It happens over and over again—a group of people come together, fired up with passion to create change. They begin with huge inspiration and enthusiasm—and a year later, it’s all foundered in the mire of conflict. We could have changed the world ten times over—if we didn’t have to do it together with other people, those irritating, self-righteous, controlling, fluff-brained, clueless idiots who are our friends and allies.
Starhawk
We can do better. In her twelfth book, The Empowerment Manual: A Guide for Collaborative Groups, Starhawk draws on four decades of experience in circles and collectives to show us how to foster connection, clear communication, and positive power in ourselves and our groups.
The Empowerment Manual is required reading for anyone who wants to help their group avoid disagreement and disillusionment and become a wellspring of creativity and innovation. It is highly recommended to members of any Working Group at all Occupy sites.
The Empowerment Manual is now in bookstores, or you can order online from:
• New Society Publishers: www.newsociety.com/Books/E/The-Empowerment-Manual
• Amazon.com
You can also download (.pdf) a chapter of it on The Five-Fold Path of Productive Meetings, where you can read about:
- Learning to Love Meetings
- Right People
- Right Container
- Right Process
- Right Facilitation
- Right Agenda
- The Five-Fold Path
and learn about practices worth replicating:
- Key Questions About Who Should Be At a Meeting
- Encouraging People To Come
- Ongoing Communication
- A Template for Minutes
- Simple Voting Procedure
- Consensus Roles
- Hand Signals
- Facilitators’ Toolbox
armando lawrence said on December 6, 2011
why not a national march, a march to take place in all current sites of occuoy movements. hold rally at each march site. same day, across the country. Or a national march & rally in either Wall street and or D.C.