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

[Randall Cotton]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jan & Durl Kruse" <jandurl at comcast.net>
To: "Randall Cotton" <recotton at earthlink.net>
Cc: <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2008 11:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] proposal for "News of the Week" format


: Far Far away in the state of Utah........
: Where controversies are *religious* in nature.
: Prefer to keep the *News of the Week* as it is:
: Carl with 10 minutes and anyone else may challenge, debate,
: or support the news from Carl.

You are not alone in prefering that. However, at the last meeting,
multiple folks voiced concerns with the current arrangement (long-standing
though it may be). Personally, I would prefer Carl continue with his 10
minute news summaries - I value them greatly and I said as much at the
last meeting. And actually, my proposal allows for the continuance of the
status quo. In the past, it has been an extremely rare occasion that folks
came to the meeting with their own news items to relay and when they did,
it was just a quick mention of two or three items at most. Unless others
start coming to the meeting with news items to share, taking up in excess
of 5 minutes total, my proposal simply reduces to the status quo. In
truth, I imagine that's exactly what the end result will be nearly every
week if this proposal is adopted.

On the other hand, maybe people *will* start bringing in their own news
items to share. This proposal does create space and room for folks to do
that if they wished. Several folks said (Carl included) that it would be
better if more folks came prepared to review news items they considered
important. If this started happening, it can't be anything but a good
thing in my opinion. And if it turns out there's real competition for time
(hard to imagine, I think), then we can change the 15 minutes to, say, 20
minutes either on the fly at any meeting (say, by the facilitator,
provided there's no objection), or permanently if, perchance, we get a
bounty of news items from all sorts of folks every meeting.

An important aspect of the proposal I would like to emphasize is that it
*creates space* for others to contribute. Rather than a pre-ordained
reservation of 10 minutes specifically for Carl, it opens things up to
anyone who wants to contribute, yet at the same time, if no one wants to,
we can continue to be informed by Carl's weekly summary as we have for lo,
these many years.

: To me Carl (and the news) is a Working Group.

Well, I think that's a bit of a stretch. I could elaborate, but I'll leave
it at that.

Jan, perhaps you misunderstood my proposal. Please view it as it was
intended - to open up the meeting's news review to participation by
others, while preserving the status quo if there's no interest by others.
You can claim (as I did at one point) that anyone can contribute just as
easily as Carl can, but upon reflection I realized that's simply just not
true if we continue to pre-ordain that a specific individual is allocated
10 minutes to start with at the very beginning of the meeting. Reserving
that initial 10 minutes to a designated individual serves to discourage
others from contributing as compared to this proposal.

R

: Don't we allow folks to create working groups and then go forth?
: In the past some AWARE members have arrived at 5:15 to avoid the news.
: Lots of ways for anarchist to address this issue without all the
: complications, timekeeping and regulations............
: Those who don't like Carl's news can always take it outside after the
: meeting.
: Please don't eliminate a long standing *Working Group* with some voices
: far far away.........
: As for the *bestowing of (a particular personal) recognition* .......
: sounds more like the bestowing of a *Thankless Job*!
: Hope consensus will be to retain AWARE News of the Week as it currently
: is, was and should remain..........
: a Working Group with work that can be discussed, challenged and
: encouraged and not dumped.
: Besides who would want to facilitate and grant time to others?.......
: sounds messy!
: JAN Kruse
:
:
:
: On Sep 18, 2008, at 10:46 PM, Randall Cotton wrote:
:
: > 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.
: >
: > ****************************
: > 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
: >
:
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