Cohousing-L Mailing List: Sociocracy Email List

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

I've started reading Endenburg's work on Sociocracy and am fascinated by it.
When I joined cohousing I was rather dumbfounded by the process for running
meetings. While I agreed with consensus wholeheartedly, I couldn't figure
out why parliamentary procedure had been thrown out. The explanation is that
it is based on majority rule is not sufficient since the first level of
decision making  and the one that is preferred is "hearing no objections the
measure passes." 

It's too complicated is not sufficient because there are simplified forms
like the one used by the American Psychological Association.

I tried to find process people who would work with me on adapting
parliamentary procedure to a more process friendly format that required
consensus and then tried to get parliamentary experts to work with me. No
one was interested. "Never shall the twain meet."

Discovering Sociocracy feels like salvation. In it I found explanations for
all the reasons I was feeling like the consensus process was feeling
autocratic instead of super-democratic as it should be.
I went to YahooGroups to start a Sociocracy list --perhaps one for
Sociocracy in Cohousing, and found a list had been started in 1998. It had 3
members, two of whom turned out to be John A Buchan who is the most active
advocate in the USA. The other member is in Australia. Then there is me.

I invite everyone who is interested in discussing Sociocracy to join this
list. Since cohousing groups are already functioning on consensus, they are
perfect for the model of governance. Consensus is a threshold for
decision-making but it needs a governance structure and shared expectations
on the part of the participants to work effectively.

But to make the theory useful to those who do not care for sorting out
abstractions, the language needs some work. Why base your theory on circles
and present it in hierarchical terms in triangles, for example? Not a theory
problem just an old set of examples. How do we make a better model that is
easy to understand and apply? Using your primary account , send any message
to this address to subscribe:

Subscribe:     sociocracy-subscribe [at] yahoogroups.com

If you are asked to register, you do not have to give all the personal
information. But having a registered account is helpful in changing your
email address on all accounts and getting them all linked to a page called
"my groups".

Please join this list if you are interested in discussing Sociocracy. I
think there will be more discussion here on Sociocracy and cohousing but
some of the theory discussions will send people who just want a construction
loan over the top.

Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org



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