Overall impression made by Violette Roche, the chief organiser of the event from Tela Botanica
minuses
Not all tools were used due to a lack of facilitation (the posting board, comments on the site, the list after the meeting).
pluses
The booklet that was published and distributed after the event was very important: you need something concrete, something physical.
The meeting allowed citizen sciences to become known to people: a second meeting may be organised in Paris, the booklet may be re-edited by an association and resource platform projects are starting to emerge!
Facilitation to boost face-to-face participation and cooperation
Putting democratic dialogue and participatory democracy (PD) into practice is something we learn!
Nothing is innate or given in advance to make it easy living in a group. Even in groups that are sensitive to these issues.
In general terms, to get along together, participatory democracy requires a real investment of early-stage group meetings, taking into account the stages before the meetings as a moment that is just as important as the meeting itself, and the moments after the meeting.
The aim of this initiative is also not to limit PD to the phases before and after the meeting itself, when organisers will not take the time to foster participation and get the largest number of people engaged. This obviously leads to frustration…
Accepting to take some time and energy during all stages and steps in a collective discussion does not mean “losing time” but gaining time for a collective reflection.
Finally, too often we use these participatory procedures to deal with “hot topics” when we really haven't learnt anything. Participation and cooperation require a specific training that should be separated from their operational use even at risk of hearing "I had already warned you that participation doesn't work"...
