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We Did It! . 
Wisdom Council Members, Day 1 The first Rogue Valley Wisdom Council was held on November 15 & 16, 2003 at the Red Lion Hotel in Medford. Click here for more information. Click here for more photos. Click here for a 22-minute streaming video. (Uses Real Player, available at www.real.com.) 
Jim Rough facilitates the session We the People Rogue Valley Wisdom Councils ...bringing new life to democracy Citizens' Wisdom Councils provide a way to get at the essential wisdom in all the people, in a way that strengthens the democratic process. A Wisdom Council is a small group of randomly-selected people who come together to share thoughts and feelings about the things that matter, to seek creative win/win solutions to the problems before us, and to reach consensus on a set of shared concerns. A trained facilitator helps them to do these things. The statements that result from the Wisdom Council are then shared with the larger community, and that stimulates discussion of important issues. There are places in the world (like Denmark) where citizen panels are well respected and have a significant role in the conduct of public dialogue and policy formation. They empower citizens and enhance the vitality of democracy. They don't replace or weaken the other institutions of democratic process – they make them work better. Basic elements Four times a year, twelve to eighteen citizens are randomly selected to form a Wisdom Council and to represent "the People." They meet for at least two four-hour periods on successive days. A facilitator helps them express their thoughts and arrive at consensual statements. Immediately after it meets, the Wisdom Council presents its conclusions at a public meeting. In this meeting, everyone listens to the panel's consensual statements, forms into small groups to discuss them briefly, and then listens to responses from the groups. This provides a way for everyone to know the level of support for the Wisdom Council Statements throughout the community. The presentation is videotaped and made available to the community, and the consensual statements are presented on a Website, where comments and reactions are available for all to see. After the presentation, the current Wisdom Council disbands permanently. In three months, a new Wisdom Council is selected and the process continues. Dynamic Facilitation The citizens who form the Wisdom Council do not receive any training in how to conduct themselves. They are local people who care about issues. They are assisted by a facilitator who uses a special system called Dynamic Facilitation to help them address big, seemingly impossible-to-solve issues creatively and collaboratively, and to reach consensus. Most people experience politics as an adversarial process. Many people have never had an experience of being in a creative political conversation, where people seek win/win solutions that may go beyond the ideas offered by politicians. The Wisdom Council shows people that creative political conversations are possible by including them in one. Some people think that ordinary folks don't care about politics or the big issues of the day. They cite low voter turnouts and say people aren't very knowledgeable, and decide that people don't care. People do care. It's just that there are few effective ways to participate, or for their caring to make a difference. The Wisdom Council changes that. Success Stories:
Click here to learn about some heartening success stories. 
Lance, Karen, David and reporter Selena taping a news segment for Channel 5 
This project is a partnership of the Rogue Valley Wisdom Councils
committee, the Center for Wise Democratic
Processes, and the Co-Intelligence
Institute.
It is co-sponsored by the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation. (Web addresses are given below.) For more information
about Wisdom Councils,
visit the Website of the Center
for Wise Democratic Processes, http://www.wisedemocracy.org/
and the Website for Jim Rough's book, Society's Breakthrough!, http://www.societysbreakthrough.com/ For more information about Dynamic Facilitation (including training), visit the Website for Jim Rough and Associates, http://www.tobe.net/ For more information about Citizen Panels in general, visit the Website of The Co-Intelligence Institute, http://www.co-intelligence.org/ and the Website for Tom Atlee's book, The Tao of Democracy, http://www.taoofdemocracy.com/ For more information about the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation, visit their Website at http://thataway.org/ For more information about the
Rogue Valley Wisdom Council project, contact David Wick at dwick@aol.com |