River City Housing Collective's visual for hand signals. This is reviewed during an information session with prospective members, and whoever is facilitating a meeting where a new member is present will review the hand signals before the meeting starts.
Below, are the recordings for NASCO Institue 2020 sessions by room. Please share lessons learned with your cooperatives and communities.
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The Inter Cooperative Council at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor uses a modified consensus process, called "Kwunsensus," for their board decision making. This process was created by and named after an ICC member. This document is an excerpt from the ICC standing rules, which includes an overview of the process, a table to guide with decision making, and a process flowchart.
This handout is from Laird Schaub's (Fellowship for Intentional Community) workshop titled "Consensus 101" at NASCO Institute 2013.
'Fist to Five' is a tool for gauging support for a proposal or idea in groups that engage in consensus-based decision making. This document describes the 'Fist to Five' process in detail. For more information, see: 'Fist to Five' Activity.
Reproduced without permission from The New School, 38 York St, Kennebunk ME 04043.
Steps to Reaching Consensus - Fist to Five Activity.
'Fist to Five' is a tool for gauging support for a proposal or idea in groups that engage in consensus-based decision making. This activity and chart are useful for demonstrating how 'Fist to Five' is used in a meeting. For more information, see: 'Fist to Five' Voting and Consensus.
Table of Contents
Communication
1 What do you do when a dispute arises?
2 Communication Styles
Meeting Roles
3 Positive Group Roles
4 Negative Group Roles
5 Effective Meetings: Designated Meeting Roles
7 Influence in Groups
Meeting Process
8 Sample Agenda
9 Meeting Evaluation Sheet
Facilitation
10 The Four Roles of a Facilitator
11 Facilitation Tools
A guide to why consensus is used among co-ops, and how it is effectively used and facilitated.
You can use this tool creatively, adapting the intensity of the 4 basic principles to different situations, depending on the level of risk being taken in each setting. Some components of these tools may be inappropriate for some settings, and invaluable in others. The more personal risk involved, the more carefully you want to frame the space at the outset, because a secure anchor is the only thing that will enable a process to fly to the heights of its potential.
