[Peace-discuss] proposal for "News of the Week" format

[Randall Cotton]

As suggested at the last AWARE meeting, I'm putting forth a refined
proposal in an attempt to resolve the recent conflict regarding the "News
of the Week" section of our meetings.

1. The problem (as best I can humbly determine)

I gather that Carl began providing a news summary at the beginning of
every meeting, at AWARE's request, several years ago. Though Carl's
summary has a long history of being appreciated, there is presently at
least one person that dislikes Carl's particular viewpoint (no viewpoint
being perfectly objective). I think it is safe to say that everyone agrees
that no one's viewpoint should be squelched and AWARE should not be in the
business of trying to shut people up at its meetings. However, it would
seem that there is no longer consensus regarding the long-standing
convention of reserving 10 minutes at the beginning of each AWARE meeting
specifically for Carl's news summary.

Some might argue (as I did at one point) that there's no need to change
the meeting format because there is nothing preventing anyone in AWARE
from adding their own take on the news during the "News of the Week"
section. However, this discounts the fact that, in practice, at least 10
minutes are understood to be reserved specifically to Carl, thus bestowing
a particular personal recognition (a decision made long-ago by the group).

2. The current "News of the Week" convention:

Currently, at the very beginning of each meeting, the floor is given to
Carl whereupon he provides roughly 10 minutes of news review. Following
that, there is an opportunity for anyone else to say whatever they like
about recent news (including commentary/analysis/discussion on what Carl
presented as well as contribution and discussion of other news items.)

3. The proposed *revised* "News of the Week" convention:

I propose retaining a "News of the Week" section and a subsequent
commentary/analysis/discussion section. However, instead of 10 minutes
reserved for Carl, let us reserve 15 minutes for anyone to contribute news
items. The facilitator would check among attendees to see who had news
material and how much time was needed to share it. The facilitator would
then allocate time in a fair manner from the 15 minutes available. No one
person would be allocated more than 10 minutes. After the "News of the
Week" section, there would an open-ended commentary/analysis/discussion
section, similar to the current convention.

If someone arrives late (after the time allocation) and wants to
contribute news items, they're out of luck unless some of the 15 minutes
remain unassigned, whereupon the facilitator could assign from the
remaining unused time.

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Examples:

Example 1: five  people bring news items, each requesting 5 minutes.
Clearly, the fair allocation is 3 minutes per person (though, of course,
the group could decide to extend the "News of  the Week" section for that
week to fully accomodate all requests).

Example 2: three people bring news items. One requests 3 minutes, one
requests 7 minutes, one requests 8 minutes. One fair allocation might be 3
minutes, 6 minutes and 6 minutes respectively.

Example 3: one person brings news items, requesting 10 minutes. Since no
one else requests time, the maximum 10 minutes are allocated. Someone
arrives late and wishes to contribute 3 minutes of news items. Since 5
minutes remain unused, their request is granted by the facilitator.

My understanding from what Carl voiced at the last meeting is that he
would have no objection to this scheme of allowing *anyone* to contribute
to a review of the week's news in a fixed period of time (as opposed to
just him).

This requires someone to keep track of time. While I would prefer others
(preferably a *variety* of others) volunteer to provide this, I would
agree to do it as a last resort.

Feedback/Comments/Suggestions/Criticism welcomed
R