Thanks to Yana Ludwig for an excellent WebChat introduction to consensus. You can read a short summary below and see the full session at this link: https://youtu.be/Uvbia2QJjEk

Yana gave us a brief introduction to consensus and reminded us that this is just a beginning. Becoming skilled in consensus is a journey over years.

As a background to concensus work, Yana explained that consensus has two connected parts. Creating a culture of consensus is essential to the practice of consensus or consent decision-making. Learning the structures of consensus decision-making is much easier, but by itself will leave room for a lot of problems as groups work to create the collaborative community cohousers are looking for.

Yana offered six smaller pieces to create a system that fosters consensus:

You have to have articulated and widely known, group values and purpose that you have all agreed on.

Define what is a valid block and a process for validating a block.

Have a clear understanding of who is in the decision making process and who is not.

Have a clear and known process for how you make your decisions.

Neutral facilitation.

Sequencing: gather input and ideas from group before drafting a proposal.

Yana also shared some files which you can access at the links below: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzP_-_GeVmPdWlRiWDYxdW9DNGVibE1qUDQ4Wk…https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzP_-_GeVmPdek1TNWY1UjE5dS1LT1pCbWE3b3…

Watch the recording for many more great nuggets from Yana’s answers to questions from cohousers in the zoom room.

For information on upcoming WebChats and more recordings, go to our WebChats page at http://s878506846.onlinehome.us/node/6644