Process Consultant: List of Facilitation Trainers

Consensus & Sociocracy Facilitation Trainers
& Group Facilitators

This list was posted to Cohousing-L 12/6/09

Almost all of these consensus or Sociocracy trainers live in or have lived in intentional community and understand very well the special requirements of decision-making in cohousing neighborhoods, ecovillages, and other kinds of intentional communities.

While these trainers are listed alphabetically by the region where they live, below, most will travel anywhere in North America to work with your group.

West Coast:

• Tree Bressen. Eugene, OR. Cofounder of Walnut Street Co-op in Eugene. Has taught consensus to more than 50 communities and organizations. Works with many cohousing groups. Travels by train to communities in the West.
  http://www.treegroup.info ; tree [at] ic [dot] org
• Caroline Estes. Deadwood, OR. Lives at Alpha Farm in Deadwood, Oregon. Forty-plus years’ experience teaching consensus to communities, businesses, and Waldorf Schools. http://www.pioneer.net/~alpha/ai-info.html
• Paul DeLapa. San Francisco Bay Area consensus trainer. Has Masters in Organizational Development from CIIS. Teaches at JKF University. pdelapa [at] sbcglobal [dot] net.
• Eris Weaver. Somona County, CA. Consensus trainer who lives at Frog Song Cohousing, Cotati, California. http://www.erisweaver.info ; eris [at] erisweaver [dot] info
• Adam Wolpert. Sonoma County, CA. Consensus. Cofounder of Sowing Circle/OAEC. Also co-leads workshops on starting new communities.  adam [at] oaec [dot] org

Intermountain West, Southwest, Midwest:

• Betty Didcoct. Boulder, CO. 25+ years’ experience teaching consensus internationally, including for the International Reiki Alliance. Works with Laird Schaub, below, with many cohousing groups. betty [at] ic [dot] org
• Ma’ikwe Ludwig. Northwestern Missouri. Consensus. Lives at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage.
  Works with husband Laird Schaub. http://www.solspace.net; avatar [at] ic [dot] org
• Annie Russell.Consensus for projects built by WHDC. http://www.annierussell.com
• Laird Schaub. Northwestern Missouri. Consensus. Cofounder of Sandhill Farm, founder and executive director of Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC). Works with many cohousing groups. laird [at] ic [dot] org; http://communityandconsensus.blogspot.com
• Two-year IFP Facilitation Training: Laird Schaub and Ma’ikwe Ludwig host quarterly
  3-day consensus facilitation intensives with live facilitation practice at different communities in the South, the MidAtlantic States, and other regions. Highly recommended.

East, Southeast:

• Tena Meadows O’Rear: Sociocracy Trainer. Tena lives at Ecovillage at Loudon County Cohousing in Virgina, which has used Sociocracy for years. TenaMOR [at] aol [dot] com
• CT Butler. Washington D.C. Author of On Conflict and Consensus. Expertise from environmental/ social justice activist groups. http://www.consensus.net; ctbutler [at] together [dot] net
• Diana Leafe Christian. Asheville, NC. Author of Creating a Life Together and Finding Community. Leads workshops on starting new communities, resolving structural conflict in existing communities, and consensus. DianaLeafeChristian.org; Diana [at] ic [dot] org