Designing questions for People's Assemblies

What to discuss ?

This will depend entirely on the setting and framing of the Assembly. Assembly organisers will often choose the subjects for assemblies which are most relevant to furthering the aims of the group.

An assembly agenda could be:

• a proposal
  • eg: we should support the local anti-fracking camp with a day of non-violent civil disobedience at the drilling site next Saturday
• organising
  • eg: feedback and updates from the working groups
• decision making
  • eg: shall we join with a larger group or create our own actions here in our town or do both?
• or include a discussion point
  • eg. what will the effects of climate breakdown be on our community over the next three years?
  • Get more guidance on this type of question on the Community Assembly pages

Proposals

If the assembly is focusing on a proposal, the facilitators go for a ‘temperature check’ where the proposal is read out again (after being discussed in the breakout groups) and the assembly use their hands to show agreement or not.

If only a few people are showing agreement then the proposal is taken back and can either be adjusted to fit the ideas that have emerged from the points made in the assembly or is dropped altogether if it has no support or no way of being adjusted to meet the collective vision of the assembly. (A proposal for putting all the group’s time and resources into a local anti-fracking campaign may not be approved but a popular point made from a group that some of the time and resources be put into the local group could see the proposal returning with that adjustment).

Facilitators check with the assembly note taker that the exact wording of the proposal is noted.