From EcoReality

Being a Steward of Group Process...What I See by Shannon Cowan

Sustainable group process is at the heart of living in community, sharing resources, including land co-ownership. Building trust effectively and ongoingly requires practice and checking-in frequently to give and receive feedback as a group and as individuals. Group Process is also about ensuring that tensions are alleviated between group members before they escalate, which can happen when there is physical or perceived emotional distance between people. Tension, or non-workable group process can also arise when there is not enough simple time spent listening to how other people view the world, and sharing how we ourselves view the world so that compassion may arise in the space between people.

The Group Process Steward is a member of the community who agrees to facilitate group process activities. These aim to build relationships, to harmonize communications and to establish well-oiled and highly-functioning cooperative mechanisms that suit the changing needs of the ecovillage as it grows; human, biotic and abiotic communities within a larger system.

Some key elements I see as core components to nurture in group process are:

1. regular, frequent opportunities to Check-in
2. complete group "buy-in" and understanding of all agreements made
   1. at times, this means facilitation of group discussion/meeting agenda items/new proposals when it becomes apparent that the group is split or imbalanced in terms of understanding and actions consistent with existing written agreements. If an ecovillage can be compared to a boat, the agreements are the "shapely crafted wooden parts" and the inter-relationships between individuals to each other, and to the whole group, are the "nails, screws and water-proof glue" that together create a functioning ecovillage community - a tight, sturdy and beautiful little boat that can be flexible, adjustable, yet seaworthy at every turn of the tide.
3. ongoing training and attention of group function in using the tools of consensus/consent as a form of organizational self-governance.
   1. this means working with program steward to offer workshops to the group in consensus training, facilitation skills development, conflict resolution skills development, and more...

Shan 14:45, 21 June 2008 (PDT)