Selecting new members for the Working Committee & Auroville Council

A three-day selection process for new members for the Working Committee and Auroville Council took place from December 4-6th. It wasn’t to everybody’s liking. “Once again, do we have to sit for three days to select the new members of the Working Committee and Auroville Council?” was the question often heard. But the Study Group on organisation stood its ground. In conformity with the community-approved selection process, it organized the selection process to replace the outgoing members.

The work started as early as mid September, when the Study Group issued an open call to the community for nomination or self-nomination of two members for the Working Committee and three for the Auroville Council to replace outgoing members. The names proposed were published and community feedback was invited. Subsequently, over a period of four weeks, a “Temporary Feedback Review Committee” of seven people studied the feedback received regarding some of the candidates, and discussed the feedback with them. This led in one case to the nominee being refused; all the others decided to withdraw.

By the end of November, the final list of nominees who had accepted to serve was published, together with the list of people who had agreed to participate in the three-day selection process. Their names too had been scrutinized by the Review Committee, as according to the rules of the game, any participant could decide at the last minute to be a candidate for the Working Committee or Council.

The attendance at the three-day process was limited. In all, only 34 Aurovilians participated, of which six were Working Committee members, four Council members and 24 members of the Residents’ Assembly. Inge from the Residents Assembly Service facilitated the first two days while Dave and Niva guided the selection process on the third day.

On the first day Mother’s text “To Be a True Aurovilian” was read out. All participants were then asked to introduce themselves and share what they stood for, what quality truly represented their soul and what fear blocked soulful expression. This set the tone of trust and respect that permeated the coming days.

This was followed by groupwork around current community issues, such as: What to do when someone illegally occupies an Auroville house or encroaches Auroville land? What to do to prevent development of privately owned lands within the city area? How best to organize volunteers coming to Auroville? Participants were asked to consider the topic from the perspective of “Myself as an individual in Auroville”, describing the values and principles they must embody and how these values can support necessary action.

Then a brief presentation of their work and challenges was given by the Working Committee and Auroville Council.

In the afternoon, after reading “The Auroville Charter”, groupwork resumed. This time issues were discussed from the perspective of “Myself as part of Auroville – The City the Earth Needs.” The questions discussed were how Auroville’s values relate to this topic and how this topic affects life in Auroville.

The second day began with a reading of some points from “Mother on Organization.” This introduced the third round of groupwork. This time various topics were explored from the perspective of “Myself as a part of the present organizational systems in Auroville.” The questions guiding the discussion were “When faced with this topic what qualities must be fostered?” “What needs to be in place to move forward?” and “What needs to change and be left behind?” The result of the groups’ work was collated and jointly discussed.

Then individual presentations were given by the nominees and an open discussion with them took place. The RAS afterwards observed that “there was an impressive degree of deep listening”. The facilitator made it clear that the process of making oneself available for one or the other working group was totally open to anyone present and that participants were free to do so at the last minute.

The actual selection of the new members took place on the third day. It was not limited to the nominees, as some new candidates stepped forward. They were given time to describe their interest in the work, what they would bring to the working group and what might be their limitations.

Then the first round of selecting took place, a “democratic” session, where each individual gave the names of their preferred candidates. The outcome was collated and shared.

A second round then took place. Six small groups were formed – randomly created by tokens – and each group was asked to select the best candidates for the Working Committee and Council through a process of agreement on each table. This led to full consensus of all six tables on the new members for the Working Committee, and large agreement (a majority of the tables) on the new members of the Council. This ended the selection process.

At the closing of the session, the participants were asked if they felt the three-day process was too lengthy. Should it be reduced to two days? There was an unanimous feeling that the three days had been extremely valuable and that the process should be continued in future.

The new members joined the groups on December15th, 2015.

Auroville Today: This is the third three-day selection process for members of important working groups. Has the Study Group evolved its methodologies?

Jaya: The Study Group has been working now for three years, building on the first failed and second successful experience. Our work is not over and we will continue to improve.

Uma: Since last year, each and every feedback on the selection process has been very carefully listened to by the team. We have been working to transform the system and integrate all comments into a new model. We are not yet ‘there’, we are still on the way to something we have not yet discovered.

Jaya: Also a major shift in the community perception has taken place. The community has become used to the new system, and to the Temporary Feedback Review Committee. The fact that both the present Working Committee and Auroville Council, whose members have been selected through this process, are seen to have been doing a good job, is in itself a confirmation that the system works.

This time the selection process had a rather limited attendance. Do you feel it mattered?

Isha: Last year, for the selection of the entirely new Working Committee and Auroville Council, 100 people had signed up and 80 finally participated. But it contained many people with a hidden agenda. This time there were less people, but those who attended came only to make sure that the best possible new members were selected. There was a qualitative difference.

Uma: It made a difference that we were not selecting a totally new Working Committee and Council, and for that we don’t need a big mass of people. But we could see that the quality of those who attended was higher than before.

Jaya: Of course, we would like to have had larger participation, for there is clearly a part of the community that is missing. We would like them to participate. But there is also another important aspect, that people should trust the process; that we can with the help of our values step out of preferences and together aspire to manifest what is best for Auroville. The quality of work and the skills needed have come much more into focus now. Those selected have the required skills, or the ability to acquire the skills needed. And now we have two of our major working groups with age, gender and nationality/cultural balance – something which has not emerged with previous systems. This process gives also space for the unexpected to emerge, for new people to come forward, something which is really precious.

Last time, the members of the Temporary Feedback Review Committee were rather heavily criticised by some of those they ‘reviewed’. How did the Review Committee this time work?

Jaya: The previous Feedback Review Committee had made its decisions based on so-called ‘negotiable’ and ‘non-negotiable’ feedback. For this they had the guidance of the Laws of India and the Material Conditions for Living in Auroville. Non-negotiable feedback disqualified a nominee from participating in the selection process.

Inge: This time too, the Feedback Review Committee had interviews with the people against whom objections were made. One person was refused, the others voluntarily stepped back. They arrived at a common understanding that this was not the correct time for the person to join.

Do you believe this process could also be used to select the members of other community working groups, such as the Entry Service and the Funds and Assets Management Committee?

Dominique: Definitely, but we will need to carefully study the necessary skills required for each group and to take this into account in the preparation.

Jaya: We have to tailor the process for each of these groups. Then, afterwards, in a similar way to the Working Committee and Council, there can be yearly processes to add new members to the groups to replace those whose term of office has come to an end.

The Governing Board recently constituted a committee to select the new Town Development Committee members. What are your views on this?

Jaya: I deeply believe in community participation and would always avoid moving decisions outside the Auroville forums. Mother has clearly stated that decisions about Auroville can only be taken by those who have committed to be here. It is a question of trust. Do we trust Auroville, our processes and each other, or do we involve outside authorities?

This selection process can be adapted to the very specific needs of the Town Development Council. After three years of this work, I can definitely say that we can trust the process. We can’t claim that this participatory system, based on working with our values, is the only way to work, and some groups might not even need a formal way to select members. But we do need to find agreement and move forward, to together build the city and society we aspire for and have committed to serve, not only for us but for the world. We are trying to shift something here; that cannot be bypassed. It’s more a matter of supporting that than of one system against another.

The participatory system, approved by the community, included so-called ‘resource persons’ and ‘silent listeners’. Both the Council and Working Committee have been using resource persons in the specialised fields of their competence, such as conflict resolution, or issues of income tax or land sales policy. But the system of the ‘silent listener’ hasn’t taken off.

Inge: The full potential of this participatory system hasn’t yet materialised. For example, neither the Working Committee nor the Council has made use of the competence of new people who have joined Auroville – most probably because they are not even aware of what these people can contribute. It would be good if this could change.

Uma: Regarding the silent listener concept, I believe this is evolving. It is not a question of a curious person listening to the conversation without making comments. It is rather a person who, because of his or her presence, can change the dynamic in a room. These people can keep silent and keep the correct atmosphere when others go on ‘automatic pilot’. Then something changes very subtly in the room, helping to bring in another dimension.

Hélène: What we are talking about is a ‘spiritual atmosphere’ holder, a ‘space holder’, someone whose silent and inner presence helps create a sacred space. Then, automatically, unwarranted talk and gossip drop out. Senior citizens, in particular, could be such space holders.

Jaya: For the members of the study group, this ‘holding space’ is not an academic concept. For last year’s selection process, we were expecting some turmoil, a bit of an emotional outburst. We were prepared for that: we’d asked a number of people to help hold the atmosphere. The six members of the study group had organized the three days, but the support team is always much larger. This helps to create that ‘safe space’ where something else had the possibility to come down and where all participants could feel free to express themselves.

What was your experience of these three days?

Hélène: Many people felt that the Grace was present, that there was something or someone guiding the process, something much bigger than us, which wanted to manifest – it grew stronger each day. One of the participants even said that he felt that Sri Aurobindo was present.

Inge: Everybody was very humble. They stepped back from their preferences, and let come what could. This I have not seen before in Auroville.

Isha: I was full of gratitude to be present during these days.

Uma: ‘Collective intelligence’ is a kind of buzz word these days. But if any community can be said to manifest that, it is Auroville. That’s a humbling realization – that it is there and that we are part of it, that we are being prepared for something. I do not think that anyone was prepared for that – but it did manifest and nobody resisted what came down. Now the question is if this can be widened. We were only with 40, including the organizers. Will it be able to manifest when there are 400 of us together? And more? I believe we can.

Jaya: This yoga is not an individual yoga, it is a collective one. The building of the city and its organization is the field of its expression. This power of collective aspiration has come to the forefront these days. It is a major step for our community and with it we can work magic.