My personal impressions of the gathering
This was my first gathering for quite some time and I was looking forward to becoming involved again in the Nv network. In many ways this was a tough gathering to be part of, particularly from my perspective of being new. The events of the last few years for many people were painful and hard to deal with. Time was needed and a weekend was not enough. One particular session on Saturday was spent dealing with people's feelings about the events of the last twoyears and the gathering. This session left me with mixed feelings. It was hard because I hadn't been there and the sorrow and hurts were not mine. I found that I was taking on some of the feelings of the group although I struggled against this. Dealing with what happened was obviously important but this session left little time to deal with the emotions raised. A ritual held at the Commonground ritual site early next morning helped people deal with the emotions raised in this session. Fears were raised in me that the network would wind down at a time that I was ready to become actively involved again. However there was also a lot of new energy and much good thinking about the network and some new hope.
One of the primary difficulties with the National Gathering has been the lack of time to do all that we want (this one was shorter by a day than usual). The business aspect of the gathering particularly has taken up more time than people feel comfortable with. Out of this gathering it was decided to separate the business and decision making side of the gathering from the workshop, skills development, networking side of the gathering. The business meeting will be held a day or two before the main gathering and will hopefully involve representatives from all regions. Taking over some of the roles of the facilitation collective is the 'business' collective which will meet during the year to decide on issues of how the money attracted by ANN will be disbursed and to organise the business meeting. The idea of this is to reduce the energy required to maintain such a group. The 'gathering' collective continues with some new blood and will organise a gathering that I think will be more exciting and relevant to the needs of people attending. We did make time to do 'non business stuff' ranging from personal sharing of needs and visions to reports, talks and story telling. The East-West exercise was an interesting look into our different interpretations of what Nonviolence is. In this exercise statements such as 'It is possible to change an unjust system whilst working within it.' were read out and people line up in a continuum of their responses to this from 100% agree to 100% disagree. The reconciliation discussion on Saturday was a talk given by a member of the Quakers and was interesting and challenging. The History and Map of ANN was a good way of reconnecting with all that has gone on before and a sense of the diversity of ANN. And of course there was the Saturday night fun of playback theatre and people sharing their stories.
The Agenda and some of the discussion of the gathering was as follows:
Friday
8.30 pm Gathering Circle, Personal Sharing, Agenda, Agreements, House Keeping
10.30 pm Finish
Saturday
9.30am Gathering Circle (pair sharing, agenda review, roster review)
10.00 History and Map of ANN
10.30 Focus on Nonviolence (E-W exercise, concentric circles)
11.30 Morning Tea
11.50 Needs Contributions & Visions
12.30 Reports (IFOR, AVP)
1 pm Lunch
2.15 Pair Sharing
2.30 Visions and Directions
3.50 Afternoon Tea
4.10 Reconciliation Discussion
5.30 Working Groups Time
6.30 Dinner
8.30 Story Sharing with music and playback theatre
Sunday
10 am Gathering Circle
10.30 Agenda Review
10.35 Administration of ANN (business, mail, Library, Bank Account - $$ what to do with it)
11.30 Morning Tea
11.50 Education Collective Report
12.00 Cost Share Exercise
1.00pm Lunch
2.00 Pair Sharing
2.40 The Future (The Web, Knights of NV, Heart Politics Conference, Theme Focus Gatherings and/or large gathering, organising collective, any other bits and pieces)
3.15 Cuppa
3.30 Cost Share
4.30 Finish and Evaluation
Structural Discussion
· Continuing education/training
· Keep this as a core part of ANN
· Take workshops to other states.
· Keep education collective.
· Examine the structures of the gathering - time constraints.
· Proposal for gathering not to include business. Except to appoint next facilitation collective.
· Proposal for business meeting collective to meet prior to gathering.
· Get an agreed upon process to decide who is on a collective re business.
· Agenda for decision making at gathering which people choose to come to or not.
· Maintaining the WEB
· Nurturing grass roots in some way. national gathering - also regional ones - make local.
· Regional responsibility vs national responsibility.
· What is the purpose of the gathering?
· Maintaining relationships.
· Links between campaigns.
· Way of accessing grass roots.
· If small group responsible for business its their responsibility to be aware of the grass roots.
· Idea to organise regional gatherings.
· Examine why it has not happened.
· National gathering - 3/4 Victoria, 1/4 other states.
· Maybe there needs to be a separate Victorian gathering. This may create space in National gathering for other stuff.
· Change the venue of the National gathering.
· National gathering every 2nd year..
· Is our commonality of nonviolence enough on a national level?
· What would we do at a national level?
· Workshop/nonviolence skills etc shared at national gathering rather than business.
· Developing more of a purpose/content focus at the national gathering.
· Ready and willing to utilise the people with great skills in the training.
· Terrific fabulous workshops on nonviolence.
· Positive reflection. Sharing our connections. Being renewed by this. · Don't lose what we have already- celebration.
· We don't have to prove that we are good activists.
· Combination of learning/ritual/fun etc education.
· Business stuff kept separate.
· Define business side more.
· Mail box.
· Books
· $$$ stuff
· Equipment Commonground.
· E-mail account.
· Income pledges
· Interest
· Organisational stuff
· How can we be together to become resolved?
· Delegate responsibilities
· Choice about how we run the gathering
· Organising collective for gatherings
· What level of organisation do we have? Maybe look at a base minimal level. (Phone link-up not really all that simple, the WEB)
· $$$ - How it impacts on the group. How do we make decisions on this?
· Roles who does what? Individual or collective?
· Clarity about aim of national network.
· Revisiting what we have done in the past.
· Not throwing baby out with the bath water
· Looking at what worked.
· Simple admin
· $$$ more problematic.
· Developmental stuff more difficult.
· Is there interest in developing the network
· Outreach work
· Regional work National gatherings /training.
· Maintain national network by developing it - encouraging more national level issues.
· Phone link-up - look at who is on it
Themes
Vision
· More organised, solid clear network.
· Community
· Expanding through training and networking.
· Contributions
· Training workshops.
· Organisational skills.
· Networking connecting.
· Support counselling.
· Practical offerings (computer skills, writing, editing, carpentry)
Needs
· Nonviolence training.
· Strong connections with other groups.
· Personal support, communication and connections (WEB, NVT, PLU central contact)
· Sense of continuity and being sustainable and credible
· Annual gathering.
Development of the network
· Question - Issue money is meant to be for interstate but do we have the energy for development interstate.
· Attempt to organise regionally and use gatherings for skillsharing.
· Keep education collective.
· Keep WEB.
· Downscale development role.
· Keep PLU
· Resourcing interstate people to come to ANN gatherings.
Business
· Not to be dealt with at gatherings.
· Be dealt with on one day at beginning of gathering.
· Be dealt with by a 'collective' (with nominated representatives) who are resourced to meet prior to gathering and whose proposals may be fed back at gathering.
· Be dealt annually by the Gathering Organising Group
· ANN to make decision re use of money and processes to responsibly manage it.
ANN Funds
Funds used for development and/or campaigns tied to education, training, skill development stuff.
Minutes
Mail - coming to Seymour/Commonground and then to Anthony at present. Anthonys proposal: - mail to come to the Education Collective PO Box. New one to be started and mail to be used by education collective - Agreed.
Library - is stored in boxes at Commonground - proposal - keep storing it there till someone has a good idea. Concerns re its safety from silverfish, rats etc. Ed collective will look at using it.
· Decision - leave it on the ridge for now if someone wants to take it, sort through it and take it to Melbourne will be OK. Go through ed collective. Need to set up borrowing book.
Bank Account - Ed to continue administering - Agreed, thanks Ed.
Business - During year $400-500 given to Mark Cerin for producing Spanner Action Group Booklet.
· two other submissions - Proposals for dealing with money issues - we have $10,300 at present. A few thousand came in this year, and some continues to trickle in.
· Proposal agreed on - Funds to be used for development of the ANN &/or campaigns tied to education, training and skill development.
· Proposal to put cap on amount can be spent in the year as a percentage of the available funds.
· Admin Group - able to meet physically but consult nationally. Meet prior to gathering. Reps from interstate. Nominations; Margaret Pestorius, Jack Lomax, Brenda, Biff, Katrina Shields, Phil White, Greg Ogle, Peter Jones, James & Louise.
Sunday Afternoon Session Discussion
· Business not to be dealt with at gatherings floated. Decisions made at meeting prior to gathering not to be ratified at gathering (opens up for discussion again). - this was accepted.
· Be dealt with by anyone interested on one day at beginning of gathering - Ed disagreed with anyone
· When really big decision is on agenda small group can seek wider consultation.
· Criteria for collective - experience of ANN
· Business decisions be dealt with by a collective (with nominated representatives)who are resourced to meet prior to gathering & whose proposals may be fed back to gathering.
· Suggested criteria two year max service period, always two new people.
· Question raised as to whether this group should also organise National Gathering. Some disagreement as is a lot of work in organising gathering particularly day or so before gathering when agenda setting is going on.
· Decision to have two groups - Gathering collective as in past and Business group.
· Criteria for Business Group - Experience; Involved; one person in group to be substantially involved and at least two new people; Minimum one year committment. - agreed; Members to step aside if a conflict of interest occurs with funding submission; Inner circle to be three or four; Outer circle will have consulting role and involved in 'Big' decisions.; Nominated at gathering; Pre-gathering meeting to be the prime decision making forum; Gender balance.
· Volunteers/nominations - Anthony, David, Ed, Karen, Jo, Jai.
Anthony Kelly