Cohousing-L Mailing List: learning opportunities - decision making and governance - the sociocracy way

[Jerry Koch-Gonzalez (j.kochgonzalez]

I have lived in the Pioneer Cohousing Community since its founding 22 years
ago. For the first 18 years we made decisions by consensus. Four years ago
we switched to consent and sociocracy and I experienced it as a great
relief. More things getting done with less struggle.

More and more communities around the world have adopted sociocracy for
their governance or are in the process of exploring sociocracy.

Want to learn more about sociocracy? Take an easy trip to the
sociocracyforall.org website - plenty of articles and videos there. Or
watch the attached short video with subtitles in many languages.

Want to start a study group on sociocracy? Download the Empowered Learning
Circles <https://www.sociocracyforall.org/elc/> 6-session study guide. Nine
cohousing communities have done that or are in process. it is free (with a
request for a free will donation at the end).

Already know something about sociocracy and want to learn more by "doing"?
Then the Sociocracy Leadership Training is the program for you. Every
previous cycle has included members of cohousing communities/ecovillages
and participants from all over the world. Fun! Sociocracy For All starts
its fifth cycle of the Sociocracy Leadership Training on September 1 and
the 6th cycle on October 13.

Teaching good self-governance --sociocracy-- is what we do. We've given
many workshops and we still do. But we noticed: reality is different from a
workshop. We tried to figure out how we can make sure people can carry
tools and ideas into their real meetings, and that's how we developed the
Sociocracy Leadership Training (SoLT). Here is more information about the
Sociocracy Leadership Training:

Learn by doing!


We believe that sociocracy is best learned by experience. In this training
program, we walk you through real-life situations, by immersion. You and
your group will use rounds, select roles, make decisions, have operational
meetings, learn the best-practice sociocratic meeting format.



Every participant will be part of at least:



- 5 policy decisions

- 4 selections

- 2 policy evaluations

- 14 meeting evaluations

- 20+ consent rounds (incl. processing objections)

- all classes are online

- in 14 meetings over 9 weeks.



You can do this class from your home or your workplace in about 3.5h a week
(minimum)



What you get

-access to SoLT training videos

-Q&A and reflections sessions

-readings

-online training sessions

-access to the SoFA community

-online coworking sessions - doing work together is more fun!

-friendships with other international participants



See that self-governance can be fun and smooth. Every cohort only has 18
participants because we want to support connection between participants and
we want to get to know you, too!



Sociocracy is a non-profit and we're able to offer this training for
$220-440 on a sliding scale. (Organizations and participants with financial
resources please pay on the higher end.)



Apply by August 24 to be part of the 5th SoLT training cycle. Start by
sending us an email expressing your interest - jerry [at] sociocracyforall.org.

Or go the the sociocracyforall.org/solt website and read more about the
program.


If you have not visited our website lately, go take a look. You will find
lots of free downloadable materials and access to videos and past webinars
such as an interview with Gerard Endenberg, and exploration of permaculture
and sociocracy, and soon one on sociocracy and schools.

In community,
Jennifer Rau and Jerry Koch-Gonzalez, Sociocracy For All
members of the
​
Pioneer Valley Cohousing Community <http://cohousing.com/>

*Sociocracy: the operating system of the new economy. See 4-minute intro
video here <https://youtu.be/l3zFWpntExg>.*