Massembly

As part of Upgrade Democracy, we are organising a mass community assembly: the Massembly!

Bring your ideas and imagination, share these with others and decide together:

“How might we take meaningful steps to upgrade democracy?”

Let’s get our voices heard. Be part of this exciting, UK's biggest-ever community assembly to decide together how we can upgrade democracy! Share this with everyone you know who’s frustrated and fed-up with how things are right now. This is deliberative democracy in action.

What to expect

We will work together in small groups of six.
Everyone will be introduced to a wide range of ideas about the current democratic system, complementary people power and innovative people power.
Participants will be encouraged to discuss these ideas and share views.
Each group will be provided with a set of Explainer Cards that will walk us through each step in the process, including selecting a facilitator and notetaker.
We will also be able to vote on a set of statements about the state of democracy in the UK, and how we might upgrade it.
With these ideas in mind, we will discuss in our small groups what we have heard and read, bring our perspectives, and decide on up to three new ideas.
These new ideas will then be captured, so that all other groups can consider and vote on them.
The Massembly will make use of an online tool called Pol.is, to enable us to capture and vote on ideas.
In order to input to Pol.is, each group will need access to three or more smartphones, to be used in pairs or individually by each group member.

What if I can’t attend the in-person Massembly?

In addition to this in-person Massembly at Upgrade Democracy, we’re planning to run a simultaneous online assembly, to enable those unable to attend in person to participate. If this goes ahead, further details about the online assembly will be made available soon.

Logistics

When:
Saturday 31st August, 13:00-16:00

Where:
Upgrade Democracy, Windsor (exact location tbc)

What to bring:
Pen/pencil/paper or some other means of taking notes (not essential) and a Smartphone (not essential, provided there are at least 3 within each group).

Further information and support

Stewards will be on hand to help everyone organise into groups of six and to distribute the sets of Explainer Cards.
An information Hub hosted by volunteers from the Community Assemblies Escalation Campaign and the Citizens’ Assemblies Working Group (CAWG) will be on site.
Visit the Hub on Friday and Saturday before the Massembly, to ask questions and request additional support, e.g. request a BSL Interpreter to join your small group or for large print versions of the Explainer Cards.
If you have specific requirements, e.g. needing a buddy, please email xr.inclusion@protonmail.com and we will support these where possible.

What happens next?

In the weeks following Upgrade Democracy the plan is to run a series of online assemblies, using the same question and information. Please note: This is still at the ideas stage due to the level of coordination required. Further information will be added here and broadcast as it becomes available.
These will be scheduled for various days/times to maximise the opportunities for new people to participate.
The online assemblies will be open to anyone, to uphold the principle of radical inclusivity and to ensure the inclusion of a broad range of ideas and opinions.
After the assemblies are complete, the final step will be to make all the ideas in Pol.is available to a much larger number of people.
Everyone will be able to add their ideas and then vote on all the ideas collected from all the individual assemblies.
Through the process of the in-person Massembly, online assemblies and ongoing engagement, we will continue to increase the number of participants. This will add to the breadth and quality of ideas so that we can collectively create the largest-ever community assembly in the UK!

Finally, we don’t want it to stop there

A summary of the results will be made available.
To build on the energy and excitement generated and the experience gained, a set of suggestions will be created for how to escalate and take the most popular ideas forward.

As a result, we can genuinely take meaningful steps to upgrade democracy!

Key info for Upgrade Democracy