I began a post on how to create rules for a small workshop or retreat based on a comment that Shelby made, but my post has stalled for a week or so.
It seems to me that if you decide that you want to meet in a small workshop or retreat, you might want to spend the first hour discussing and deciding upon rules. The primary challenges that I’ve found are that rules can easily be too general, too numerous, or too complicated to keep track of. They can also be a laundry list of things not to do. None of these seems helpful. And, of course, you don’t want to spend hours and hours developing rules rather than actually workshopping.
So I’d like to open it up in comments to ways that you’ve found to develop rules for group work in workshops or retreats or even larger conferences. What has worked? What has not? Have you ever shown up with a draft of rules to work from rather than starting from scratch?
Resources
January 31st, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Whomever facilitates discussion, in my opinion, is most important. The person who sets the tone, particularly in smaller settings is most crucial. Participants will match their response around the level of competence and understanding of the leader.
February 1st, 2008 at 10:40 am
That’s really a good point. As I was sort of playing out scenarios in my mind, the facilitator really took on importance. Some people can facilitate “covenanting” and some people need more practice….