Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Consensus

[Ruby44444 (Ruby44444]

At Pioneer Valley we have had various trainings on consensus, mostly little
bits in-house, but a major one given by Caroline Estes, from Alpha Farm in
Deadwood--Oregon? I think--she is excellent!!!
We are slow to get good at it, although we've improved immensely over time--1
reason is that it's hard to get everyone on board at any given time so we are
at very different skill levels.
 One important thing I think is to get agreement on what consensus means.
There are a lot of variations out there and differences of opinion  e.g. on
the concept of "blocking" .  One school of thought says it doesn't need to
exist and the concept is devisive--if someone objects to something you just
haven't done enough work finding common ground and listening to each other.
Another school of thought  lists ways of dealing with "blocking" in detail.
A minor point with major ramifications.
It's also more important to have your facilitators very skilled, because a
good facilitator with a clear vision of consensus process will shape it and
educate as s/he goes along.