Assembly Design / Diseño de asemblea

I'm wondering whether we should be encouraging participants to share their commitment/responsibility to engage in enquiries that are focused on improving their own practice?

Thanks @wrayirwin for providing that overview. and thanks to @karinronnerman1 for the feedback.

To reiterate the rough proposal at this time is to do the following in sequence:

MORNING TO LUNCH

1 - keynote / call to action - Santos
2 - open space style of workshop based on 12 or so topics / issues. These topics will have been set by us (the coordinating group) and will be drawn from the points put forward by Cesar, and the issues / themes emerging from the participatory workshops.
3 - is a big tent report back space needed here? (with translation?)

LUNCH TO FINISH

4 - introduction to imagining preferred futures
5 - articulating preferred vision for what it means to enact knowledge democracy and transform the topic area - based on the same topics and open space format (but perhaps people can move from morning session to a new session if they want)
6 - big tent report back (with translation)
7 - concrete projects and initiatives formulation (possibly put on loomio as proposals)

8 - time to connect on projects / initiates for planning

This is all tentative and will likely change based on our conversations. We are meeting tomorrow via Skype to deepen the design dialog. anyone who wants to be part of this conversation let me know. The time are as follows:

Melbourne, Australia Tue, 16 May 2017 at 10:00 pm AEST

Bogota, Colombia Tue, 16 May 2017 at 7:00 am COT

San Diego, USA Tue, 16 May 2017 at 5:00 am PDT

London, United Kingdom Tue, 16 May 2017 at 1:00 pm BST

Johannesburg, South Africa Tue, 16 May 2017 at 2:00 pm SAST

if you want to be part of this add me to your Skype contacts: global-eyes

thanks everyone

jose

I'm wondering if the 'call to action' should emphasise the importance of each individual taking responsibility for asking, researching and answering the kind of questions asked by Budd Hall at ARNA 2015:

"Some questions for myself
1. How do I ‘decolonize’, ‘deracialise,’ demasculanise and degender my inherited ‘intellectual spaces?’
2. How do I support the opening up of spaces for the flowering of epistemologies, ontologies, theories, methodologies, objects and questions other than those that have long been hegemonic, and that have exercised dominance over (perhaps have even suffocated) intellectual and scholarly thought and writing?
3. How do I contribute to the building of new academic cultures and, more widely, new inclusive institutional cultures that genuinely respect and appreciate difference and diversity – whether class, gender, national, linguistic, religious, sexual orientation, epistemological or methodological in nature?
4. How do I become a part of creating the new architecture of knowledge that allows co- construction of knowledge between intellectuals in academia and intellectuals located in community settings? (Hall, 2015, p.12)"

Estimados colegas, reciban un cordial saludo. Con este mensaje quería compartir algunas ideas que surgieron de la reunión con el profesor Lonnie y José Ramos a propósito del diseño metodológico de la asamblea global. En primer lugar, resulta pertinente pensar que la secretaría técnica o el grupo de memoria de este evento será muy importante en el propósito de sintetizar los aportes en los diversos niveles de la discusión tales como los retos de los contextos de los procesos de PAR, los aprendizajes en el trabajo colaborativo entre instituciones educativas y comunidades y frente a los caminos desde los cuales se puede proyectar la ruta de trabajo de las redes y la asamblea global. De hecho, estos insumos son de suma importante para consolidar el programa y principios de acción para este espacio de convergencias. En segundo lugar, sería muy interesante aprovechar este espacio de encuentro con el ánimo de construir un mapa de experiencias que nos permita ubicar afinidades con otros proyectos e instituciones en otros lugares del mundo. Frente al contexto, estas alianzas son de suma importancia para la movilización de las ideas, pero además, para el intercambio de saberes que puede resultar pertinentes en los procesos concretos de PAR. Finalmente, a partir de estos insumos y de este mapa se abre una posibilidad para reconocer de qué manera los procesos de PAR se vienen enriqueciendo a nivel teórico y metodológico, en otras palabras, de qué manera nuevas apuestas teóricas y prácticas colaborativas vienen enriqueciendo la fundamentación de la PAR. Saludos cordiales,

:..............

Dear colleagues, best regards. With this message I want to share some ideas that emerged from the meeting with Professor Lonnie and José Ramos on the methodological design of the global assembly. First, it is pertinent to think that the technical secretariat or memory group of this event will be very important in order to synthesize the contributions at the various levels of the discussion such as the challenges of the contexts of the PAR processes, the findings in the collaborative work among educational institutions and communities and the paths and specific ways to networking for the global assembly. In fact, these inputs are extremely important to consolidate the program and principles of action for this convergence space. Secondly, it would be very interesting to open the dialogues in order to build a map of experiences that allows us to locate affinities with other projects and institutions in other parts of the world. These alliances are extremely important for the mobilization of ideas, but also for the exchange of knowledge that may be relevant in the specific processes of PAR. Finally, from these inputs and this map opens a possibility to recognize how the PAR processes are enriched at a theoretical and methodological level, the ways in which new theoretical and collaborative practices are enriching the foundations Of the PAR.

Best regards

Got this mail too late to be part of the discussion. I will keep myself updated from the coming notes. However I think the suggestions of the day
will be good and links well to the form we have chosen for the workshop on June 12

Med vänlig hälsning/Best wishes,

Karin

Karin Rönnerman

Professor, vicedekan

Från:
"Jose Ramos (Loomio)" notifications@loomio.org

Svara till: Global Assembly for Knowledge Democracy - Global Assembly Coordinating Group

Datum: onsdag 17 maj 2017 01:30

Till: Karin Rönnerman karin.ronnerman@ped.gu.se

Ämne: Jose Ramos mentioned you while discussing "Assembly Design / Diseño de asemblea"



ose RamosJose
Ramos mentioned you while discussing Assembly
Design / Diseño de asemblea ( https://www.loomio.org/ahoy/messages/t3WmJ5zFEvV5luwKnta1Yrr3R3RvOjQJ/click?signature=a59cc2b342efdd4e161673b27c09f8b923202271&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.loomio.org%2Fd%2FqyM7KDsV%2Fcomment%2F1364962%3Futm_campaign%3Duser_mentioned%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dthread_mailer )

Thanks @wrayirwin for providing that overview. and thanks to @karinronnerman1 for the feedback.

To reiterate the rough proposal at this time is to do the following in sequence:

MORNING TO LUNCH

1 - keynote / call to action - Santos

2 - open space style of workshop based on 12 or so topics / issues. These topics will have been set by us (the coordinating group) and will be drawn from the points put forward by Cesar, and the issues / themes emerging from the participatory workshops.

3 - is a big tent report back space needed here? (with translation?)

LUNCH TO FINISH

4 - introduction to imagining preferred futures

5 - articulating preferred vision for what it means to enact knowledge democracy and transform the topic area - based on the same topics and open space format (but perhaps people can move from morning session to a new session if they want)

6 - big tent report back (with translation)

7 - concrete projects and initiatives formulation (possibly put on loomio as proposals)

8 - time to connect on projects / initiates for planning

This is all tentative and will likely change based on our conversations. We are meeting tomorrow via Skype to deepen the design dialog. anyone who wants to be part of this conversation let me know. The time are as follows:

Melbourne, Australia Tue, 16 May 2017 at 10:00 pm AEST

Bogota, Colombia Tue, 16 May 2017 at 7:00 am COT

San Diego, USA Tue, 16 May 2017 at 5:00 am PDT

London, United Kingdom Tue, 16 May 2017 at 1:00 pm BST

Johannesburg, South Africa Tue, 16 May 2017 at 2:00 pm SAST

if you want to be part of this add me to your Skype contacts: global-eyes

thanks everyone

jose

—

Reply to this email directly or view it on www.loomio.org ( https://www.loomio.org/ahoy/messages/t3WmJ5zFEvV5luwKnta1Yrr3R3RvOjQJ/click?signature=a59cc2b342efdd4e161673b27c09f8b923202271&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.loomio.org%2Fd%2FqyM7KDsV%2Fcomment%2F1364962%3Futm_campaign%3Duser_mentioned%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dthread_mailer ).

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Dear organizers

We have about 25 or so days before the assembly on june 16th.

There are several critical challenges that we need to work on. Can we try and have a conversation about these in the next week. We need to come to some clarity on the following issues:

1 - we already have some clarity that we need a number of topics and themes that draw from Cesar's points and the outputs from the participatory workshops (which will be the starting points for the assembly). How do we generate this list of themes in the next few weeks? Lonnie or someone else, do you have any ideas for generating 10+ themes topic?

2 - In our last conversation with Cesar and Lonnie (and in Cesar's recent post here) Cesar made the suggestion for creating a "map of experiences that allows us to locate affinities with other projects and institutions in other parts of the world." Does anyone have a suggestion for how we might do this in the assembly?

3 - Cesar and Lonnie also made the suggestion for a "technical secretariat or memory group" that can record and coordinate the production of a report or similar. Does anyone have any suggestions for how we might do this?

I'll be setting up a Skype meeting for this week on tuesday, so that we can continue to take steps toward a good design for the day.

Thanks everyone

Jose

Hi everyone

Janel, Lonnie and I had a conversation on Skype tonight, to discuss the three design challenges outlined, and to get clarity on ways forward.

We'll meet on Skype again next week on thursday june 1st

San Diego, USA Thu, 1 Jun 2017 at 6:00 am PDT

Bogota, Colombia Thu, 1 Jun 2017 at 8:00 am COT

Cape Town, South Africa Thu, 1 Jun 2017 at 3:00 pm SAST

Melbourne, Australia Thu, 1 Jun 2017 at 11:00 pm AEST

London, United Kingdom Thu, 1 Jun 2017 at 2:00 pm BST

For those that want to catch up with where we are at, here is an audio recording

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1b51f90dlcntjoi/design%20conversation%2023%20may.m4a?dl=0

thanks

Jose

Here is a DRAFT of an idea we came up with for the format on the 16th. Please add comments, questions or suggestions! I've attached the draft as well as a pdf on "How Might We" questions. Lonnie and Jose- I hope I captured this accurately, please make any corrections if I am off base.

I think this structure of the day, June 16 will be productive, but as you write how do we feed in all material from previoius workshops and workshops on June 12. In a way it is important that we use the same way of organising this meeting as we have proposed for workshops elsewhere, so all good.
I have to attend other meetings on June 1 and will not be able to attend the skype meeting/ Karin

I wonder if these are the two big questions we should be focusing on:
1. Consider two big questions:
a. What does Knowledge Democracy mean to you?
b. What are some major challenges in Knowledge
Democracy?

I'd prefer to accept the following definitions of an ecology of knowledges and Knowledge Democracy:

"An ecology of knowledges is a way of holding diversity in knowledge that supports the growth and integrity of the whole. An ecology of knowledges gives us the opportunity to forge a new field of coherences in recognising the value of, but moving beyond, scientific materialist empiricism. As different knowledge systems interact, they can learn from these interplays. Instead of disintegration between competing reality claims, an ecology of knowledges leads to new possibilities of integration. The name for this new orientation is Knowledge Democracy."

Ramos, J. & Rowell, L. (2017) Combined GAKD communications and design report - March 16, 2017.

I'd prefer to focus on 'What am I/we doing to contribute of an ecology of knowledges and Knowledge Democracy?'

My concern with 'How might we questions' is that whilst they focus on the importance of imagining possibilities, they don't emphasise the 'What am I doing questions' through which individuals can hold themselves to account for living as fully as possible the values and understandings that carry hope for the flourishing of humanity. This said I'll certainly help with whatever organisation is decided on for the 16th.

Greetings.

I will respond now to the fascinating dialogue shared over the past 19 days. First, thank you all for your understanding as I stepped away from our loomio interactions to attend to some critical matters related to the conference. Ah, success does brings its challenges! As of yesterday, we have 641 people registered for the conference, and 163 registered for the Global Assembly. Pressing issues with venue contracts, speaker arrivals, and other items have consumed hours each day, so I apologize for my absence from our group deliberations on the Global Assembly.

However, after reading all of the posts in this conversation thread I see that the dialogue has moved forward in very productive ways. I am mindful that because we are working in a space that has left much room for the ebb and flow of organizer ideas, we do not have at this point a totally firm "schedule" for the day (although we are now really close I think), nor do we have an agreed-upon set of questions to address. In other words, as Cesar would day, we have not yet achieved a fully developed, and collectively agreed on, "methodology" for the Global Assembly. For my part, I am actually glad that we have taken some time in which our group, as Jose requested, has had a chance to put things on the table. I have just taken the time to read the full conversation, and I think I see pretty clearly what has been put on the table and how the varied points of view might fit together like the pieces of a really big puzzle.

Anyone who has done one of those 350 piece puzzles knows that it can take days, even weeks, to get all the pieces to fit. A few years back, some friends and I started one during a holiday that stayed "on the table" for almost two months and was revisited by different groups of friends and family as people dropped by and asked "Oh, this looks interesting; can I try a few pieces?" In our case, we have roughly 8 days to come to an agreement on our completed methodology for 16 June. This will be the completion of a small puzzle with big implications. I think we also are aware that after 16 June we will have much to do in continuing to put pieces together. Here, I think, we see the wisdom in Cesar's call for a Technical Secretariat, as this can provide some structure for moving forward with the understandings that emerge from the Global Assembly.

Anyone who has ever worked in an "open space" dialogic environment knows that such spaces can generate intense anxiety. The challenge is always to first of all create a "safe space" and then to allow it to become a creative space. To then act on the ideas, declarations, manifestos, and personal commitments generated in such spaces requires a determination to move from words to actions, to exam the impact of the actions, and to provide for a feedback loop that can be used to inform subsequent plunges into the marvels of open space work. Some approaches intentionally turn up the heat in terms of generating anxiety, and then spend virtually the entire time together looking at the starting point anxiety. I once participated in a workshop with 300 people in which the room was set up in a giant spiral of chairs, with one chair at the most inward spot of the spiral and the rest arranged in ever larger spirals out from that center point. The choice over which chair to select led to much anxiety, and the workshop leaders invited shared reflections on the choice and then tied the themes of the reflections to the themes of the workshop. I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting anything like that. I want us to start with a very welcoming and comfortable space and to then make clear both the Assembly methodology and the groundrules for our day together. I like what Karin shared: "Rules are needed for the dialogue to flourish." In fact, I hope we put this up on a large sheet of paper for all to see.

I am going to take a short break and then build on my comments above through a series of posts to this space. I intend to address, in this order, a) a proposal for the schedule; b) a draft of a plan for our breakouts; c) thoughts on the inputs from 12 June; d) thoughts on taking actions at the Global Assembly; e) draft plan for Global Assembly follow up and f) proposed schedule for Coordinating Group meetings from 11 June - 16 June . Please bear with me as it may take me the next 2-3 days to complete the job.

In closing, I do want to note that the job will be, as Jack might say, a labor of love. It is such a pleasure to be working with you all, and time and time again over the past 18 months of work on the conference and global assembly I have been reenergized by the sharing that has come through our planning groups. I will hold this awareness close to me in the swirl of activities, meetings and intense interactions in Cartagena.

Budd Hall wrote to me yesterday that Orlando Fals Borda will be "looking down on us" during our time in Cartagena, and his comment went right to the heart of things for me. As a young man working in alternative education and community-based youth-work in Southern California in the mid-1970s I sure wish I had been guided towards an awareness of Fals Borda's creative and courageous work in Colombia, just as I was guided by the work of Paulo Freire, Franz Fanon, A. S. Neill, Joel Spring, Jean Baker Miller, and others as I developed my understandings of "what's happening" and "what's to be done." In other words, finally, while I missed Orlando the first time around, I have found him this time and will do all I can to honor his labors of love by doing good work this June, 40 years after the first world gathering.

Now a break

Lonnie

Hi Lonnie

Thanks for your beautiful reflections. Looking forward to your thoughts on the design / methodology in the coming days.

Jose

Greetings. Here is the next piece. This is the draft schedule, and is based on a conversation with Jose and Wray as well as a review of other recent inputs. For the draft schedule to make full sense you need to see the draft Script. That is what I am now working on and will post within the next 2-3 hours. I then will work on the plan for the breakouts/roundtable work. I hope you all will do your very best to keep up with the dialogue here over the next 4-5 days, as this period will involve the finalizing of all the excellent work that has gone into the design of the Global Assembly.

Regards,
Lonnie

Now the draft script for your review and comments. This document takes us down into the real nitty gritty of June 16. Please do not be frightened by it. WE CAN DO THIS. There are missing pieces, so I ask that you all read this carefully and look for the things I have missed. I decided to risk putting up something incomplete rather than leaving this piece out for now.

Next up will be: a draft of a more concrete plan for breakouts/roundtable work; thoughts on the inputs from 12 June; thoughts on taking actions at the Global Assembly; draft plan for Global Assembly follow up and, finally, a proposed schedule for Coordinating Group meetings from 11 June - 16 June. Please stay with me on all this. I know it is going to require some hours of reading and responding. But we are close to having a fully developed global assembly methodology, and I want us to see this all the way through.

Get some rest, meditate, and let's keep it moving forward!

Lonnie

Greetings. Attached you will find the proposal for Round One of the dialogues to be held on June 16. We have a design team/coordinating group meeting planned for Friday, June 2 (Saturday, June 3 in Australia). The three documents posted over the last three days will be the focus of this meeting.

what time is the meeting again? I might be able to attend

Hi Karin and everyone

Here is the event link.

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/event?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=aXZvcjM2cm5uMG1pdDM5NWZyZzZyazAyajggYWN0aW9uZm9yZXNpZ2h0QG0&tmsrc=actionforesight%40gmail.com

Everyone - if you click on this it will tell you when the event will be in your time zone (I presume) and you can add yourself to the guest list.

the times are here

Melbourne, Australia Fri, Jun 2, 2017 at 11:00 pm AEST
San Diego, USA Fri, Jun 2, 2017 at 6:00 am PDT
Stockholm, Sweden Fri, Jun 2, 2017 at 3:00 pm CEST
London, United Kingdom Fri, Jun 2, 2017 at 2:00 pm BST
Bogota, Colombia Fri, Jun 2, 2017 at 8:00 am COT
Johannesburg, South Africa Fri, Jun 2, 2017 at 3:00 pm SAST
Cheyenne, USA Fri, Jun 2, 2017 at 7:00 am MDT

Here is the next piece I have written for us. In this 4-page document I share my thoughts regarding the four themes to be developed from the June 12 workshops. I Hope we soon will see the brief report from Mary and Lesley and the four themes from Cesar. Remember that we are using the experience of theme-elicitation as a critically important part our preparations for the Global Assembly. Later today I will work on a draft for "Round Two" of the Global Assembly activities in which we work on the themes and move from discussion to proposals for action beyond the 1st Global Assembly.

Lonnie

Hi Lonnie and everyone

Lonnie I think you've done an excellent job of bring many disparate considerations and pieces of the puzzle together. You need to be acknowledged by everyone for your commitment and hard work. I can't even imagine what the last few months ave been like for you.

It will be easier for me to order my thoughts and help articulate next steps if I can summarise what I think we are at now.

There are about six or seven design needs with solutions attached to them, that have emerged or are emerging:

1 - the need to ground the GA in real issues and challenges communities have been having in the area of KD. Resolved by beginning the GA with thematic topics drawn from participatory workshops, june 12 and cesar's issues in a directed open space format.

2 - the need to allow interconnections of thinking and relating to flow through / across the GA - resolved in part by using some world cafe style methods.

3 - the need to map interconnections globally among the network of PAR + who are working / want to work together in the explicit project(s) of policy change. Potentially resolved through some process in the GA.

4 - the need to come to grounded and pluralistic visions for KD that can inform action. (grounded in a shared analysis and understanding of particular topic areas.) Resolved by having an after lunch session that asks participants to create a vision of what transformation would mean to them.

5 - the need to produce actionable projects people at the GA can work on together, as experiments that align with the vision. Potentially resolved by some system of producing proposals and online decision making coupled with organising tools.

6 - the need to bring together the GA into a joint statement / report on KD. Potentially resolved by a technical secretariat.

7 - the need for participants to take responsibility for their own approach to knowledge and KD and enter into transformative inquiry. This is potentially resolved by some use of Budd Hall's questions.

My feeling is that there is still some integration work to really make the GA sing.

• I feel that world cafe can be better interspersed throughout the day to better aid interconnections.

• I feel there is some method or technique lurking that can help us to do the mapping of interconnection.

• I feel this mapping of interconnections could be key in articulating an "ecology of knowledge" at least in the realm of PAR+.

• I feel this mapping of interconnections may also be key in the emergence of projects for change.

• I feel that the vision element is also relational - that we need to have a way of cutting across topic areas and creating coherence.

Overall my feeling is that all the elements are here, but that there is an inner logic that want to emerge that can bring these elements together in a way that really works.

that is all for now.

jose

Hello Everyone, I am sorry to have been rather absent from this discussion and want to register my commitment to being there and supporting the day, but have not had capacity, for various reasons, to engage more actively in this discussion. That said, I have been following it all. I know there is a meeting today (this afternoon for me) that I am unlikely to be able to attend so I wanted to say the following in case it is of help to your meeting.

firstly, I am happy to do anything on the day that will help the day, register people, facilitate a group etc.

secondly, hot of the back of the Annual Working Meeting of the International Collaboration for Participatory Research (ICPHR) where we discussed the 'four questions' sent over from Mary and Lesley, I would suggest, like Jose, that we make sure we frame the time for the discussion adequately. We had two hours to discuss the questions, and it was insufficient and, despite my very strict time - keeping, people rolled up late to the beginning which disrupted the first round.

I like Jack's idea's of having only two 'seemingly' simple questions as that allows for the debate to flourish along the lines take by the people in the group. the comments about the four questions made by ICPHR members were that at first they thought 'what do these questions mean', ie that they were ambiguous, and then as they got in to their discussions they welcomed the ambiguity as it was that very ambiguity that meant the questions triggered rather than shaped and framed discussion.

I think the one hour slots, which I could almost guarantee will be less than that, because the first one for instance, starts with people are coming back from a break and they will by late! and so the one hour will not be long enough. I think we can never over-estimate how long it takes people to move from one chair to another and this needs to be built in to the timings. I think the first round of conversation could do to be longer than one hour anyhow, as people need to settle in to the task and that takes time - they get quicker as time goes on. I would suggest 1.5 hours for the first round of Café. My suspicion is that the day is a bit top heavy on presentation for a day that is fundamentally about letting people come together and share their ideas and make ideas together. Is there anyway this could be reduced and more time given to those who have come to it for that purpose. So my point is can we be more generous in the time given to those gathered and reduce the 'presentation' time in the morning.

I like the mapping idea, it is something I use in my own work. I think it can work here, but again, it needs to be given sufficient time. A day is so short so deciding on what fundamentally underpins the day and giving that space would seem to be the key to making if work.

Thank you to all of you for your careful considerations and thoughts and for sharing them here. I wish you a good meeting - I hope my thoughts above are helpful in the practical planning for the day - just let me know what you want me to do and I will willingly do it. I look forward to meeting up with you all soon. Very best wishes, Tina

I share Tina's point that:
"My suspicion is that the day is a bit top heavy on presentation for a day that is fundamentally about letting people come together and share their ideas and make ideas together."

I know that the idea is for Barnabe, Rajesh and Budd to issue a call for action. I'm a bit worried that this might appear to be saying that people aren't acting already. Perhaps Barnabe, Rajesh and Budd could be asked to emphasis that the day is about letting people come together and share their ideas and make ideas together.

Jose Ramos will be posting a request shortly that has to do with the final elements of our organization for the June 16 Global Assembly. The roles Jose list are essential to the success of our Global Assembly program. As we have chosen not to focus the day on numerous speeches, our challenge has been to design a program in which we experience present moments of intercultural translation of experiences with action research and participatory action research and the practice of knowledge democracy. For this to happen we have chosen to democratize the facilitation, note taking and translation processes on June 16. We seek volunteers who are willing to do their best to listen carefully and write down the key ideas being shared at each of 12 tables in the assembly hall. We also need people who are willing to facilitate democratic dialogue at each of the tables. In essence, we need 12 sets of three people, that is, 36 volunteers, with 12 serving as facilitators, 12 as note takers and 12 as translators. Jose will be setting up a design tool that we ask volunteers to respond to. Thank you for considering this request!

Lonnie

Greetings. Attached is Draft II of the Schedule for June 16. The new draft is based on discussions and emails over the past few days. Please look it over as soon as you can. Here are the changes:
* Reduced time for the address by Boaventura de Sousa Santos to 30 minutes.
* Adjusted morning times based on the change above
* Changed name of two key sections of the day to "Assembly Session I" and "Assembly Session II"
* Redid the afternoon schedule completely, creating more time for Assembly Session II, allocating 45 minutes for "Summarizing the Day," and adding a Report from the Technical Secretariat which will include items requesting an Assembly vote and a brief description of next steps forward.

Later today I will post drafts of the proposed plans for Assembly Session I and Assembly Session II. Wray and Jose are now working on a plan for Session II, so that draft will not be ready until i hear from them. What you will see first is the revised plan for Session I.

Still to go: revised script; Table work instructions; completion of volunteer recruitment initiated by Jose; form for submission of items to bring to a vote; packet of materials for participants.

I like very much the suggestions for Session 1 'Working at the 12 Tables' - total 85 minutes.

. . . Here is the proposed revised schedule for Session I of the Assembly.

Hello Lonnie, I agree with Jack above. And those quick intros to the first session, Michael Wright calls them lightening rounds, we give them 30 seconds under that name, and they work well to restrict people. The obsessives amongst us put our timer on repeat on our phones, and I am one of those as I find people will stop if the phone tells them, but are less likely to if a human does - even a bell works better than us - strange but true. Best wishes, Tina

Thank you, Tina. I will edit the next version accordingly, using "lightening round" with a 30 second time limit.

Next item up -

Here is the first list of Roundtable topics. We will soon add 8 more topics. Thanks.

Lonnie

REQUEST for assistance

I need two people to work with me on:
1) PowerPoint (English & Spanish) to help us work the schedule on the 16th
2) Packets for participants on the 16th

Lonnie

This is a copy and paste from an email thread. Several people via email have put forward their preference for a pure open space. Lonnie has put forward his preference for sticking with the existing plan. Below I outline an integration between the two. Depending whether people can agree or not, I will put forward a dot poll so gauge support across these three options or any other options that arise.

Hi everyone

The idea of structured questions arose about a month or so ago from Cesar's concern that the design was a bit abstract, and it needed to deal with the actual epistemological issues people are facing. I also felt that knowledge democracy was very abstract, and needed grounding in themes and topics that people are actually working in - an embodiment of knowledge democracy. This was validated by various online conversations on skype with about 4 or 5 others. This is where the idea for structured questions came in - 4 from cesar, 4 from june 12 and 4 from the participatory workshops.

My concern here is the timing. This idea was put forward on loomio at least three or so weeks ago. At that time, even though the idea was put forward publicly and on loomio, there were no objections. We are now 8-9 days away from the event. So a change like this is potentially hard given that we need to have a plan we can coordinate around. I accept the need for "emergence" in the process, but this needs to be balanced with a structure that we can all work towards.

One "integrating" way forward would be to combine both ideas for structured questions and pure open space. This is how it could work.

1 - In the first session we would stick with the structured questions. Toward the end of the first session (just before lunch) we would ask anyone who proposes a topic for the vision session to come to the organisers and submit their session idea for after lunch.

2 - During lunch the organisers (us) would be organising the various proposals for the vision sessions. These could be totally open, anyone who has an idea for a vision session could put it forward. Our job would be to make sure these were ready to go for after lunch. For example even if a person started in the health topic, a person or persons there could decide they want to take a different route and topic and propose something totally new.

3 - In the after lunch session, we would announce the new table topics in the context of visioning. People could move to whatever topic and theme they wanted. This would allow for some flexibility and interconnections, and allow new topics to emerge.

From here I think proposals could be done in a similar way. Give some space for people to work on proposal / project ideas. Once these are submitted they become table themes and people can again gravitate to the ones they like.

This approach is more complex than just sticking with the same structured question the whole way through, but it allows for emergence and is more dynamic. I think we will have stellar hearts and minds there on june 16th, so I'm willing to trust the process and trust that we'll be able to work together.

Let me know what you think of this idea. If we are still stuck I will create a dot poll to see how many favour one approach over the other. The dot poll will be a short cycle, one day max, as time is critical. So you will need to be vigilant to respond quickly.

How does that sound?

Hi Lonnie

Several people put up their hands to support in translation. I'll send you the list of people that have offered.

jose

Dr. José M. Ramos
pub: https://usc-au.academia.edu/joseramos
linkedin: http://linkd.in/19h1V5h
web: http://actionforesight.net
tel: +(61)431-541-068

Hi Jose,

Will look forward to receiving the list. Thank you!

Hi everyone

I've tried to bring together the various elements that people have expressed they wanted.

1 - structure of the 12 questions​ ​

2 - open space approach to the visioning, and a process that can support a kind of ecology of visions​ ​- I have added an ecology of visions process that uses world cafe

3 - the mapping method ​- I have tried to integrate Cesar and Wray's idea for an approach that allows people to map around the visions through a world cafe format.

4 - proposals - an approach where people can put forward proposals and vote.

This is my best effort to integrate - so It is time for me to let go here and flow with what we all think is the best way forward.

Lonnie may offer further suggestions tomorrow or the 11th. We have a june 11th meeting at 1pm I believe in the old city cartagena, is that correct? We can adapt this from there, or even dramatically change it if necessary. It is whatever works.

See you all on the 11th :)

Jose