshop, and that we hope would be dynamic - not based only presentations - and would allow cross-pollinization - mixing theme discussion with group discussions. I am afraid that, in this frame, it is not possible - technological or methodologically - to think of remote participation."
From this it seems that Ana would be the right person to give some answers to your questions.