“The Wisdom Council is the most powerful democratic innovation I know for tapping into community wisdom and cointelligence.” –Tom Atlee, Author of the “Tao of Democracy” and “Empowering Public Wisdom” (who is coming to Asheville in October read more below) Why are we as citizens not involved in politics at the level we could be? How can we ensure participatory democracy? We’ve seen time and again that many problems occur when citizens are not paying attention and not engaging the government. At the same time, many of us are turned off by the level of negativity that is unfortunately so prevalent in politics. To offer a constructive alternative, Asheville Wise Democracy is offering a series of workshops and events, centered around an innovation called the Community Wisdom Council. The initial work that will take place in Asheville has the long-term goal of spreading across North Carolina by 2015 and across the United States by 2016. “We want the Asheville Community Wisdom Council experiment to be a springboard for catalyzing Wisdom Councils all over North Carolina.” says Susan Michael, a cofounder of Asheville Wise Democracy. Wisdom Councils are already well known in Austria. The Office of Future Related Issues (OFRI) for the State of Vorarlberg, Austria, headed by Dr. Manfred Hellrigl, has been pioneering use of the Wisdom Council since 2005. Dr. Hellrigl describes this powerful yet cost-effective methodology as follows: "Wisdom Councils are made up of a small group of 12-16 people. We work with the principle of random selection, so we are not interested in the usual suspects, the folks that usually show up and always raise their hand if you ask for people. We know from many studies that a large percentage of citizens would be willing to engage, yet they are waiting to be asked. You cannot invite them with a brochure or with a poster. So we send out letters and invite them personally.” The format of the Wisdom Council is a bit like a lottery: if your name is chosen, you have the opportunity to take part in this ‘community think tank’ designed to explore the common good, from a variety of different perspectives. The Asheville Wisdom Council will be taking place on Friday evening, October 10th & all day Saturday the 11th. A group of 12 citizens, randomly selected from voter registration lists, will be coming together to address the question of, “How can we ensure a good quality of life in Asheville for the future?” Participants will be encouraged to address the issues that they most care about, including such complex topics as fracking, money in politics in North Carolina, or racism. With expert facilitation support, participants will be exploring their concerns in a way that allows them to co-create a clear, unified and actionable statement, designed to inspire and catalyze the rest of us into a deeper exploration of what is in our shared interest as a community. On Tuesday, October 14, from 7 to 9pm, Asheville Wise Democracy will be hosting a Community Wisdom Café, a free public gathering where the Wisdom Council will be reporting their outcomes. Everyone is invited, including local officials and media. This public gathering will be taking place at the Haynes Conference Center, 2nd floor, on the Enka Campus of AB Tech College 1459 Sand Hill Road, Enka, NC. After the Wisdom Council members offer their “We the People” perspective (which may surprise you!) and tell us about their experiences in finding common ground, we will all be joining in a larger community conversation. We will be exploring the outcomes of the Community Wisdom Council, as well as offering our own perspectives. Everyone is invited to experience how this cost effective, democratic innovation works with different perspectives to generate creativity, inspiration and a more inclusive sense of "we” so we can all begin creating a better future, together. The newly formed local chapter, Asheville Wise Democracy  is the “on the ground” team that has been working with the Center for Wise Democracy to host these upcoming events. The originator of the Wisdom Council process will be traveling from Washington State to be a part of the events planned for October. Although new to North Carolina, Community Wisdom Councils have been well received by local governments in Central Europe, where this process has been used successfully since 2006. The state of Vorarlberg in Austria is now hosting a Wisdom Council process twice a year; in addition, if citizens gather more than 1,000 signatures on a particular issue, the state will host a Wisdom Council on that particular issue. Meanwhile, on this side of the ocean, Asheville has always been a special place, a town in the sky that pulses with creative blood. Our town is almost a city with under 100,000 residents, but this has certain advantages. It’s possible to get to know the playing field in Asheville, and for residents to make a difference in ways that would be impossible in larger towns. “The ‘magic sauce’ in a Community Wisdom Council is the very engaging and empathic group process that is at its heart. Dynamic Facilitation serves as an incubator for creativity, and this is a very creative city, so it’s not surprising to me that people in here are being so receptive to this approach.” says Rosa Zubizarreta, collaboration consultant and author of From Conflict to Creative Collaboration: A User’s Manual for Dynamic Facilitation. “What I’m especially excited about, is the larger vision held by many of the folks behind Asheville Wise Democracy. I’m hearing from people that they want to weave a colorful fabric of collaboration among all the various facilitation practitioners that exist here, who are founders and masters of many different approaches. The vision is that by working together, Asheville can become known as the ‘Facilitation Beacon of the Southeast.’ “ Find out more and get involved: Creative Facilitators Meetup will host Ruth Backstrom, who will be speaking on Community Wisdom Councils, on Wednesday, 6:30pm, October 1, 2014. Using Dynamic Facilitation, Ruth has worked with the government of Raleigh and has been an advisor to the process here in Asheville with a Meet Up.  And we are blessed to have the founders of the Center for Wise Democracy here in October to facilitate the Wisdom Council and to train people. To increase our local capacity to continue this work, Jim and Jean Rough are offering a workshop on Dynamic Facilitation, the key ingredient in generating collective intelligence in Wisdom Councils and in unifying most any group or organization. Asheville Wise Democracy has arranged for this workshop to be offered at a greatly discounted community rate for local residents, and some partial scholarships also are available, courtesy of the Co-intelligence Institute.  Find more info about the Asheville movement here: wisedemocracync.org