Is Decision-making/Governance here in the Community really only managed by ‘divine muddling’ as David Spangler once jokingly said?

How can we meet the challenge to create governance structures in a community without an agreed name, without a constitution, without a membership? And all that balanced by a strongly-felt sense of who/what this Community is. This felt sense is held by many, and may vary significantly if put into words, nonetheless there is ‘something‘ clear and strong.

In some ways all we can be sure of is that change is the only constant – and at the same time that some things never seem to change.

This Topic is plotting the different forms of governance used in the Community over the last 60 years – from theocracy to consensus to consent to …

The Community has been wrestling with decision-making structures and governance since October 1971 when Eileen was told to stop receiving guidance for the Community. This can be seen as a ‘democratisation opportunity’ as everyone was encouraged to bring their Inner Listening to bear. On a worldly level the Findhorn Foundation Charity, set up on 9th May 1972 was run as any other British trust in an hierarchical fashion by trustees. In 1973 group structures emerged as Peter Caddy needed a hand on the tiller when he was away from the Community for extended periods, such as on tour in Europe or the USA. In 1979 he handed leadership over fully and left the Community.

Collating documents relating to the evolution of community governance has been both fascinating and frustrating. Fascinating as so much phenomenal and visionary work has gone into finding ways of governing ourselves. Frustrating as it seems that we are still listing today very similar challenges as those being highlighted repeatedly over the decades.

Frustrating also because we were unable to get hold of some crucial documents in the timeframe available for writing this Topic. We will endeavour to add others as they become available to us – work in progress … Your contributions are welcome – please add your Comments below, or get in touch with your own information and documents to make this Topic ever better. And of course the heartbeat of this collective autobiography are the personal stories told by Community members who built this centre – tell us yours!

There are other aspects to Governance which are essential though beyond the scope of the present Topic, but hopefully will be covered at a later stage.

• agreed rules/by-laws for specific contexts (such as the Site Rules in The Park, Deed of Community (and Developer) Conditions at The Park), Practitioners’ Code of Ethics, Common Ground)
• how our community culture relates to authority both as individuals and as a collective.

For those who want to learn more about this Topic we offer the following compilation of relevant posts in reverse chronological order. You can also use the category Decision-making to see all related posts.

2023 In July the Findhorn Foundation (FF) announced that it will wind down its present operations and it is embarking on a transition time of planning for the future, dedicated to discovering new avenues to fulfil our mission.
The Community surrounding the FF is exploring models for decision-making and ways to take on the responsibilities of land and property ownership, particularly in and around The Park Ecovillage.
Alex Walker, having been part of most meetings addressing questions of decision-making, offers us his perspective on The Changing Nature of Governance.

2015 to 2022 In 2015 both the Community and the FF embarked on very dynamic and deep change processes. Whilst there was some overlap it yielded very distinct results.

In the FF it resulted in the creation of a hub-based management structure in an attempt to bring greater immediacy and coherence to the different functions. Sadly we are unable to bring you more specific documents illustrating this, as attention to history has not been a priority in the present turmoil of dramatic change. This will hopefully change and we will be able to glean the facts and learnings from those processes before too long.

In the Community, to a large degree steered by the NFA (Community Association) a thorough revision of organisational structures was proposed. We have substantial documentation of that process from the initial concept, proposal presentations, partial implementation and a review report from 2017 and have created a compilation of those in this post. You can also use the tag Community Change Process 2016 to find the posts. That work produced a fascinating interactive map to display the complexity of the Community. Sadly it is not as useful as it could be as it was never fully developed or kept up to date.

In 2019 one of our own Community kids, Noah Joubert, wrote his dissertation entitled “Herding cats”: Collective governance in an age of Individualism. It is informed by interviews with 9 Community members, and places the process in the Findhorn Foundation Community in the wider context of Sustainable Development. A fascinating read for anyone who wants to delve deeper.

2011 to 2013 An initial exploration by the Round Table on Governance highlighted many of the issues, in particular the complexities of our diverse Community and the resulting challenges.

1996 to 1999 Intense Community processes and various iterations led to the formation of the New Findhorn Association, our community association. These processes are compiled in the post Community Association Beginnings (1996-1999) and described by Fabien Barouch, one of the two first Listener/Conveners, in the 50th Birthday Book article The New Findhorn Association.

1996 Reinvention of the Findhorn Foundation is described in Robin Alfred’s article in the 50th Birthday Book.

1994 Alex Walker in his book The Kingdom Within in the introduction to Chapter 10 lists the different articles relating to Decision-making structures. Gordon Cutler in his article Development of Decision-making Structures gives an excellent overview of the different systems used in the previous 30 years.

1982 This story gives us a precious glimpse of the first two-week workshop on Group Consciousness.

1979 François Dusquesne takes on the role of focaliser. This Transition in Leadership: Peter to François is described by Gordon Cutler. François recounts the challenges of that time in 2023.

1973 Peter Caddy writes in his autobiography about forming the Core Group (p 342-4).

1971 Eileen receives guidance to stop sharing her guidance with the Community. She wrote in her autobiography Flight into Freedom and Beyond (page 169):

IN OCTOBER 1971 I received guidance that was to change my life: “My beloved, now is the perfect time for a complete change of rhythm for you. It is no longer necessary for you to receive a message from Me each day for the community and for the many. For a long time I have gone on day after day repeating Myself. It is now time that My word is lived and demonstrated. For all those who have failed to take it to heart, for all who need to be reminded, it is there, printed in black and white. Now is the time for living it, and the sooner this is done, the more quickly will changes come. You cannot spoon-feed a child all its life. The time comes when it has to learn to feed itself and you have to let it do so”.

“Let go, stand back and allow all those in the community to live a life guided and directed by Me. Let them learn from experience to live positively, demonstrating the laws of manifestation in their own lives. If this means that the work is held up for the time being, let it be held up. Until life is lived, lessons are not learned, and these lessons are far more important than expanding without learning, living on what others have learned.”

That message was the last one read in the Sanctuary. Passing on God’s word each morning provided inspiration for the community but it also made people dependent. I was reminded of the guidance I had received in 1968 that these messages were necessary only until each person was ready to turn within to find that direct link with God, to become their own channel.

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Topics are a ‘reader’s digest’, a summary of essential Community facets offering a compilation of posts for further information. Click here for a list of Topics we have produced so far.

This Topic was compiled by Cornelia Featherstone with a lot of help from Alex Walker, David Harrison and Eian Smith. Thank you!

Featured image – collage of different graphics, including one from https://www.pxfuel.com/free-photos.

COIF TEAM

Inspired by CommUnity, a group of NFA volunteers, manages this website. Hearing each others stories, and learning about the history of this community can help us all to find more cohesion and a sense of belonging. Read more.&lt