Glen Ochre at Melbourne Place Making Series, Fed Square, 17 August

Here, starting to write out notes from the event:



Part of Melbourne Place Making Series

 

http://www.melbourneplacemakingseries.com.au/program/lead-up-events/community-sector-events/

 

 

August 17: Workshop Event

This workshop is designed to assist participants to really explore questions regarding Place, Place Value and the challenges and opportunities to deliver accessible, resilient, vibrant and sustainable places.  How do we deeply engage, and how do we more from consultation to collaboration?  The intention is to allow the wisdom of the group to evolve knowledge and ideas in a transformative and collaborative way.  The workshop will contribute directly to the conference in October.

Guest Speaker:

o    Glen Ochre – Director of Groupwork Institute of Australia – one of Australia’s leading engagement experts.

Participation is limited to 100.

DATE          Tuesday 17th August
TIME            8.30am – 1.00pm
VENUE         BMW Edge, Federation Square, Melbourne
COST          $75.00 – includes refreshments and a summarising discussion paper

 

Glen Ochre speaks about ‘Transformative Practice’

-       Do not have outcomes in mind

-       What is ‘collaboration’?

-       Often it is carried out too little too late, becoming tokenistic. It is better to inform rather than pretend

-       Problems associated with backward fears between ‘community’ / ‘authority’

o   Why involve them? – and thinking ‘because we have to’

-       The dreaded public meeting – avoid!

o   in the past manipulated communities, will ‘never again’

-       We don’t value facilitation yet – therefore we often get unskilled or low quality facilitators

-       Public meetings are seen as a democratic right

o   If people get something out (expression) then they often sit down, this can be useful

-       to achieve transformative outcomes one must

o   believe it is possible

o   need a high level of facilitation

(storytelling) – a town wanted to fight for/against traffic lights, one person ‘lost’ the negotiation but the next day said it was OK ‘it was a good process’ and therefore they accepted the decision’

Question: What do you need to do?

o   trust the community

o   change yourself

o   all need to be informed

o   accept imperfect and plural views/outcomes

o   hope

o   change statutory limitations

-       Trust

o   = experience x time

o   need to take risks

-       Standards / ethics – never do tokenism, it damages

1.     Start early

2.     Have the community own issues

3.     Incorporate the community in the generation of solutions

4.     Ensure participation in implementation

(storytelling) The bad experience

We implemented a good working process but nothing happened in the end. There was no follow through from those in power.

5.     Regular and ongoing participation

o   make clear constraints

o   “all of us are smarter than any of us”

therefore, facilitation is important

 

-       There is an overemphasis on technology,

o   a facilitator needs skill to hold the space

(storytelling) Have seen facilitation with great technology but never let the community “express what gives them the shits”

1.     Believe

2.     Start early and really collaborate

3.     Work on replacing fear / mistrust

o   we need to repair damage done

o   take risks and big steps

- Keep the political dream!

2AM post election and the importance of being candid

2AM post election and the importance of being candid

2AM post election day, I feel like I've just woken up from a long hazy sleep in the comedy of the Great Australian Choke Order, but it’s not a reverie of the funny kind kind.

I’m probably part of the touchy feely 15% whose voting preferences yesterday now sit to be keys in forming government over the next fortnight. I live in a small apartment in Fitzroy, Victoria, I have a University degree and am lucky and brave enough to not drive a car or need to buy many things at the shops. I currently live on about 30k a year.

Political space has shrunken over the past few years; we speak of ‘The Nanny State’, ‘Risk-Management’, ‘Political Correctness’, but all I’ve been feeling is fear, timidity and indirectness. I believe people should be able to show themselves in public, that they have a responsibility to, and that subjectivity and inter-subjectivity are vital to an urbanity of democracy. Quite a mouthful: I think people are capable of intelligence, hope, inspiration and will.

I think there is has been a loss of the affirmation of public in our Country. Kevin07 brought a level of sophistication to the politics of steamrolling and base placation, in which for a moment I felt affirmed to be intelligent, a public person and an elector. I find it difficult now that we must be so politically correct; ironically it is fitting that our politicians have nothing left to argue about (“we have very different world views” she says), they can only argue about morality. – Hang on… , whose correctness were we talking about again?

Participation in public life is listening to community. I see that as the role of public service. I was shocked and angered when I heard of ‘we will build community consensus for action on climate change through a citizen’s assembly’. Firstly, it is widely accepted there currently is a majority built around this issue already. Secondly, who is to say that it is the role of government to build our consensus? We can do it, are doing it, have done it ourselves. Following, this morning I am still enraged hear again that famous, paternal rhetoric of the past few years, “what is best for the Australian people”. – Who are you to suggest you know ‘what is best’ when you can’t even listen to our questions and answer candidly?!

For the politicians, the big scandals of this campaign were the leaks. I question this: how can a leak be automatically a mistake in politics? Whatever happened to the maxim of transparency? We were fed the same robotic outputs day in day out where aberrations were errors of judgment, ‘scandalous’ and ‘snake-like’.

This morning I feel liberated from a fear campaign of the past few years, that grew exponentially post Copenhagen so that the light was very dim, and became complete blackout shutters with the mining tax backdown, and suddenly our Prime Minister was sacked without much explanation or shedding of light. Curtains drawn the campaign was like being first battered then lost in the dark with two spooky voices, monotone, taunting you to think one way or the other in hypnosis. Say it enough and it might seep in – sleep in. Confuse the conscious and coax the subconscious, gently gently. I admit I was scared and lost my will to empowerment. My heart raced when I publically questioned, and I doubted we could get a better outcome. – but we did (?!).

Speaking candidly these past few years I wrote to local members, thinking the door of enlightenment opened in 2007 was still open, that we could have sophisticated conversation, that I could participate and claim citizenry. I wrote to the Transport, and Finance Ministers, the Prime Minister, my local member ongoing and incoming, opposition members and candidates. Each time I was met with the same old “yes, good, we hear you; did you read our latest slogan on this one? Here it is again in case you missed it…” But language is no longer face to face, not even in written text, one must to read heavily through the lines, a simple example on climate action “we’ve committed to no more dirty power stations” actually meant: “we will keep building the ones we’ve planned and any new ones will be fixable if we work out how to fix them (carbon sequestration technology)”. Whatever happened to real representation in this country? Why did we (do we still) feel under-power rather than empowered to vote? – Indeed, what a great election system we have if we can get such democratic outcomes even if we are blindfolded.

Consider tonight the value of Maxine McKew’s ‘breaking ranks’ and first ‘letting blood’. Such idioms of negative connotation changed the conversation on the ABC like a fresh wave. Finally someone spoke their mind, shedding light on the situation as they saw it. And didn’t it change the tone drastically?

So in negotiating the government of our country, over the next few weeks, can we please start negotiating?

Not as one official Australian contingent member told me on day 10 at Copenhagen when I asked him plainly: “in what ways do you think Australia can negotiate and compromise here to help the small island states and break the deadlock?”
“Did you hear our position statement on behalf of the Umbrella group day one? Go back and read that!” he torted after a calmly vigorous 10minutes.
“How dare he!” I thought as I walked off, “ten days of negotiations and still the same position”.

I believe government should be more than just slogans, speeches, positions and disciplines. Over the next few weeks, let’s please have a candid public conversation from and with our public candidates.
 

Kind regards,