What is the activity?
Discourse.
What is the goal of the activity?
Explore Reality. Discover Truth.
What does the activity require?
The activity requires thoughtful discourse, which requires time with minimal interruption.
What are the objects of the activity?
The Speaker Candle
Held by the Speaker.
The players’ candles
Each member has a personal candle which is no taller than half the height of the Speaker Candle.
What is the code of conduct?
Members take turns, in no particular order, to speak their mind without disruption for up to 10 minutes.
When a member wishes to speak, they exchange their personal candle for the Speaker Candle, before addressing the Forum – they may do so standing or sitting.
Members may request to interrupt the Speaker by raising their personal candle.
It is up to the Speaker to give way to the interruption or not. The interruption should be kept as short as possible, and should not exceed 30 seconds.
Once the Speaker has finished speaking, they return the Speaker Candle to the neutrally-placed location, take their personal candle back, and the floor is open again for another Speaker.
Conflict Resolution
If after the first Speaker there are more than one members who wish to speak, the Deacon asks if either of them wish to continue the topic addressed by the previous Speaker, or if they wish to speak on a different topic. Priority is given to members who wish to speak on the same topic as the previous Speaker.
If there is ever uncertainty over which member should be Speaker, either as the first Speaker of the session or otherwise, the Deacon will pick a single-digit number within the range of the number of members wishing to speak, whisper that number to the person on their right or left, and the members wishing to speak will each say a number within that same range. The member who says the Deacon’s number is the next Speaker.
The Deacon
The roles of the Deacon are specified in the code of conduct.
The Deacon role is rotated between the founding members.
What conditions are there for participating in the activity?
All participants of Forum sessions must be members of The Forum.
It is not allowed to consume, or be under the influence of, drugs and/or alcohol during a session.
How do people become a member?
- The individual must agree to the contents of the Governing Document
- The individual must be vouched-for either by
- a founding member
- a member of 3 months or more
How can membership be revoked?
If the member either …
- no longer adheres to the content of the Governing Document
- attends less than 50% of the sessions
- spreads malicious information about, or makes any efforts to otherwise sabotage or disrupt The Forum