US-based Steven Clift started a campaign to promote e-democracy 10 years ago, and has been snowballing support around the world ever since. I'm glad to hear from Steven that he's now aiming to support some UK pilots, where local groups of citizens want to promote e-democracy.
Steven writes:
E-Democracy.Org is looking for citizens and Local Authorities in the UK interested in starting an online local public Issues Forum for their community. This new pilot project is part of the UK National Local E-democracy Project.
Our citizen-based model creates a facilitated online public space in the heart of real civic life. The pilots will leverage E-Democracy.Org's decade of experience in strategic and sustainable online forum development.
We will provide training, assistance, and the essential forum facilitation framework through a local Forum Manager and citizen steering committee. The new open source GroupServer technology will help us bring together a critical mass of local citizens by combining the best features of e-mail lists with user-friendly web forums.
We need your help to quickly identify possible pilot communities. The following factors are important:
1. Citizens - We need at least three or four citizens to form a local steering committee. This steering committee will tailor the forum charter to the community, recruit participants, and provide forum oversight. Citizens is an inclusive term, all citizens as individuals regardless of position or profession.
2. Forum Manager - At least one of those citizens needs facilitation skills and an interest in serving as the lead community convener online. This role is vital and extremely rewarding.
3. Supportive Local Authority - Communities that establish a partnership and linking relationship with their Local Authority will take precedence. Additional local non-partisan community partners, including the media or civic organizations, are welcome. Interested Local Authorities are encouraged to help organize initial pilot development as long as a citizen steering committee is formed to provide forum oversight.
Support Available
Our Issues Forum model is extremely low cost and volunteer- based. New materials from E-Democracy.Org including a Forum Development Guide, multimedia case study, training program, and forum hosting are being developed. This will make starting up a forum even easier. Also, with these two or three UK pilots, funding is available to launch each forum - 1000 GBP. Initial recruitment online, but more importantly in-person outreach, will be assisted by these funds. Remember our volunteer model works because it is "of" the citizens, so this launch fund will go a long way toward promotional costs.
Interested?
We need to finalize our two or three pilot communities by November 10. Pilot forums, with extensive participant recruiting completed, must launch no later than the first week of January. The official pilot phase ends on March 1, 2005. Yes, this is a tight time-line. If you can find a Forum Manager, two or three other steering committee members, and a Local Authority interested in linking in as a partner, we can make it happen fast.
Send an e-mail to Steven Clift
: clift@publicus.net
Please include details on your local community.
More Information
Follow this page for project updates: http://e-democracy.org/uk
Read this short Start an Issues Forum article for more advice: http://e-democracy.org/center/if.html
Get Involved
Also, an online group for those interested in supporting the development of Issues Forums will be opened. This will be a place for those in the UK and beyond to exchange announcements, notes, and experiences. Send your full contact information, a personal statement of interest, and indicate what you can do to help with this pilot project or other efforts in the future.
E-mail: clift@publicus.net
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