I announce my decision to withdraw from SoFA.
Please delete all my personal data from the SoFA records.
Best wishes to all my friends.
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I decided to withdraw from SoFA as well.
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Adrian!
I just wonder what can that be the motives?
Thinking that Sociocracy teach us and help us to integrate and not to dissipate, and counting that you are one of the clearest minds on how to apply Sociocracy… it only let me the sense that something is not working as it should at SoFA organisation! And that is really worriesome!
On the other hand SoFA is not and wouldn’t be the only organisation that carries the flag of Sociocracy to the world.
Wish you all the best in your new enterprises!
Humble and grateful for your help in my path.
Mario Hernández
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Adrian,
I appreciate your curiosity and passion for sociocracy and for the vision and mission of SoFA. One of the things I’ve appreciated most about sociocratic practice is the choice to participate in a circle–or not. Each of us comes to the work in our own way and our collective efforts benefit from multiple perspectives, but sometimes there needs to be separation–even if for only a short time. SoFA has been actively developing and utilizing conflict resolution and other practices and policies (see the Policy Manual).
I believe an initial conversation to offer support has been offered to you. Whether you are working through burnout or conflict or choosing to move in a different direction, I am sure there are many in SoFA that can empathize. As you said: best wishes to and from your friends.
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Rhonda, do you “believe” or do you “know” that an initial conversation to offer support has been offered to me? Precisely when? How early in the chronology of time?
Do you know that I responded to warnings by asking clarifying questions but I never received any answer to them?
“Believing” and “knowing” are two different situations and if necessary I could offer in depth clarification.
Do you know that there are levels of priorities regarding the students in the Academy?
On 2023, October 12 I bought the printed version of this book:
[“Collective Power: Patterns for a Self-Organized Future by Ted J. Rau” [English edition] (print) but I didn’t received it yet.
Could someone check and send me the book? I paid for it, even if in the meantime I am no longer a SoFA member. Thanks.
My phone number is there, to be used by those who will deliver the package.
Book is on its way! As usual, let me know if you don’t receive it, ideally directly to speed things up.
I’m looking for a parallel organization to SoFA where I could participate, so if you could recommend me one, I’ll appreciate that.
You’ll have to tell us a bit more so we can point you in a direction. What are you looking for? @mariha
I have strong participatory/pro-democratic and activist roots, and this likely won’t change regardless of how many spaces and projects I am excluded from. I am looking to learn some of the practicalities, besides the exclusion procedure itself, that I disagree with (it is not within my threshold of tolerance).
I have no idea who the Karrot team is but it sounds like you had a bad experience somewhere and I’m sad to hear that.
I try to practice mental amputation of the Karrot team from my world for 3 years now, so you’re a lucky one / mentally very skilled that you say it that lightly.
Living systems are interdependant with their context. There are no isolated systems. However, many people in Western cultures have been conditioned to think individualistically, as if we were separate from our context and could ignore our impact on the world around us.
From Many Voices, One Song, chapter 1.1 The values under sociocracy. I definitely lack that conditioning.
I still find it really difficult to go through many of SoFA resources. The theory is very distant from what I experienced.
In the makerspace which got instigated around my short Karrot times, which I hope to be a friendly space for all types of human beings, including mine, I made a modification to sociocracy-like consent-based decision making we’re using (or more going to use, once I learn to trust people again, and allow them in):
Decision making:
We strive to make decisions that are good or good enough (acceptable) for everyone who may be affected by them.
In the Association, our intention is to make decisions by consent (accepting proposals that are good enough for every member; no objections) with two modifications:
- (a) some power is given back to the group over the individuals: the group can suspend a member’s right to object (it gives sabotage-resistance to the group governance, internal or external). That member (or a few members) can exit into a split of the group.
- (b) some power is taken away from the group and given to an individual: there are cadence-based, all-members-entrusted-by-election roles of Members Defendant and Group Protector. GP requests and justifies the expulsion, although any member can do it too. MD decides about expelling a member (or not!), instead of entire group doing it, and gives back the right to object.
Excluding someone from a group of equals, when the connection was not strong enough, as a personal conflicts resolution strategy (Karrot, §4.1b) or because of underperformance (sociocracy, eXtinction Rebellion), also known as ostracisation or mobbing, is inhuman and causes institutional betrayal trauma that has no closure. This is where zombies come from. We don’t do that.
An Annex to the Statute which adds Group Protector and Members Defendant roles can be found here (in Polish).
I was told that I hurt myself by keeping trying - but what alternative do I have? Accept that I don’t belong? what does it mean in practice? How to internalise that?
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