Meeting notes from April 5, 2007 at Camosun College

Debriefing event after the March 30/31, 2007 Wisdom Council

Present: Sonya, Jan, Diane, Dan, Wendy, Paul, Caspar, Lorena, George, Anke (minutes), 3 WC members: Nancy, John and Gillian, and 3 possible future conveners.

1. Clarifying the purpose of tonight’s meeting. The agenda alloted 45 minutes to WC members and 45 minutes to WC conveners. Wisdom Council members expressed they felt the lack of closure and also their disappointment that there were only the 3 of them. Conveners felt the need to debrief. Once it was realized that the future conveners had been invited prematurely, they volunteered to leave, to (hopefully) return for the first planning meeting for the next Wisdom Council.

2. Recommendations for future Wisdom Council convenors:
The ensuing discussion, in which Wisdom Council members gave their thoughts, resulted in the following recommendations for future Wisdom Councils:

• ensure that the 30 minutes break before the public meeting is strictly adhered to, for 2 reasons: to give the Wisdom Council members a (well-deserved) rest, and to give them an opportunity to reflect and bring some closure amongst themselves before they go in to the public meeting:
• some felt conveners need to meet to debrief the Wisdom Council before future conveners are invited in to the planning meeting for the next round;
• conveners need their own room while the Wisdom Council is in session;
• ONE person to be in charge of communicating with the venue personnel;
• try for more diversity by reaching out to those that may not be in the phone book (First Nations, homeless, cell phone users and immigrant communities), while acknowledging that our random invitation process is as inclusive as we can manage it at this point;
• it was suggested we ask Victoria Counsellor Chris Coleman for the contact list he uses for his marketing research company – Diane asks to be the one to connect with him;
• Wisdom Council members were put on the spot during the public meeting when presented with the microphone to speak of their experiences – when should they be briefed on the format of the public meeting?

3. We talked quite a bit about Jim Rough’s style of facilitation, the reasons behind it and ways that we thought we might improve on it. We acknowledged that the Wisdom Council process is one of the most hopeful vehicles for change in our communities, so we are very thankful to Jim for leading the way.

Below some points for possible improvement:

• It seemed like there was too much for one person to do. Maybe use a “spotter”, or divide the facilitator/recorder job over 2 people to best capitalize on the energy in the room;
• This would reduce problems of floor-hogging and going off-topic; some quieter people were frustrated and would have liked more opportunities to speak;
• It would be helpful to explain the principles of Dynamic Facilitation up-front to manage participants’ expectations;
• Acquire Wisdom Council members’ permission before allowing other people to observe the WC proceedings; (Explain the purpose of the researchers at the back of the room and ask permission for their inclusion, check with participants before observers are allowed into the room, not after the fact)
• Recording on a laptop with an overhead screen visible to the audience was suggested as a possibility for capturing notes

Caspar briefly explained the principles of Dynamic Facilitation:

• start off with a purging*, for all participants;
• follow the energy (this takes sensitivity), very different from keeping a speakers’ list
• because by the time you get to the person their point may be gone and the energy in the room might plummet;
• reflect back to the speaker to ensure he/she has been heard correctly.

*Regarding purging, Caspar clarifies: “It is a determined inquiry to discover both what issues people bring, and what solutions they also bring. If strongly held issues and solutions are not purged, those issues and especially the solutions tend to imprison the attention of those who hold them. I suspect that the difficulties that arose near the end of the first Wisdom Council resulted from incomplete purging.”

4. Also some talk about the randomness of our “random selection” process:

• do not call people we know on the master list, maintain the random principle;
• do not carryover surplus Wisdom Council members to the next Wisdom Council – the random process should begin from scratch each time;
• is the self-selection that happened after the random invitation a problem?

5. Dan composed a letter of apology to Fairfield New Horizons for taking up their whole facility. We all agreed to the humble tone of the letter and to an extra $50 to acknoledge any inconvenience.

6. Wise Democracy Victoria has been invited to endorse, and have a table at, an event called “Common Vision, Common Action, Shaping Municipal Policy in the CRD” from 10 -3 on Sat. April 28th. Wendy will let us know more details. hosted by www.vipirg.ca

The next 2 meetings will be held at the Friends Meeting House, 1831 Fern St., on Sat. April 14th and April 28th from 10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.