Assembly for Democracy Manchester – results from 18 April 2015
Workshop notes:
Democracy and the Power of Decision workshop
Democracy and the Power to Control Resources workshop
Fran Boait’s presentation (download)
Speaker’s notes
Democracy to end corruption
Cormac Russell speaking at the assembly
David Malone
Session 1
Democracy and power is society
Guest speakers introduce the themes for investigation
- Democracy and the Power of Decision – David Malone
- Democracy and the Power to Control Resources – Fran Boait
- Democracy and the Power to End Corruption – Penny Cole
- Democracy and the Power to Shape the Future – Polyp
Four Guest Speakers will present a short talk on each theme presenting factual information about the current state of the nation, present criticisms and challenges and propose questions that Assembly participants may choose to consider in the Break Out sessions.
Session 2
Discussion groups – questions for consideration and proposed answers
Guest speakers will work directly with Assembly participants
- Each thematic speaker will open a break out session
- Contributors will offer talks, new perspectives, challenges and questions
- Contributors and speakers will help participants raise their own questions
- Participants can experience many forms of consensus based decision making
- ‘Law of Two Feet’ fully applies, participants choose what they wish to explore
- We work together to frame Questions for Consideration
- We work together to reach Proposed Answers
Discussion groups will explore questions with the speakers and contributors and raise their own questions and issues to be considered. Together we will explore not only the state of democracy in today’s society, but also what democracy should become in the future.
Session 3
The Shape of True Democracy
Our host Cormac Russell will facilitate a panel discussion and proposed answers will be presented to the Assembly to be decided on
- Cormac Russell will draw together themes for a final session
- Panel discussion explores the Questions for Consideration and Proposed Answers
- Assembly participants will join in
- The Assembly will decide whether to accept the proposals for future steps
- Our host will create a closing address bringing together the work of the Assembly participants into a forward looking vision for creating a truly democratic future
The Discussion and Assembly Voting will be recorded and broadcast on Internet TV channels. This will be our document and record of the day, the voice of the Assembly will be heard. A contribution to open, inclusive and transparent democracy.
Discover – Discuss – Decide
We are pleased to announce the following information about our host and guest speakers, more announcements soon.
Cormac Russel is Managing Director of Nurture Development and a faculty member of the Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute at Northwestern University, Chicago. He lectured for eight years on active citizenship and democracy at the National College of Ireland.
Fran is Positive Money’s Executive Director. Before joining Positive Money, Fran was a geoscientist researching carbon dioxide storage. Fran became interested in economics and money creation after realising that the environmental and global poverty crises we face could not easily be fixed without re-thinking how the current economic system works, and how to redesign it.
David Malone, author of The Debt Generation, is also director of documentaries on philosophy, science and religion originally broadcast in the UK by the BBC and Channel 4.
Penny Cole is the Environment Editor of A World to Win and a member of the Fracking Capitalism writing collective. She is part of the Fracking Glasgow facebook group which has organised meetings and gigs in support of communities in Scotland directly affected by planned Unconventional Gas Extraction. She is currently helping to organise the Assembly for Democracy in Scotland.
‘Polyp’ is a radical political cartoonist, campaign prop builder, activist and a member of the skeptics movement. He lives and works in one of the UK’s largest housing Co-ops in Manchester. He is chair of the Peterloo Memorial Campaign, and passionately believes we need to reclaim the fundamental concept of democracy from those who have hijacked, impoverished and corrupted it.
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