Community Agreement Activity

Rise & Shine Community Agreement Facilitation (30 minutes)

Preparation and supplies:

  • Background — Big Post-It Paper: Rise & Shine Community Agreement: This is how we shine!
  • Supplies:
    • Stars for each person to sign
    • Levels of consensus handout (optional)

Introduction:

  • We will now build on our discussion of our personal values and Rise’s shared values by developing a community agreement. This agreement will guide us in putting our values into action when we come together as a group.

Rise & Shine Community

  • Goal: To be on the same page about how we show up in this space, what we need and how we can support each other in living our values and being at our best collectively.
  • We developed our trees and now our agreement will be our shared sky.
  • Who has been part of developing a community agreement before? (Show of hands)
  • Let’s take a look at our “fruits” (values) on the tree you just developed.
    • What do you need from others to live according to those values?
    • How do you engage with others when you live according to those values?
  • Using a talking piece, let’s go around and share an action we think is important for the community agreement. You can choose to pass.
    • Let’s try to make our agreement full of the actions we DO want. (Rather than “Don’t interrupt.” we might say, “Practice active listening when others are speaking.”)
  • I’ll write them on the whiteboard. Let’s listen to each other for the first round. Then we will have an opportunity to ask clarifying questions and modify the agreement or add anything we feel is missing. We will come to a consensus, or make sure this is an agreement we can all live with, before we finalize it.
  • Questions, additions, modifications.
  • Provide Levels of Consensus handout or simply clarify the type of consensus we are seeking — that we all are able to live with the agreement. Go around with talking piece to see if everyone can live with the agreement.
  • If not, we explore and modify the agreement and go around again.
  • When consensus is reached, we all sign off (on a star that is added to the agreement).
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