Additional Learning

More Resources

If you are seeking one to one advice on how to organise or run your assembly, one of the Assemblies Escalation Working Group holds an 'ask anything and share experiences' drop in every Friday afternoon at 3pm. Drop in link.

To learn more about assemblies happening all around the world, here's a taster:

Trust the People

Trust the People are THE expert trainers inspiring and empowering people everywhere to really bring democracy home. Enjoy 8 weeks worth of in-depth and fun training to equip your local community to organise and run an effective magical experience in deliberative democracy. And it's totally free, twice per year from the experts in building deliberative democracy.

Case Studies

• BBC Documentary on government committees' commissioning an assembly on achieving net zero by 2050.

• The People's Plan for Nature - the outcome of a Citizen's Assembly on Nature convened by by National Trust, WWF & the RSPB.

• S. Yorkshire Climate Assemblies- a council enabled Assembly that will make recommendations on the route forward for South Yorkshire.

• Blackburn People's Jury on Climate Change Crisis - September 2022- a group organised by the council and the Sortition Foundation who made a set of 15 recommendations to tackle local issues related to climate change.

• Video on Cheshire East People’s Panel on the Cost of Living with Positive Money.

• Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies /KNOCA

National and International Assembly Campaigns

To find out more on international examples of citizens' assemblies, watch out for trainings by the Citizen's Assemblies Working Group promoted via the Movement Broadcast. Meantime, some empowering background here:

• XR Citizens' Assembly web page

• Scotland's Climate Assembly: Statement of Ambition

• Sortition Foundation's proposal for a House of Citizens is supported by Extinction Rebellion

• UK Parliament Debate about the use of Citizens' Assemblies

• Children's Assembly on Biodiversity- called on Ireland to 'treat the Earth like family'

• Los Indignados Assemblies in Spain- based on assembling ad hoc citizen coalitions to help push back and challenge specific government actions

• Luxembourg 'step up' green energy and efficiency targets partly due to citizens' assembly

• The COP26 Global Assembly- which produced a report answering the question 'How can humanity address the climate and ecological crisis in a fair and effective way?' Interestingly, the findings of the report came from both a Global Citizens' Assembly, and self-organised Community Assemblies around the world.

Alternative and Supplementary Guides to Deliberative Democracy

• XR's Citizen's Assembly Rebel Toolkit guidance

• Community At Work: Deliberative Democracy manual

• Reforming The Political System Messaging Guide

• Open Space Technology: Alternative models of deliberation

• Better Evaluation: Goldfish Bowl Meetings

• Hope For The Future- Skill yourself up and boost your confidence in talking to politicians, be they local, regional or national.

Books

• 'From hat If to What If?'Is' Rob Hopkins
• 'DIY Community Action: Neighbourhood Problems and Community Self-Help' - Liz Richardson
• 'When Citizens Decide : Lessons from Citizens' Assemblies on Electoral Reform' - Patrick Fournier, Henk van der Kolk, R. Kenneth Carty, André Blais, Jonathan Rose

Other Resources

• Podcast: Power of Community Imagination

• Campaign Zero Hour - the Climate and Ecology Bill
• Website: Participedia

• Polis- the software we used during the People's Assemblies at The Big One (April 2023) for crowdsourcing opinions.

Resources about Citizens' Assemblies

Can be found in the Citizens' Assemblies section of the Toolkit here.

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If you have any further questions, please contact the Assemblies Working Group with your questions at communityassemblies@extinctionrebellion.uk