Wise Democracy Victoria

Exploring genuine democracy in Victoria, BC, Canada... and beyond

This site serves as a collaborative tool to help our group convene Wisdom Councils and to engage those interested in Wise Democracy in Victoria.
Group emails are archived on our Google group site.

NOTE: This site is growing, and there are lots of pages listed to the left in the "Navigation Pane" - just scroll up & down.

Wisdom Councils precipitate energy, enthusiasm and HOPE for the Future:
Past participants have indicated that the experience was transforming and energizing because they felt that their voices could actually make a difference!

Three Wisdom Councils have now been successfully convened in Victoria, including the first in Canada and one in the close-knit neighbourhood of Fernwood. In each case the Council members have prepared an amazing statement of community spirit!
Even though the council members did not know one another prior to meeting and came from a wide diversity of backgrounds and experiences, in each case they have prepared a powerful, unanimous statement.
#1 Statement of the First Canadian Wisdom Council
#2 Statement of the Second Victoria WC
#3 Statement of the Fernwood WC

RESOURCES AND VALUABLE LINKS:

• Historical overview of Wisdom Councils in Victoria by Caspar Davis - Creative democracy: wisdom councils at work.
• Detailed information on Wisdom Councils is available at the Center for Wise Democracy
• Jim Rough has a series of videos available online to explore how we can facilitate whole-system change in very large systems.
• Random Selection as a tool for democracy -- our group is becoming increasingly impressed with the value of random selection for genuine democracy.... key websites include: http://globalpublic.org/id1.html, Conall Doyle, and Ben Wilbrink
  

Draft Vision for Wise Democracy Victoria
Our vision is to help engender wise democracy locally and globally by:

• continued experimentation with processes that enable high-quality dialogue, such as Wisdom Councils (empowering citizens),
• working with communities to "grow" these processes from within (empowering communities)
• communicating replicable models to communities everywhere (further empowering global civil society)

Any ideas on improving this vision??


PLEASE JOIN US ON OUR JOURNEY TOWARDS WISE DEMOCRACY by reading the statements and inviting others to take a look.
Do these statements resonate with you?

WC #1: First Victoria Wisdom Council --
Canadian History in the Making!

The First randomly selected Canadian Wisdom Council deliberated on March 30-31st, 2007 and reported to the public immediately afterward.View the Council's Statement Page.

The event created quite a stir in the Capital city of British Columbia. Our eldest member was 71 years and our youngest 17. Click here to read the following article from the Times Colonist newspaper. The youngest member is Simon Nattrass who took a run for Major of Victoria at age 19 in 2008!




In early March we mailed nearly 500 invitation letters to Victoria residents who were randomly selected from the phone book.

Out of those invited, 12 participants agreed to participate as members of the first Wisdom Council.




Jim Rough - Introductory Remarks, First Victoria Wisdom Council


Thanks to a great group of volunteer convenors for making the Victoria Wisdom Councils an exciting expression of community spirit and engagement.

WC #2: Second Victoria Wisdom CouncilThe Second Victoria Wisdom Council of nine randomly selected citizens shared its statement with the people of Victoria at a community meeting on June 23. A copy of the statement is available here. We encourage you to discuss this statement with your friends and family. Please let us know about your views on the statement by filling in an Opinionnaire® kindly provided by the Forum Foundation.SECOND VICTORIA WISDOM COUNCIL SHARES ITS MESSAGE

A BIG THANK YOU TO THE COUNCILLORS WHO GAVE UP THEIR FRIDAY EVENING AND SATURDAY TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE GOOD OF SOCIETY.

Introduction to Second Wisdom Council & Presentation of the Statement

In preparation for the Second Wisdom Council, we mailed out nearly 350 invitation letters to people who had been randomly selected from the Victoria phone book. Nine of these people kindly accepted the invitation and joined us in another exciting experiment to revitalize democracy from the grassroots.

We've received excellent media coverage for both Wisdom Councils. In the lead-up to the Second Victoria Wisdom Council, the following article was published in the Victoria News, Saanich News, and Oak Bay News on May 18th, 2007.

WC #3: The Fernwood Wisdom Council

On Saturday, March 29th the Fernwood Wisdom Council reported on their radical experiment in grassroots democracy! This randomly selected group of 9 Fernwoodians spent a day and a half with a dynamic facilitator, listened deeply to each other about what matters in their lives and community, and formulated a statement to share with you in the hope of stimulating community conversations.

NOTE: see the community website at on www.FernwoodCommons.ca including the Fernwood Wisdom Council.

In February, we had a great work party stuffing 200 envelopes with invitations to randomly selected residents of Fernwood. more...

We held a sucessful information session on Wisdom Councils at the Fernwood Inn on January 28, 2008. Dan facilitated a demonstration of the Wisdom Council process. See the article to be published soon in the Fernwood News.



Emails to the group...
We have a Google group for sending emails to the entire group of convenors.
To post to this group, send email to wise-dem-vic@googlegroups.com
For past emails, visit the group at http://groups.google.ca/group/wise-dem-vic?hl=en
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Contact:

If you would like more information on the Victoria initiative, please call or email:
George Sranko
Chair, Victoria Wisdom Council Convenors
email: gsranko "at" shaw.ca
phone: 1-250-598-0124