Working Committee selection

On October 27th, the Residents’ Assembly passed a revised Participatory Working Group proposal and a three-day selection process for the new Working Committee members with 291 people voting in favour, 133 people against and 25 abstentions. This proposal stated that the seven Working Committee members, also called ‘coordinators’, would be assisted by a pool of voluntary persons to support their functioning and efficiency as well as to foster transparency. Facilitators would help facilitate subgroups created to deal with specific topics; resource persons would offer their expertise and experience on specific topics as needed; and silent listeners would silently observe the ongoing process of the working group.

The Auroville Council subsequently decided to call for nominations for the seven members of the Working Committee and two Auroville Council replacement members only. All Aurovilians were invited to nominate up to five community members, whom they felt are competent for this work. Self-nominations were allowed. This resulted in 250 Aurovilians nominating 391 Aurovilians. Of these, 49 Aurovilians accepted to become a member and 45 offered to support the Selection Process.

Aurovilians were then invited to send positive or negative feedback on the names proposed “with sincerity and deep introspection”. This feedback was then to be studied by a ‘Temporary Feedback Review Committee’.

In all, the ‘Review Committee’ received 600 electronic feedbacks and 41 confidential feedbacks from 125 Aurovilians. Out of this total of 641 feedbacks, 407 were supportive of individuals who had put themselves forward, 224 expressed concerns, 8 gave no reason and 2 were annulled. The Feedback Review Committee will process the feedback and publish the names of those who will participate in a three-day selection process, to be held from 5 – 7 December, 2014 in the Unity Pavilion.