Page 117 - Enabling National Initiatives to Take Democracy Beyond Elections

In terms of exactly how to scale, you should first think about the total area or amount of people impacted by a decision. Their geographic or experience diversity will help inform if you need to facilitate groups apart from one another before bringing them together for a final decision. Some examples of what this might look like: • A large metropolitan city requires a broad strategic plan for its future growth. The city has 3 distinct regions or areas within it and these are clear experiential markers for levels of current and future growth. You may want to run groups of 30 participants in each of these areas individually, before bringing all three groups together for a final meeting that combines the outcomes of each of the distinct groups. • A state-wide decision needs to be made on energy use and production. Electricity use and production impacts different parts of the state in different ways and so it is important that those from rural or regional areas have an input as well as populated metropolitan centres. You might want to identify 3-4 key regions of the state that have distinctly different life experiences (i.e. Metro, Rural, Regional 1, Regional 2). These different groups would meet on their own before feeding in to a combined deliberation. This ensures discussions are held all around the state, participants do not regularly need to travel far and ultimately a considered response can reflect the state-wide experience. 115