-------------------------------------------------------- From: don peck <> Subject: Re: Circle Info Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 11:21:33 -0800 To: Richard Moore <•••@••.•••> Richard, This is great stuff. Was interested in checking out the Writeboard. You need a login and password. Do you have it? Great to have seen you in San Francisco on your visit, keep up the good work. Best, Don ----- Hi Don, It was great to meet you as well. The whole tour was very enlightening and energizing for me. As regards accessing more information, see the next message. cheers, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 06:37:08 +1300 From: "James Samuel" <> To: "Richard Moore" <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: Calling a Circle & access to whiteboard... Hi Richard, I was very happy to see you forward the Calling a Circle information to your network, thank you for spreading this. I suggest that if people want to explore the dialogue tools and processes further, they go to: <http://ydaysfuture.blogspot.com/2006/04/mapping-dialogue.html>http://ydaysfuture.blogspot.com/2006/04/mapping-dialogue.html There is a reasonably lengthy introduction here, and a link to download the entire 86 page PDF document. Gently, James -------------------------------------------------------- From: Andrea Lea <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: FYI: Calling a Circle Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 10:19:09 -0500 To: •••@••.••• Thanks for this refresher, Richard. Will use this for our community process at La Soledad in Baja Mexico. Peace and plenty, Andrea -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2006 09:48:48 -0500 Subject: Re: FYI: Calling a Circle From: Rosa Zubizarreta <•••@••.•••> To: <•••@••.•••> Hi Richard, Glad to see that this useful information is being shared... A few other things about circles... 1) This was included implicitly in the piece you sent, but I wanted to make it more explicit: sometimes it works to have a small-group meeting where you start with one or two rounds of circle, move to a more free-form conversation in the middle, and then end with one or two rounds. The "talking stick" (or "listening stick" as Tom Atlee likes to call it) can be left in the middle of the circle during the "free-form" time, so that if the free-form conversation becomes too conflictual, speedy, or otherwise overwhelming, anyone can call for another round of circle right then, by taking up the "listening stick"... 2) One particularly useful function for circles, is to help a smaller group of people (the hosts, organizers, caretakers, planners, whatever you would like to call them to avoid the ever-so-unpopular word "leaders" :-) become clear and harmonized about a particular project they are organizing. Once the "organizing team" is aligned among themselves (this is an on-going process...) they can serve the function of a "seed crystal" or "microcosm", helping to bring into being a larger aligned field. In this larger field, you might have lots of smaller circles (for example, circle break-out groups at a conference) or you might have a fishbowl-style process where everyone is gathered in a larger circle, and whoever wants to speak comes in and sits down in a smaller circle in the middle... Stays until they have listened to the next person after them speak, then leaves the smaller circle to make room for others to come in... Okay, that's my two cents... Rosa -------- Hi Rosa, It's always nice to hear from you, and thanks for the circle suggestions. I'm beginning to see the circle as being the primary concept in democratic dialog. A WC, Conversation Cafe, and various other processes can be seen as variants of a circle, with differing kinds of facilitation, duration, intention, etc. Whenever (small numbers of) people meet in 'everyday life', to deal with any kind of issue, we might ask the question as to whether a basic circle might be a good choice of process. Of particular interest, in my view, are ongoing circles, 'recurring dialog spaces'. I've seen some of those on my tour, where people of like interests meet regularly. From a democracy perspective, it might be more interesting to see inclusive-minded neighborhood circles, meeting on a rotation basis in people's homes. Sharing meals might add to the appeal of such events, at least that's been the experience of the City Repair people in Portland. The experience of 'good process' is something that can't be fully communicated in words. On my tour, this was the concept that people were most consistently skeptical about. There arose the bogeyman of 'the unreasonable other', fears of the 'uninformed masses', etc. I'm convinced that people need to go through the experience before they can begin to appreciate the potential. Circles seem to be the best way to spread the experience around. ciao, rkm -- -------------------------------------------------------- Escaping the Matrix website http://escapingthematrix.org/ cyberjournal website http://cyberjournal.org subscribe cyberjournal list mailto:•••@••.••• Posting archives http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/ Blogs: cyberjournal forum http://cyberjournal-rkm.blogspot.com/ Achieving real democracy http://harmonization.blogspot.com/ for readers of ETM http://matrixreaders.blogspot.com/ Community Empowerment http://empowermentinitiatives.blogspot.com/ Blogger made easy http://quaylargo.com/help/ezblogger.html