How to Set Up and Run a Community Assembly | Extinction Rebellion UK

A major part of XR UK’s strategy is for local, regional, and national groups to work within their communities and collaborate on setting up community assemblies.

But how do you even start this process? And what exactly are community assemblies? How do you run them?

This two-hour training will help you get started, connect you to others who are also planning an assembly in their local area, and give you lots of tips and ideas on how to run your assembly.

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Connected around the globe to other activists and supporters by our similarities and our compassion for all life on earth.

Using non-violent direct action (NVDA) to highlight the need to upgrade democracy and create a future decided by us, not to us.

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Say again that we’re okay great so welcome again to the community assembly uh training today um we’ve already done uh check-ins but if people are still arriving um please feel free to uh put in the chat where you’re coming from and if you’re already involved planning a community

Assembly um it’s great to have so many of you here and with so many different experiences in life and and different uh movements as well so um that’s really lovely like I said earlier I’m really happy to take questions as as they come up for you and um and like to have an

Interactive training so I will uh there will be some participatory things as well but not to worry it’s very easy um and one of them is actually already coming up now um Mari can I ask you to uh go to the next slide yes that one yes thank you um so

Um I’d like you to um when this question comes up was what is a community assembly think about um a word that comes up for you or two words or a phrase and then uh we’ll create a nice word cloud and see if um I’ll be uh sharing

A link in the chat for you hopefully it will work for everybody um one second so if you’re able to click on this chat and then uh put in a couple of words uh or a word or phrase that comes up for you when you see this question

What is a community assembly for you um then and hopefully actually when Mar puts her words and we can see the uh results as well right so now we can see the um the words coming in and uh growing in size um um maybe I can put in the communication listening

Lovely um well we on every everyone’s had the right has the right ideas um um so yeah it is very much about empowering people participation collaboration yes uh that’s and us and um and uh sharing ideas absolutely democracy um obviously a good one yeah and um everyone’s H should be should be

Heard I also like radical that’s important that will come up later on as well um and yeah we’ve tried to come up uh with a a definition um as well um if you could share the the slides again Mar it would be great lovely okay so

Um uh if you could go to the next slide Maran yeah so this is a bit of a long of a long uh paragraph here on one slide but I think um it’s important to capture everything that a community assembly uh can be so um uh as it says here

Community assemblies are democ democratic process that allow people to explore options when faced with shared Pro problems participants share thoughts and feelings discuss relevant issues and generate Solutions in a highly structured way the structure fait facilitates maximized participation and inclusion where everyone is listened to even those with quieter voices so that

Everybody listens understands and co-creates bridges between each other’s diverse persp perspectives uh so Community assemblies are great to build trust and uh obviously they are part of Del liberative democracy and um and obviously they are great to create Connections in between maybe controversial um and um people that have

Us used to have different opinions so maybe there can be a connection made between people to come to a a conclusion and um to solve an issue hopefully and also obviously important for extinction Rebellion Community assemblies are a good um way of pointing to a Citizens

Assembly uh which has been our our third demand since the start a Citizens assembly on the climate and ecological crisis um so um that’s obviously one reason now we’ve we’ve had this have the strategy to have Community assemblies hopefully all over the country um um and and and then point towards Westminster

To the the big citizens assembly that we would like to have and um people have already mentioned and thank you Jane for mentioning that and the checkin that um there are quite a few different phrases phenologies floating about in the assembly universe and uh Mar is a great

Expert in in knowing about all of them and will now explain to us what the difference is thanks Mar if I can unmute myself okay great um yeah so first of all to say that this space although deliberative democracy has been happening uh you know for for thousands

Of years um the fact that this is becoming sort of an official part of um of political systems is relatively new um so deliberative democracy has been gone back as far as as the Greeks and much further even in cultures in in Asia and and in South America in

Abella um where deliberative democracy was very much part of their political systems um but and it’s slowly having a Revival um which is very exciting um so just to say that these categories that uh you can see on the screen here this is very much what XR

Goes by and how XR tries to distinguish the different processes the only process that is really uh internationally recognized at with this definition is the citizens assembly because that is um uh well as as Alex said in her checkout we just had a 3-day course on this um

This is something that people all over the world are talking about and it has quite a rigorous structure uh it has some minimum standards um so that is very much a recognized term but people’s assemblies and Community assemblies is something that we use to distinguish between the two processes that we tend

To use in XR and we’re seeing now that around us um lots of groups are starting to use different words for assemblies people’s assemblies people’s forums Community forums citizens forums it’s there’s lots of different words for it but for ease of use we tend to stick to these three categories and we’ll just

Talk through them now to explain um what the differen is between them all so the nice thing is is that they have a lot in common um so they’re all deliberative Democratic processes and deliberative democracy really means that decisions get made through collective intelligence so we share information we listen to

Information um we then talk about it we change our mind we change our minds again other people change their minds we we listen to each other active listening is absolutely key to deliberative democracy and then together we come up with Solutions and we make decisions and

How this is done exactly that can differ depend depending on the process that you use so group deliberation is absolutely key to this and that’s where the name deliberative democracy comes from now in a Citizens assembly um we it is an absolute requirement that you have external speakers come in to present to

The assembly so these can be experts so of course all all of us are thinking about the climate and ecological emergency on this call I’m sure so you would would have some climate scientists you’d have biologists ecologists um but you would also uh very likely have stake

All holders so you’d have people from perhaps polluting Industries but also from activist groups uh and then also people with lived experience so this could be Farmers whose crops are failing due to climate change people who’ve lost their homes through flooding and you would we would really um uh insist on

There be being a good representation from the global south of people on the front line of the climate and ecological emergency talking about how they are experiencing it with as people’s assembly there’s no need for external speakers um you can have them if you want to but a people’s

Assembly can be quite a quick process um it can be as short as 45 minutes and within Extinction Rebellion we really like using people’s assemblies to make quick DEC decisions do we stay on the bridge or do we give up the bridge do we protect the pink boat in Oxford Circus

Do we let the pink boat go um you know that sort of thing it’s really great to inform activist decisions although you can also have people’s assemblies which are longer and where you have more external input as well and then you would more move more into the realm of

What we call Community assemblies so Community assembly we really recommend also are informed by external speakers who can speak about the specific topic that you’re you’re going to be deliberating on but it is self- selected and with self- selected what we mean is that anyone who wants to come and be

Part of this assembly they can come and so as a result you may have a little bit of a skewed representation of society whereas with a Citizens assembly there’s a very rigorous process uh called sortition which I always like to Remember by thinking of the Sorting Hat

In Harry Potter where people get sorted um so this is sort of uh well a randomly selected process like Lottery like a jury but then unlike a jury the sample gets sorted into a a a smaller a group of uh people that represents the the

Country as a whole so that would be by VAR demographics like age gender ethnicity um where people live um and in in terms of climate change you could for example sort them on how they feel about climate change and then make sure that that also proportionally represents the UK as a whole self-

Selection on the other hand means that you would likely get people who are qu already quite passionate about the topic whereas in a Citizens assembly you could have people who don’t believe in climate change at all or who don’t care about it and as well as people who are very very

Passionate about it but that that’s not to say that there’s no value in a self- selected group um and there are lots of ways you can go about making sure that even though it is self- selected you have targeted lots of different areas in your community to make sure that people

Know about it and that you invite them to come um and as we’ve learned recently there are also ways that you can do a sortition process yourself it’s a little bit of work but it can be done so we could potentially start seeing Community assemblies that run their own small

Sortition process to have a more representative group so that’s very exciting another big difference is the scale of the time so as I said a people’s assembly is very quick you know the police is surrounding you you’re sitting down on a bridge you need to decide very quickly what you’re going to

Do do but you want some sort of consensus from the group uh whereas a Citizens assembly we really say it’s a minimum of 10 days uh and obviously the longer the better it depends a little bit on the urgency of the situation and your budget and all of that but at least

10 days so that you have lots of time for skills training lots of time for learning about the issue and then lots of time for deliberation and feedback and more deliberation um a community assembly can be shorter as well um so we’re now seeing s uh Community assemblies that um that last

For about 90 minutes but we’re also seeing uh Community assemblies that go up to a day which is great as well both citizens and Community assemblies inform policies and what that means is that you want your um your recommendations to do something you want it to go to to the government and for

The government to implement it you want it to go to your local Council and the council to implement it that sort of thing um whereas um The People’s assembly can just be for you for the group what are we going to do next and

It can be quite quick so I think in a nutshell those are kind of the key differences and I hope that sort of clarifies things for everyone but yeah if there’s if there’s still questions then feel free to ask them um I think I’m passing back to that

Lion uh yeah great thanks Mariah that was a a really good thing uh uh definition of all of these different um assemblies I did wonder if people had questions now I did see that um uh Christopher asked about stition in the chat um random selection of participants um

I think yeah I would say that’s all right I often say it’s like a jewelry selection uh what do you think Maran yeah I think that’s really good I mean there’s there’s um lots of debate about the word random people don’t like the word random selection I personally like

It and I use it all the time but there are a lot of people who really don’t like it I think it’s very much a personal opinion some people think that if you say random selection it doesn’t make it sound very legitimate like a proper process um I think if you say

Random selection like a jury I think personally I think that’s fine um so yeah I I I I like that definition so yeah well done uh great okay uh are there any questions burning questions right now um for uh in regards to the differences if not right now then uh if

Anything comes up please also feel free to put the questions in the chat and we can answer them uh at the end of the call uh if not straight away okay lovely yes Mar if you could uh go to the next slide please um so we’re

Now coming to the part of the training where it’s actually about what is it that you need to do before the assembly but also or is recommended you do before the assembly but also then uh the next part after this will be about um how an the assembly on the day actually will

Should look like or will look like for you and this part now is another uh word cloud I would like you to uh participate in and I’ll put the um link for that in the chat again and uh I always say don’t overthink it Lads of these things that

You you uh need to do to prepare for assembly is stuff that we usually do in XR and other movements anyway so I invite you to uh have a think and please again put words phrases um into uh the link that I have just shared and then we

Can talk about these things in more detail yeah I think you should be able to put more than one thing if you would like to yeah okay great um yeah great stuff coming up already share the work roles yeah that’s a really important one uh reach out to

Other groups yeah Alliance building work with other movements that you um have already uh have contact with but also reach out to other movements publicity yes Outreach um that’s a good one I’ve also SE seen learn yes you’re already doing that one here Um okay agree on a question yeah that’s usually one that is a a topic that we’re discussing quite a bit in the training so I’ll have I have a a special slide for that one so hopefully uh we can answer a few questions for you on that one um okay um yeah so

Uh if yeah I have a slide for I mean lot offf sorry can you see slide now yes U but if you could click on the next one that’s the one uh that has yes preparation um so this is actually know in particular order and some of these

Things you probably will have to do at same time but um and lots of these you’ve already mentioned already so obviously it’s important to find facilitators and not takers that are can be there on the day and it’s recommended to have um obviously one or two facil main

Facilitators that are hosting the whole day or the half day or evening and um it’s also recommended that one of them uh is a woman uh or somebody from marginalized groups because that helps people to uh speak up and feel more comfortable and relaxed uh in the

Assembly and then depending on how you envision how big you envisioned the assembly to be you will also need facilitators and possibly noakers for um the breakout groups and um I will go into the size of a breakout group later on but it might be that you if you have

If you’re anticipating 100 participants for the assembly you should uh count with 10 you will need 10 facilitators for the breakout groups um and obviously also important finding a venue and make sure that the venue is accessible wheelchair accessible has other disability accessibility um and sometimes people are also looking into

Uh venues that offer a crutch uh so that it is more uh the assembly will be more accessible for families um or also hearing loops and um you know all kinds of other technical help helping AIDS um Outreach I mean this is something we do in movements and

Especially in XR on a constant basis anyway but yes Outreach is important creating Flyers um going to communities that I you haven’t been into and try to get them go nice to come to your um assembly um we’ve already mentioned it and I think we’ve we’re in XR we’re

Doing quite well with this now since the big one at least or since before is align I building and uh collaborate with your alliances so with other movements that you’ve already worked with or uh you’re working with now because um because youve uh you’ve sort of

Collaborated uh at a big one or since um always good to have more movements on board and also always good to have them on board from the start because they hopefully will be able to help you organize all of it and the side on the question the topic

Or the motion that you would like to discuss in your assembly and like I mentioned earlier this is something that um I have a special slide for so we will be discussing more later on and uh kind of linked to this is decide where the uh outcomes of your assembly is going

What’s the aim uh do is it an assembly that um is helping you decide something within the movement or is helping you decide um how to work better together between the different movements then obviously that’s your outcome there might be an outcome of having three new working groups that are working together

Across the movements so um but the outcome also might be that you are sending um sending the output of the discussions that you had to your local Council to MP to hopefully influence their decision making on whichever topic that you were discussing and if that’s the case that

You would like to um try and influence the local authorities then we would highly recommend doing some re research on the powers that your local Authority have not all councils have the same Powers uh have uh over specific topics and um we have have collated or are

Cating at the moment some some research and uh resources for you to do that um quicker and easier so um and that will be sent to you in an in an email afterwards um great can we go on to the next slide please and discuss the

Question or the topic of the motion so like you mentioned already um it’s good to know upfront what is it that you want to achieve do you in fact want to talk about um a topic related to climate or biodiversity or um is do you really want

To find out what the community that you’re living in is interested in um that might be that none of the people that you are asking on upfront to to or to find out what topic they’re interested in is the climate or the biodiversity loss so you might up end up

Talking about something that you didn’t expect um uh it might be the cost of living crisis or it might be housing uh which obviously XR is also involved in now but it might be something completely different as well so there is a there is a weighing off for you at the start of

This all to say um do we do we want to run and assembly that um is based on the community’s interest or do we want to run an assembly that has um exile’s let let’s say main topics uh climate and and ecology um uh as the as the

Topic and then the question uh should be fairly open so that it allows uh the consider consideration of many perspectives and as many perspectives as possible and the way to phrase the question is usually a good way is how might we um how might we work be better together

In the community is one for example um and uh maybe I can ask uh Steve or Anne from Richmond to come in to tell us what their what they’ve decided uh what their motion is um once um I finish with this and then also um like I mentioned already uh have a

Look at what your local Authority that you would like to Target if this is your goal for the assembly what’s the power they they can they have they what powers do they have what topics are they working on and deciding on that why it might push you

In a direction of a topic or emotion um okay uh Steve ran or anybody else who has run an assembly and uh has had a how might we or a different question that it worked well could you share that with us please so that we have an idea what the topics or motions

Can be uh I can do that sorry I can’t see the gallery view anymore but anyway I uh because it was it took quite a long time partly because um we with various things to consider but also we want to take advice from other groups and um

What we have ended up with to be discussed in December is what more could be done to improve biodiversity in the burough by the council by organizations and by individuals and part one of the reasons that was um a popular choice was because um some other aspect

Of that that might produce more carbon emissions uh there could be a limited amount that our council could do about it or in the case of the expansion of ules it was a very very um could arouse some um difficult uh conversations in the actual Community assembly plus a lot

Of that isn’t again within the control of the council so that’s what we’ve ended up with and the the idea of dividing into three by the Council by organizations and by individuals is partly because the council won’t be able to do that amount you know a huge amount

It may may be limited so again what can organizations do whether that’s Community organizations businesses whatever and uh it sort of brings it back as well to what we can do as individuals and what action people can take without reference to councils or organizations or whatever so that that

Was how we’ve ended up on that and uh we’ll see how well that goes I suppose in December great thanks very much an and um yeah we also did a a uh people’s assembly to and which was doubled with the facilitation no taking training to figure out a question and EM Motion in

Richmond so uh that was uh good fun um yes Steve said that in the chat as well right now are there any questions right now about in a topic or a question um and I’ve seen a few things in the chat but I think they have been answered

Um yes okay sorry I keep moving the slides I’m so sorry uh yes um Ellie yeah is it good to pick a really controversial question because it seems to me that Community assemblies are good places to handle controversial things but is there any risk involved in in

Doing that if you’ve got a really hot local topic which is getting a lot of heat um yeah I think it could be good I guess the only risk is that you might run into heated conversations um which will come to later on there is a like an inclusivity

Statement that will hopefully help to to uh make an assembly uh civilized but uh yeah if there’s something that um you know your community is discussing constantly whether that’s on social media or in church meetings or in the pub then maybe there is a way to to use

Do an assembly and figure out what can be done about it um or if there is something that uh the community together can do um yeah any other thoughts on that Marion or Steve oh sorry go on Steve yeah in Richmond we chose that we chose that motion because um this is our

First time of doing this with the council and we wanted to bring the council with us so we tried to keep it as um collaborative and um as you know consensual as possible from the very start so that we hope that the council would get Faith in community ass

Assemblies and would would go on to hold them of its own valtion you know with or without us um and we would want to see the more controversial issues come up later on possibly in a cycle like that rather than UPF front UPF front we just wanted to build confidence which is why

We went the motion we did confidence on behalf of all parties including the councilors yeah I I I completely agree I think uh uh an assembly of some sort is the perfect thing to address controversial issues it’s it’s kind of the whole point really so um but I would

Say that if it is a very controversial issue um so for example in London you know we have ules and the ltn and stuff like that you really really have to make sure that you then especially in a self- selected process make sure that you really get if not people to come and

Participate at least have speakers of the sort of other side you know the anti cycle lane or the anti- ltn like that sort of that you really make sure it’s balanced because otherwise obviously it won’t be fair and you want to hear as many sides of of the argument as

Possible so then you do have to make sure that you put that extra bit of effort into getting those people to come and um and yeah and then you just have to have some some good confident for facilitators yeah thank you I’ve also in one of of the trainings or uh course

That I was on about assemblies uh SE Cox from Wales mentioned that they did an assembly between that was largely made out of uh farmers and environmental activists which was always a bit of a heat it um mix but they also said that the ass through the assembly process the

Understanding grew of each other and um it was a really great assembly in the end and there were the the friction was um was uh Less in the end I’m not sure what the outcome was and what they did in the end but they said it was a great great

Assembly um okay is there any other uh questions at the moment about topics I saw that um somebody asked um if we could put the um the motion of question enrichment into the chat so Steve ran if you could do share that that would be great Um if there are no further questions about um the topic or the motion right now then I would say uh let’s move on to the uh next slide thank you um so I’ve already hinted on this a little bit um so assemblies um are based on three

Pillars and uh and this is important uh to make sure that they uh run um um smoothly and uh are inclusive to everybody and uh that everybody feels they get Hur so the three pillars are radical inclusivity active listening and Trust um so we go to uh radical inclusivity um is that effective

Assemblies achieve radical inclusivity where the emphasis on all being heard and valued equally means no voices Dominate and the collective wisdom of the assembl harnessed so people can participate safely and openly without fear of judgment or ridicule and radical inclusivity therefore also means that be being aware of potential barriers to engagement and

Working with those affected to enable their participation so the radical inclusivity isn’t just on the day it also means that uh have a look at your Venue and make sure that um uh like I mentioned before it has a wheelchair exis um and um make sure that you have um hearing aids if

Needed hearing Loops if needed or even a BSL interpreter if you um if uh there’s budget for it um or if you are working with the community that um has a main a different native language then be great to have an interpreter uh for them um so that’s um obviously you can advertise

That upfront so people know that all of this is available and they can come to the assembly um and then also obvious um um what also includ is included in the radical inclusivity is to to to be aware that maybe in an assembly people will come that have different opinions to

What you might be used to um and that also needs to be included and to be heard but uh and also maybe you even want to go to different communities and invite them to your assembly to hear to hear their views um so that um these issues in the community can be

Discussed and which uh also leads me nicely on to the next one which is active listening uh which is something that we um quite often talk about in exr and um so the definition of active listening is to focus on hearing someone all the way through before responding

And overcoming the urge to start figuring out your response in your mind whilst someone is still talking um so assembly to recognize that no one person or group holds all the answers it is through the collective wisdom of the crowd that we gain po powerful intelligence about the issues being

Discussed um and active listening is also vital to enhance your capacity to emphasiz empathize so um yeah it’s just really important to um focus on listening and only form your response in your mind once the person has actually finished talking um and um or at least if the response is

Already formed in your mind keep on listening and then maybe your response changes by the end of what they’ve said and say that changed one um and um the last one of the three pillars is trust and um it’s mainly just about this one is mainly just about trusting the

Process of the assembly so once uh everybody in the room has agreed about the system and the process of the assembly then essentially all the participants should be trusting the process and Trust the facilitators and trusting all the uh various working groups that are involved um and as facilitators we and

Assembly team workers we enabl this trust to uh to um to stick through and to uh agree on the process of the assembly um one really important thing for this is um if you can go to next slide Marion please is the inclusivity statement and I would suggest that uh everybody um

Uses this at the start of the assembly because it it’s really nice nicely succinctly and actually a bit tiny bit harshly says um it sets out a rule not rules but a guidelines for the for the day and then if there is somebody causing conflict or is um not acting in

A nice way then you can point them back to this inclusivity statement and kind of say you agreed to this at the start of today please follow it so I’ll just read that out now um we value all voices equally in the assembly as the aim is to hear the

Wisdom of the crowd gathered here and not to have the assembly dominated by individual voices or groups we recognize that confident speakers are not always right and that those who are not confident speakers will often have the most useful ideas or opinions to put into the discussion this is why we value

All voices equally and we ask you to do the same we do not tolerate any calling out abuse or shaming we will welcome all people but not all behaviors so I think yeah I’m I’m just a huge fan of this paragraph I think it’s

Great to be used at the start of a of an assembly to point out uh exactly what it says at the end we’re welcoming everybody but not every behavior um um all right so on now we’re going into what actually today um can look will

Look like should look like or or um for you so on the day on the day or half a day or two hours uh you will have three faces of the assembly and that is the input phase the deliberation phase and then integration phase and um so in the input phase you would

Be doing things like um obviously tell saying hello hello to everybody mentioning what what they are here for today uh maybe people have walked into the wrong meeting and they actually looking for um a crochet class or something so make sure people are there for the right thing and um again radical

Inclusivity ask people if they have any needs um tell people where the toilets are where the emergency exits are and all introducing all the um the team the facilitators the not takers and um but also in the input phase um tell um the inclusivity statement is something for the input

Phase and uh you can also mention the three pillars that I’ve just mentioned above um and um then also important to tell everybody how long it will go for um people might have booked different things afterwards so it’s important to start on time and end on time and then

How the LI Del Liberation face will look like um it’s important to tell people that at the start as well and remind them of the question um the other thing that is in the input phase is if you have any experts there any people can that can

Talk to the topic um that will inform the Del deliberation phase sometimes uh it doesn’t have to be um experts that are full of knowledge of of the science of clean air for example it can be people that are just living the experience um so you can invite five

People from the community talking about their experience of the garbage in the park for example um and once all of this is gathered uh you will have the deliberation fa deliberation phase now this is where you go into breakout groups um and I mentioned earlier there is

A um the average number or a good number for breakout groups I believe is said to be between eight and 10 it’s good to have it not have it bigger be even though if you even though if you have loads and loads of people there because if the groups are bigger

And you have limited amount of time not everybody might be able might be able to say everything they want to say so um good to have smaller groups um and yeah so I said that put people in groups obviously every group should hopefully have a facilitator and

A notaker I personally think that uh if you’re local group um can find facilitators up front that’s great uh if you can’t find not takers I think that’s less of a problem then always usually is a person who’s happy to take notes in a breakout group hopefully but it’s

Important to have a good facilitator um one thing I haven’t mentioned in the input face and actually was not in the training at all yet are hand signals um so in Exile we using the hand hand signals to um um show if we want to we

Want to speak or if we have a direct uh direct uh point to something or if we agree with with what has been said um it’s quite it’s quite good to use them in the assemblies as well because uh then people know it’s this person’s time

To speak and nobody will hope will um fall into their um deliberation phas depends on how much time that you are giving it you can have a deliberation phase of 30 minutes if you have a longer period you can have an deliberation phase of an hour but

Usually um you will be asking the groups to come up with with three answers to the question um and then in the integration phase the facilitator or notaker of each breaker group we will present those um outcomes um if you have 20 groups uh or

Even more um and you think you will be running out of time if everybody presents those three uh outcomes then you cannot you can lower the outcomes down to one or two um that you will bring up now in the past when I did these trainings people have asked asked oh if

What if there’s somebody comes up with a really controversial thing that they they really want to have on um really want to have in the integration phas and really want to be voiced I tend to say that’s fine uh make sure they are being heard they are there to be

Listened to and um they want their opinion to be heard so if a per if a person like that is in your assembly or breakup group just put that on the list as well as those three other motions um it could be that that is that

It is a oneoff wacky idea that just needs to be heard and said and um that’s absolutely fine and um in fact I believe it should be heard and listened to um so as the main facilitator make sure the um that you tell the breakout groups

When they have about 10 minutes left to deliberate and to come up with the three uh or one or two motions that they want to bring to the whole assembly and then it’s time for the integration phase so like I already mentioned each breakout group breakout group will present their three ideas

Answers to the questions uh or motions to the whole assembly um um and then it really depends on what the what your uh achievement is or aim is for the community assembly um very often it probably happens that uh the you won’t end up with like 30 or 50

Different ideas people have similar ideas so you might be able to group the topics already and um and then um that will be your end result um or if your end and if your end result is that you send all the recommendations to your local Authority then uh all 54 um

Answers can obviously be sent to to them um okay uh I don’t know if I’ve missed anything uh M any other yes things to add um no I don’t think so I think um at this stage it’s probably quite good to talk about um you know um presenters versus participants

Presenters are often stakeholders so that basically just means people who have an interest in the outcome of the assembly and I think we would really recommend that they don’t take part in the deliberation um in a Citizens assembly that’s easier to avoid because the learning skills so the input phase is on

A different day and the deliberation is happens on a different weekend or several other weekends so that they’re not even in the same room but here you’ll probably have the Pres presentations and then straight after that you’ll have the deliberation so it’s quite hard to to make sure and

That’s kind of where you as the organizer have to really hold that that um you make sure that the stakeholders don’t influence the deliberation although they may have questions so they can be like can you talk about that thing about air pollution again that’s absolutely fine just kind of keep an eye

And an ear on them to make sure that they’re not saying this is what this is what you should be saying you know that the deliberation needs to be independent and um so I think that is uh that is quite a good thing to um to be mindful

Of um but yeah no I think that’s that’s pretty much it thank you Marion um well I think I rattled through that quite a lot so uh if any questions any discussions please uh please throw in at us now add in the chat or raise your hand um and then after that

Al sorry it’s me again um yeah just just can can you clarify what you mean by stakeholder because I’m I’m not exactly clear what can you give me some examples maybe yeah so um there would be people who have an interest in the outcome so for example if we were talking about

Climate then XR would be a stakeholder but also for example the pro car Lobby group would be a stakeholder or the cyclist like they have real interests in I definitely want this to be the outcome you know I want there to be more cycle lanes and more you know that sort of

Thing um so so they will very much influence um the participants and what it is they want the participants to say like what they want the recommendations to be so they are the stakeholders so they can they can rep they can present to the assembly but it will be very

Clear like you know I’m a climate Act activist I obviously want you know solutions that are good for the environment and for good for the climate whereas someone who is maybe from the proar lobby is like no everyone should have the right to drive Whenever Wherever have as many cars as they want

That sort of thing so so they would be stakeholders they have a real interest in the outcome of of the um of the debate of the deliberation thank you Mar chane thanks um yeah there were just a couple of things um one one was that I

Think it would be a good idea once the question was um decided upon for uh the local say exr group in our case to to actually have that discussion about the question because that would mean you know some things might come up that we um weren’t weren’t thinking

About um so we could we could uh prepare for that best by discussing it ourselves um and the other thing was that you know I think the whole um the terrible situation in Gaza at the moment is still going to be going very strong

And it seems to me in in our area we might that’s what we might be asked to do in our Community assembly to pledge our to pass something not pass something but to endorse something um about that and so I’m just sort of um thinking we we could um then support something

That’s already been um put forward in the community um in in haringay but I I would also value um some you know input from XR about something that we we could take on to do that and that wasn’t left as a job for us to do thank you uh

Ryan I don’t know if you wanna go first D no it’s fine you you had a hand up yeah so I think this is really key of your um of your when you’re setting this up and you’re discussing it with the groups you’re setting up the community

Assembly with is that do a little bit of research on what your council is actually able to do um if if this is something that you’re going towards to the council with for example um so whoever the recommendations are for make sure that they are actually able to do

Something with those recommendations so for example policy on Gaza uh is not in the hands of your Council so you can can deliberate on that and you can have a really interesting process and people get to share their ideas and their thoughts but then what are you going to do with those

Recommendations um you know your council’s going to be like well great thanks for sharing your thoughts but what are we supposed to do with this so so it’s it’s very important that when you’re doing these things on the local level you’re thinking of an issue that

Your local uh Council can deal with for example if there are massive issues of uh unrest in your local community um in terms of um that are affected by this uh conflict so between certain groups in the community for example uh that that’s causing tensions then you might have an assembly on how

Might we as a community resolve these tensions with each other or something along those lines that is something that is within the the local community and the local council’s remit and power um so I would really caution uh make sure that your your topic is actually something that you can

Resolve on the level that you’re doing the uh I mean I think a Citizens assembly about what the UK’s position or response or whatever can or could be on the situation would be amazing but I somehow doubt that our government would be up for setting up a Citizens assembly

On that but um yeah so so I would caution you a little bit just make sure that you say quite that that wasn’t what I was asking but um I wasn’t asking that um and I wouldn’t expect that to happen um I I just uh it wouldn’t be putting it

Anywhere it would be an expression of of of support um that’s all okay as long as that’s clear anywhere that’s not not what I was asking okay as long as that’s clear at the assembly that this is not coming up with a recommendation for someone but that this is just about

Sharing uh feelings and perspectives and that that’s very clear to the participants that that you don’t you’re not raising expectations that this is going to go somewhere then that I think that that’s a great great way of of having a process yeah that’s great well thank you Moine for answering that

Anaisa yeah I was just wondering if you get like quite a big group and they’re all bringing three recommendations and then you could potentially end up with loads of recommendations some of which might even Contra contradict each other do you have then a process just to

Whittle them down a bit or or what how how does that work yeah so um yeah we tend to have discussions about these in train this trainings because it is I recognize it is it can be a difficult process um uh there’s a couple of things um so one is that for

Example if you have a if you have an an assembly around air pollution um there might there possibly are Rec commendations that are very often the same if they are are very contradictory you might have to end up uh discussing have a short deliberation again um but

Also what you can do is um use you know temperature checks uh to see if people are happy with um bringing them forward or taking them away from the from the from the outcome that is going to your local Authority um and yeah I think those are the only two

Things I can think about temporature checks are just a good good way of of of doing that uh Ryan Steve did you have any other thoughts on that yeah I think I think that is generally how it’s done so you have a whole bunch of recommendations um and they then get

Voted on by the group and you can decide in advance or you can even agree with the group before you start the process um how much support would mean that the that the recommendation is passed or that you decide we keep all the recommendations but we describe um how much has support and

What has support and why it has support and why it doesn’t because that’s actually really valuable as well um so um yeah I think voting temperature checks all that sort of thing is H is a really is a really great way of doing it um you can even do you know online

Things uh like a Google form or you could even just make people put something on a note on a paper bit of paper and put it in a ball um so so that they can be anonymous as to what they uh voted on uh because times that’s

Important to people that they don’t want to be seen with their hand up or their hand down um so yeah you can make it more Anonymous through like just Bits of Paper or like an online thing that they can access on their phone um yeah and then usually you’ll see that there are

If there are two very contradicting motions the group will sway towards one or the other um so yeah thank you Marine I’m wondering if an and Steve could tell us a little bit about their great work in Richmond are preparing for the assembly will I go first Steve and then

You can fill in because I’m likely to forget but um uh yes so once we decided on the motion we we’re now going full steam ahead with trying to get people along um and with with we’re doing a variety of things we’re doing Outreach on high streets most of the way through

November at the weekends with a flyer and we’ve got a website where people can sign up to participate um in the assembly um and we’re going to be writing to community groups and local organizations and businesses to invite them to participate to send someone along um and I think

What we struggl well we’re just started doing that but we all know the environmental groups and the groups that are likely to be interested in biodiversity and sort of sympathetic the cause it’s going to be more difficult to make sure we get people along who are not of that persuasion people who

Wouldn’t be our natural allies so you know we can think of things like um but the rotary club or uh women’s Institute but but there’s a you know a lot of us aren’t connected with those organizations so that’s going to take a bit more work um so that’s one thing um and

Uh we’ve actually booked um somewhere in the council offices they have a room there so um that’s that’s quite a big space so we’re hoping to get about 100 people along and so we will need at least 10 facilitators um so so that is sort of on

The way there um and we are going to approach people with specialist knowledge um uh there’s something called the Richmond biodiversity partnership which includes the council but it all also includes a lot of other organizations and so we’ll try and get probably someone from the council to speak about what’s already being done

And then try and get someone from one of these organizations um who’s actually doing practical work on the ground to come and talk about other things that could be done and then um uh things that are maybe being tried elsewhere so that’s sort of where we’re getting to um do you

Want to ask to that Steve I’m trying to think what else no I think that that that’s that covers it but um I would say that um one issue which we hadn’t we hadn’t reckoned on well we’ve never we’ve never really kept um lists of public contact details

Or contact details for members of the public so we have had to get involved in um in data protection um I think we’re just working our way through that at the moment but it’s it’s a it’s a Grizzly bit of uh management um the other the

Other um thing is that um you talked about um people coming in with issues specific issues um we have a major issue in in um our bar where Um the wonderful temps water are proposing to extract water above Teddington lock Where the River no longer tidle and to replace it with um water that they’ve treated in their sewage Works which we um we know the degree of success they’ve had with that that’s an issue that might take over in

A biodiversity um um agenda enrichmond because of the uh Richmond is actually the only burrow that actually borders two sides of the TS so um it’s likely to be a prominent issue for a huge number of people and um we have we still have to think through how how we want to

Handle that particular issue um something else I just thought as well what Steve talking about General data protection regulations and having to Grapple with that is on Tuesday when we were meeting we thought we’d try and get young people along to counterbalance the predominance of um Gerry activists

We have in our group and and you know in general and one of the problems with that is uh we’re not sure if anyone under 18 whether we need safeguarding and people may need to have DBS checks so that was something we just decided at this stage we we’ll just have to say

People 18 and above because we don’t really know how to handle that um and things like public liability insurance which again we hadn’t uh encountered before but the place we’re booking says we have to get that ourselves so there’s all these sort of technical things we’re

Having to start grappling with um at the moment uh yeah I think that’s more or less it and so actually yes anybody from York if they’ve had to deal with anything like this it’ be really good to get your advice on those things particularly at the moment the general data protecting

Regulations because as we’re now about to go out and try and get people to sign up to um participating it’ be very useful to know um if that how that was been handled elsewhere uh with Community assemblies um so if anyone has any tips can put in the chat or or marine and

Dandelion can advise us later that will be great yes um thanks an and Steve and I know that you’ve got done all this bring work for quite quite a time now to come up with the motion and put it all into place so you’ve done great work there um

Are there any questions for an Steve um at the moment or any other questions I can see your question G in the chat uh yeah I was going to say yes escalation plan um but are there any other questions right now we will be sending you an email with

A all the links to all the resources that we have got uh later on Lisa hi yeah I was just thinking could you ask a question in an assembly that’s fair straightforward which is a yay or no so for example um Manchester City well Manchester combined Authority

Invests really heavily in uh the pension fund is invested heavily in fossil fuels at the moment there’s a big campaign going on around that so to run an assembly on that subject and invite people who actually were pension holders um along to an assembly and and present the uh pros and cons of

Investing continuing to invest in fossil fuels and then it would be a simple answer which is should we Contin continue investing in fossil fuels or not and also then I mean I’ve got an agenda exr has an agenda and what if you get an answer you don’t like is it is it

Better not to go there so uh dandelion you want to sorry I don’t know why I jumped in no that’s fine I think you yeah you have I’m happy for you to answer I can just maybe two sentences uh I if you have a yes or no answer

Thing it more it’s more like a it’s not really open for a discussion right and you it’s not really that open for all to hear all voices um and all opinions you could phrase it in a way that says how might we get oh that’s already an

Assumption that you want to do it actually what I was going to say it’s like how well how are we dealing with our pensions or how how might we get the council to divest from fossil fuels I mean that’s obviously all all already you already want to do that yeah that

You already have decided that’s all your target right um but yeah I can see I’m not doing well aren’t your question so handing over to Marion um I think I think we tend to steer clear of yes or no questions just because it’s so polarized but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s impossible

And I think you just need to make sure that you really hold that assembly very well that you say um yes or no but we want recommendations so we don’t want just want um no uh no we don’t want it but you can say no but

Instead uh we want this or that so um we had a really interesting uh example uh this course that we’ve just done where they did the meat tax meat tax yes or no and so um a lot of we deliberated and and um the answer was actually no but

And the the suggestions instead I mean this is kind of different in your s but but it was just interesting that this they said no but we want uh just transition for Farmers to be able to transition away from meat farming and we want uh to stop subsidies for meat

Farmers and we want d d d d da so it wasn’t you know it wasn’t that um so it’s it’s more Nuance than that so as long as you can make sure that um there is room for that kind of of those recommendations to come out then I think it’s probably fine

Um yeah I I don’t see a problem with that uh necessarily um and sometimes it’s quite nice to have a very specific question and you’ll see that actually it will become much broader and people will start thinking about Alternatives and people will start thinking oh actually this isn’t you know investing in fossil

Fuels just doesn’t make sense it’s also all about you know getting some good um speakers to come and speak so that when people are presented with the evidence it you know people tend to lean towards the facts when they’re presented with all the evidence we’ve seen that again and again in in citizens

Assemblies but also in community assemblies and when they are presented with the facts of you know this is what happens when you invest in fossil fuels um they do tend to lean towards what is better for for for them them and for their Community um yeah I hope that answerers your question

Yeah okay yeah I suppose it also depends on the speaker because I was thinking that because as nonprofessionals we might get a selection of speakers and it can depends on the quality of speakers as well how much they influence participants so I think it does require quite a lot of thought really

Yeah thank you for your answer thank you for the question Lisa you can always sorry just so you can always um ask um for experts even if they don’t necessarily want to present but you um because they might not have time or whatever but you can approach them and

Say this is what we’re doing what would you recommend um we talk about and how would you because they will really be able to say make sure these arguments are put to the assembly members um they will know what tends to sort of um yeah what what facts people need in

Order to be able to make up their minds okay thank you okay Ally next question oh you muted early I was interested in the safeguarding issue that somebody raised um as a and I I’m I’m sort of obviously it’s important but I’m concerned that we possibly become so anxious that we

Actually exclude young people from all public spaces um I’ve just you know I’ve got I’ve sort of got young adult kids and as they were growing up they went to all sorts of things um and I’ve never had them excluded from you you know occasionally a gig might be 18 over if

It’s late at night um but they’ve been you know they’ve been to everything and I’ve never had them it’s been very unusual that any organization has said no you can’t come to this because you’re only 17 so um yeah I find that I don’t know I’m I’m

Obviously it’s you want to do the right thing um and that’s really important but is there a risk of over being over anxious and I wonder what you know what the actual things are that are necessary to do does anybody actually know what the actual legalities and proper procedures

Are sorry just G to quickly answer that someone in our group on Tuesday does seem to have quite a lot of expertise experience in this I think she works in Academia and she said certainly in Academia there very very careful very hot on this and I think as Steve said

Earlier as it’s our first time of organizing this and we we’re going to be very thinly stretched as it is we just want to make it as good possible as possible in experience with people who come along so they get some um uh uh an idea of what deliberative democracy is

Um and go away with positive feelings about it and um I think it might be a tall a differ to sort out safeguarding and DBS checks and I think from what this member of our Exile group was saying that um it might be tricky for us

To do that this first time we can look into it for another time perhaps St yeah another option we probably won’t have time to explore it before December when we booked our our assembly but another option was to go to um six forms or six form colleges which

We have in this Barrow and we also have two universities we have St Marys and we also have um in Kingston we have Kingston University and to talk to the Departments there and see if we can um you know advise or or or or um sort of

Consult on if you like um assemblies which are held amongst their their people to their students in order to in order to further the understanding of what deliberative democracy is and then to try to bring into a process um subsequently if if we were successful that that’s that’s that’s a

Sketch of a plan we haven’t we haven’t we haven’t discussed that in great detail at all okay I think um I personally haven’t had to deal with um people under 18 so maybe there something that um okay Abby is Good Help in the in the chat but maybe there something that uh

We the community assembly team can look into and give bit of advice uh in the telegram chat after the after this meeting um um but there is a good question from Anna in the chat which is about funding so uh good we do have some funding available for local groups that

Are running an assembly and now this is the downside of it before the January of 17 17th so we have we have received some funding from the climate emergency fund that we are we we are using or can use for this these kind of project for Community assemblies or

Um um I think some might be people’s assemblies so where the they just are deliberating within uh the different movements um so and the if you are thinking about uh not applying getting money from this uh pot of money then um there will also be a link to the uh the

Expense so the you will need receipts and you will F have to fill out an expense form and um there’s a couple of things that would be great for us to have so uh because we need to give a report to climate emergency fund which is um few

Social media posts that you have about your assembly um photographs press releases would be amazing any local news stories so that we can say look we’ve done all these amazing assemblies um and um don’t shy away from let that not shy make you shy about uh

Asking for money because we do need to spend this money so and it’s quite a bit so please do uh fill out the form that you will be sent as well um in the in the email afterwards um okay I hope that answers your question Anna um there are quite a lot

Of other sort of local Authority funding available or uh there’s also a fund um um that the the Cosmetics shop Lush is giving out each month I believe that people can apply for uh it’s not strictly for assemblies but it’s for um they like to uh they like to help out uh

Movement so U and I know that quite a lot of um XR local groups and circles are at the moment uh trying to get funding from Lush so uh that’s another opportunity I know about but um our colleague Denise uh I believe she knows a lot about um funding as well so there

Isn’t some information on the rebel on the community assembly Rebel kit about that as well um again that link will be in the email um okay any other questions at the moment or comments um yes I’m afraid the assembly this question has to come up as well so

Anaise just asked in the chat if the assembly has to be run before the 17th of January yes I’m I’m Afra so um um I know that uh if you are quick and happy to organize one now there’s quite a few people that are doing one on

The 14th of January because of the funding ending so uh yes okay any other questions at the moment if not I would say Mar if you could stop the recording and then we can do check