UPDATE: Hitting Play for ongoing and future decissions// Hitting pause on all ongoing and future decisions

Update

We had our "How we work together" meeting on Saturday March 6th and agreed on an iterated version for the advice process. Everyone currently affected by the pause please read through the iterated process and continue with the updated version of the advice process. All the details you find over here.

https://talk.kiezburn.org/advice-processes/

Short summary: we decided to “hit pause” on all ongoing & future decisions & re-open this space after the establishment of the event coordination team.

Over the last weeks Talk has been home to some controversial discussions. Members of the community have felt divided, unsupported and challenged. We hear you.

Longer Statement:

We also felt the challenges ripple through the Kiez Burn e.V. Board. We felt under tremendous stress and pressure these last few weeks to keep up with everything that's happening. Individually we felt under attack and singled out. We have struggled to feel like a team, and support you as well as each other. We feel saddened and disheartened at some of the online exchanges we have recently been a part of, and wish for a more kind and open-hearted approach in future.

Talk, our chosen platform for online discourse and decision making, is currently the source of these challenges. We haven’t had enough time and space to facilitate good processes, while everyone is still learning. To help enable more fruitful online exchanges amongst ourselves and to take the time to facilitate better training and onboarding into our new way of working, we have decided to “hit pause” on all ongoing and future decisions that are being brought forth in the advice process. 

The advice process (as outlined here) can often be short and concise, but for decisions that impact many in the community, it thrives on a number of variables, especially time for the proposal to be digested and explored, and an open mind towards consensus. We encourage you to continue to explore proposals in all phases of the advice process up until the point of “decision”.

We hope to re-open this space again AFTER the establishment of the event coordination team. We want to continue this path and we want to do it right. We can do better than this. UPDATE: The team approved the location decision to take place. For the other decisions, we will restart them after 7 March, where we will align on how we work together.

The platforms we have online (Talk, Realities, Dreams) are available to help plan the main Burn event in a sustainable & inclusive way. The philosophies of consensual do-ocracy and the advice process further flesh out the “how” of how we work together. They are not easy methodologies. They can fail. And above all: we all are still learning how to best work with them. We hope you are patient with us and each other while we grow together through this process.

Reflecting on what we have witnessed and been apart of, we believe the issues are:

1. We are in transition: the board no longer is equal to the event team. Several important decisions will be decentralized to a team dedicated to the main Kiez Burn event. This Event Coordination Team is currently in build-up. They are the ones who will make most event-related decisions, not the board. For effective advise processes, this team must both exist and have a chance to catch their breath (be onboarded).

2. Kiez Burn always relied heavily on (in-person) meetings. We only recently had our first Kiez Burn event meeting. We want to encourage more meetings taking place instead of long online discussions. 

3. We practice the Advice Process & consensual do-ocracy. It is a constant learning that requires us all to participate. We hope leadership training will improve the understanding within the community of Kiez Burn leads. In addition, we intend to further refine the advice process in a longer 1-day session.

For clarity, the board’s key roles:

• Vision guides: how we work together to co-create Kiez Burn related events

• Keepers of Radical Bureaucracy: legal and overall e.V. finance

• Transitioning away from being the Kiez Burn event coordination team

We know that Kiez Burn means so much to all of us and we know that this community is filled with creative, pragmatic and open humans, and we look forward to building a strong and vibrant space with you all! <3 

KB Board

Remy, Franzi, Hanna Maija, Erin, Waldo, Saskia and Alex