A giant community assembly, a mass assembly: the Massembly!
We encourage everyone to promote assembly events to allies and ‘opposers’ alike! It will take everyone to bring systemic change.
View the Summary of Results from our Massembly ~ Saturday 31st August2024 in Windsor.
View the Summary of Results from our online Massembly ~ Tuesday 15th October 2024.
What is the Massembly?
A giant community assembly, a mass assembly: the Massembly!
Assemblies are now regularly in the media and being looked at by politicians. Let’s ensure their relevance more widely.
Let’s keep up the momentum around assemblies and keep on demonstrating how things can be done differently.
At the Massembly, we asked the question:
“How might we take meaningful steps to Upgrade Democracy?”
In small groups, you explored alternative ways of doing democracy together, as we strive for a fairer and more inclusive system.
How did it work?
In the Zoom, everyone received two links – one to the Instructions which explained how the small group assembly facilitator took us through the process. And another to the Information Cards.
The Information Cards described the different kinds of democracy or political systems we are already seeing around the world. We discussed these in our small groups.
Reading the Information Cards in advance really helped with understanding the process and information discussed during the assembly!
Steps
The Zoom meeting host introduced the overall assembly and then we formed small groups of six in Breakout Rooms and introduced ourselves.
Those who’d trained or felt confident identified themselves as assembly facilitators. The small groups then had either one allocated to their group or the group nominated one. The group also nominated a note-taker and time keeper.
The small group assembly facilitator used the Instructions to guide the group through a discussion on different types of democratic processes. Everyone in the group suggested ideas for upgrading democracy, which the group then discussed.
The small group identified their best three ideas and one person then submitted these to an online tool called Pol.is.
Pol.is allows everyone taking part in an assembly to vote on ideas so we can start seeing trends of which ideas are the most popular. We use these results to help inform our thinking and take plans forward. Polis is a real-time system for gathering, analysing and understanding what large groups of people think.
What happens next?
if you have already, We hope that you have enjoyed taking part in the online assembly, and experiencing first-hand what it feels like to participate in deliberative democracy! Hopefully you should now have a clearer idea about how democracy could be upgraded and what XR is doing about it. So what happens next?
Encourage others to join the conversation
- We plan to run further assemblies using the same process, so that as many people as possible can take part.
- This may include inviting local groups to run their own assemblies, running a further online assembly, and using Pol.is directly to widen participation.
Join XR!
Sign up to find out more about how you can help
Other ways to learn more and get involved:
- [For individuals] Learn more about Citizens’ Assemblies and XR’s Third Demand
- [For XR groups] Take action on Citizens’ Assemblies
- [For individuals and XR groups] Learn more about our campaign to promote Community Assemblies
- [For individuals] Support Zero Hour’s campaign for the Climate and Nature Bill
