>- in short, there is an involving effort to create a context of
>"participative democracy" (with a clear consciousness that there is no
>definitive statement on participative democracy but rather ethical vision
>and a will to experiment together.

Interesting. There was a part, on the very last day, where I felt like I
did not belong to either group. I discussed it with a few other people,
and they felt the same... in my personal perspective, I wrote that 'in
retrospect, we probably would have made a very good group on our own'. I
think this is true. There were at least 4 other people I spoke with who
had a similar problem.

The meetings evolve perspectives. Perhaps the process should accomodate
such like minds - or even unlike minds. If enough people feel that they
do not belong in one group or another, perhaps they could form their own
group and present their findings separately? It may become harder to
synthesize later on (believe me, I respect the synthesization process)
but it may be necessary to add perspectives from participants that may
otherwise not be as active. It's even possible that disagreements can be
handled within a working group without detracting (and distracting) from
the discussion after the presentation of the findings of the groups.

It's a thought. It may rarely happen, but when it does it could be done
to allow for this to happen. If the group is less than 3/4 of a normal
group, the members stay in their groups. If it is larger, they form
their own group, create their own findings, follow the rules of the
workgroup (moderator, reporters, timekeeper), present their finding -
and add a person to the synthesization team. In this way this isn't
overly abused, because it *will* mean more work. It has to be worth it
enough for them to do it.

-- 
Taran Rampersad