Author of Finding Community and Creating a Life Together
Workshops & Consultation-Workshops
Diana’s Workshops and Consultation-Workshops are designed to be a lot of fun—with lively presentations, experiential exercises, role-plays, and musical skits. (See “What Participants Say.”)
A Workshop has a standard format and is either (1) open to the public, or (2) private, held specifically for one or more forming community groups or existing communities. Workshop Endorsements.
A Consultation-Workshop is an event tailored ahead of time specifically for an existing community or forming-community group, based on their particular needs as determined by phone conversations, emails, surveys, etc. ahead of time. It is presented in workshop format. Consultation-Workshops can contain most or all of the same information, presentations, and experiential exercises as a Workshop. However, while Workshops have a standard format, Consultation-Workshops are based on the needs of the group. The fees are the same for both. Consultation-Workshop Endorsements.
Phone Consultations are also available for forming-community groups and existing communities.
Diana’s 1-1/2-hour Ecovillage Slide Show can be an adjunct to workshops, for example, as a presentation the evening before the workshop.
1. Growing a Successful Ecovillage or Intentional Community
Three-day workshop, 9:00 am – 5:30 pm each day
Lively exercises, with drawings on the whiteboard; a musical skit; short videos of ecovillages; brief photo-rich slide shows to review and illustrate workshop topics; and vivid anecdotes about real problems and their successful solutions. What works well, pitfalls to avoid, how not to reinvent the wheel. Antidotes for common kinds of “structural conflict” and interpersonal conflict. The “Board Game” demonstrating the relationship between mission, membership process, and decision-making method. Building trust and connection, increasing social capital, dealing with the challenging group member. Case histories of of ecovillages and other communities showing property purchase, financing, zoning, and legal entities for owning shared property. Community economics: internal community finances, helping people afford community, creating a village-scale economy.
The workshop benefits forming community groups (with no property, as well as those with property), as well as existing communities.
Growing a Successful Ecovillage or Intentional Community
- Three-Day Workshop Schedule -
First Day – Three Basics: Mission & Purpose, Membership, Decision-Making
9:00-10:20 am – Antidotes for "Structural Conflict" Videos of forming ecovillages: Lammas, Wales (6:00); Cloughjordan, Ireland (6:38). About the workshop, Handout Booklets, Schedule.Introductions.17 kinds of intentional communities. Ecovillage Story: My Search for Why 10% of Communities Succeed & 90% Fail. Structural Conflict and eight antidotes to resolve it. Small-group exercise: Structural conflict you've experienced. Exercise: “Ecovillage Timeline Game.” Circle of Trust & Connection: community glue & “brakes.”Overview of starting a community: cost, time, characteristics of community founders. Ppt slide show: First Steps.
10:20-10:30 Break
10:30-11:30 am - Mission & Purpose, I Ecovillage Story: "Change the World" or "Snuggle Up." Creating a shared community Mission & Purpose. Ppt: Mission & Purpose in Community. Values, vision, mission & purpose, activities & goals. Strategic plan. How groups create Mission & Purpose documents. Sm grp. Exercise: Your envisioned community values, vision, activities.
11:30-11:40 Break
11:40-12:30 pm - Mission & Purpose, II
Musical Skit: "That's Not Community!" How groups create Mission & Purpose documents. Ppt: Creating Your Mission & Purpose. Two communities in the room? Which decision-making method when deciding M&P? Small-grp exercise: First draft of a Mission Statement
LUNCH
1:30-3:00 pm - Consensus Decision-Making, I Small-group exercise: Meetings you've hated (and why). Five elements of consensus: Strong agendas, well-crafted proposals, skilled facilitation, trained participants, meeting evaluations.Three Decision options: approving the proposal, standing aside and blocking. Minutes & decision logs, notebooks & online. Ppt: Consensus.
3:30-3:40 Break
3:10-4:20 pm - Consensus Decision-Making, II
What makes a legitimate block? Consensus Stories: Blood on the Wall; Humanitarian Aid to Hanoi; Mexican Midwives. Effective methods to prevent personal, frivolous, or too-frequent blocking: (1) Solution-oriented meetings with supermajority voting fallback. (2) Criteria for a valid block. (2) Ppt: Consensus Modifications.
4:20-4:30 Break
4:30-5:30 pm – The Famous “Board Game” Ecovillage Story: "Monsanto-Like Agribiz" & the Membership Process. A clear, thorough membership process. Expectations meetings. The critical, mutually reinforcing relationship between M&P, membership process, and decision-making method. Whole group exercise: Board Game.
Second Day: Property Purchase & Financing
9:00-10:20 am - Economic Systems in Community Ecovillage Story: Useful Plants Nursery. Two basic economic systems in community. Ppt: Economic Systems in Community. Capital & Operations budgets. Social enterprises in ecovillages. Ppt: Social Enterprises in Community. Multiple Centers of Initiative. Creating a village-scale economy with onsite cottage industries. Earning, spending, investing, and saving onsite.
10:20-10:30 Break
10:30-11:30 am – Finding Property Community Stories: (1) The Mountain Lion: How Not to Choose Community Property. (2) No Thanks on the Free Land. Three kinds of property: raw land, developed land, turn-key property. Downpayment, Development Fund, Property-Payment Fund. Zoning issues. Finding land, breaking up. Founders & Settlers. Permaculture-based site plans. Ppt: How Communities Own Land, Ecovillage Site Plans.
11:30-11:40 Break
11:40-12:30 pm - Financing Property
Five kinds of financing. Relationship betw property ownership, financing, & decision-making. Renters and renter's rights. Smal group exercise: What you liked, didn't like, found surprising.
LUNCH
1:30-3:00 pm - Making Effective Proposals; Community Finance & Self-Governance Ecovillage Stories: The Famous "Threats & Demands" Document. "Decision by Tantrum." Small group exercise: Change, improving, creating new policies. Creating what you want: social enterprise or proposal? Well-crafted proposals. Small group exercise: Drafting a proposal. PPt: Community Governance Systems. Capital & Operations budgets in community.
3:30-3:40 Break
3:10-4:20 pm – Community Case Histories, I
How Sowing Circle/OAEC found & financed property. Video: OAEC's permaculture course. Realtors/no Realtors. Property not for sale. Bidding on property. Repair and renovation contracts. Creative financing. Refinancing. How Dancing Rabbit found & financed property. Video: Dancing Rabbit. Conservation Reserve Program. Proportional ownership on deed. Video: Dancing Rabbit's 10 Year Anniversary.
4:20-4:30 Break
4:30-5:30 pm - Community Case Histories, II
How Earthaven found and financed property. Video: Earthaven's Early Days. Finding property, breaking up. Tea & pledge cards. Incremental buy-in costs. Acreage mystery, land surveys. EarthShares Fund as insurance for land payments. Video: Invention Nation TV: Earthaven 10 years later.
Third Day: Legal Issues; Communication & Process Skills
10:40-11:30 am - - Community Case Histories, III
Finishing up case histories. How EcoVillage at Ithaca found and financed property. Video: EcoVillage at Ithaca. Property choices. Raising money. The cohousing development model. Refinancing. Building the 2nd neighborhood. Building the 3rd neighborhood.
11:30-11:40 Break
11:40-12:30 pm - Making It Affordable for People to Join Ecovillage Story: The "Most Favored Young People" Status. Paying site fees & joining fees over time. Sweat equity programs for sustainable logging and farming. Work exchange programs. Long-Term Resident status. Associate Member (renter) status. Small group exercise: What you liked, didn't like, found surprising.
LUNCH
1:30-3:00 pm –Dealing with Conflict & Making Needed Change The Three Treasures: Dynamic Governance (Sociocracy), Nonviolent Communication, the State of Grace Document. Ecovillage Story: "The Petition." Helping people stay accountable to group agreements. The “Community Eye.” The trapeze of trust and support and the safety net of agreements. Exercise: The telephone game. A graduated series of consequences. Communication Agreements. Conflict Resolution Methods. Ecovillage Stories: (1) "The 13 & a Half-Year Solution." (2) The Farmers & Business Alliance. Unconscious assumptions: "therapeutic" vs. "strategic" community purpose. The bell-shaped curve and the power of the "People In The Middle." Breaking the politeness barrier. Alliances & petitions. The power of the "People In The Middle." Dealing with the challenging group member. "Many Raindrops Make a River" method. Asking someone to leave.
3:30-3:40 Break
3:10-4:20 pm – Catching up on Workshop Topics; Evaluating, Supporting Participants' Community Projects
(1) Catch up — workshop topics not covered so far. (2) Advice, resources, and support from instructor and group about workshop participants' own forming-community projects.
4:20-4:30 Break
4:30-5:30 pm - Creating "Community Glue." Ecovillage story: The Feeling, Thinking, & Business Meetings of Ecovillage Sieben Linden. Factors that create "community glue." Exercise: The Gifting Circle Process. Workshop evaluation. Closing.
2. Consensus and Facilitation
This can be a one-day or a two-day event. Participants will receive a handout booklet.
The first day, “Consensus Decision-Making: How It Works,” usually held on a Saturday, is foundational and can be presented as a stand-alone, one-day event. It is designed to benefit forming community groups and existing communities who would like to learn the consensus decision-making method or get additional consensus training.
The second day—“The Effective Facilitator”—is designed to either follow the first day in a two-day workshop, or to stand alone to benefit people and communities who want to improve facilitation skills.
Diana has taught this workshop and portions of it to various cohousing communities in Canada and Mimbres Hot Springs Ranch in New Mexico. She has facilitated consensus meetings for various communities and for Earthaven Ecovillage, where she lives. Her consensus teachers were Caroline Estes, CT Butler, Bea Briggs, and Tree Bressen.
Saturday: Consensus Decision-Making: How It Works
This workshop is lively and fun, with a few short musical skits and a stand-up-and-move Board Game: “A Proposal’s Progress.” Topics include power, decision-making, and governance; how consensus meetings function; requirements for an enjoyable, productive, upbeat meeting (trained participants, good agenda-planning, well-crafted proposals, and a skilled facilitator); supporting, standing aside, and blocking; and three special features, “What Community Consensus Trainers Advise about Blocking,” “Is Pure Consensus the Best Choice for Your Group?” and “How Some Communities Use Closely Related Alternatives.”
Sunday: The Skilled Facilitator
This skill-building workshop includes more short musical skits, as well as participatory exercises on agenda review, stacking, summarizing, responding to various kinds of meeting situations, and dealing with various kinds of disruptive meeting behaviors. It focuses on the facilitator’s basic underlying attitude: inquiry and requests.
3. How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community
This one-day workshop on joining community also includes musical skits, role-plays, and experiential exercises to help people find and join the community of their dreams. It includes material from Diana’s book, Finding Community: How to Join an Intentional Community or Ecovillage.
Topics include: how to research communities on the Internet (and how to separate the ‘wheat’ from the ‘chaff’). Your criteria for communities to join, and how to find communities that match your criteria. What it costs to join, and what it takes personally to live in community. How to plan community visits, how to be a “great guest,” and how to get the most out of your visits. Evaluating your visits (and debunking common assumptions and expectations). An “Insider’s Guide” to choosing your community. The membership process, and how to enter your community gracefully.
Includes handout booklet.
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