How to hold an inclusive
'Sport Imaginarium'
Call an emergency meeting including all key stakeholders in the sport and generate an immediate emergency response action plan.
With so much needing to change, including people in the discussions and decision making processes reduces resistance and increases consent.
Assemblies enable difficult decisions to be made by harnessing collective knowledge, skills and will.
What we need is collective re-imagining of radically ambitious collaborative action.
Inclusivity
Effective assemblies are inclusive, so that all voices can be heard and valued equally, meaning no voices dominate and the collective wisdom of the assembly is
harnessed. People should be able to participate safely and openly without fear of judgement or ridicule.
Active listening
Active listening is focusing on hearing someone all the way through before developing your responses, and overcoming the urge to start mapping out your response in your mind whilst
someone is still talking. Assemblies are not an arena for intellectual jousting or point scoring; they are spaces which recognise that no one person or group holds all the answers, and that it is through the wisdom of the crowds that we gain powerful intelligence about the issues being discussed. Active listening is also vital as it enhances our capacity to empathise: When we fully listen to others, we gain more of an understanding of people, their views and their concerns.
Input
Open with an explanation as to why this emergency meeting has been called and explain how the assembly will be run, using facilitated deliberative participation to collectively discuss the issues and decide upon responses to the climate and nature crisis (5 mins)
Expert input: invite a scientists or scientific communicator to educate the assembly about the climate and nature emergency or play a pre-recorded video (15-20 mins)
Allow a leading personal on the sport's sustainability drive to input what has been done to date and share any statistics around the sports current carbon footprint and highlight the biggest issue areas (10-15 mins)
Finally, the lead meeting facilitator explains how the assembly will run and what will happen with the information generated (5 mins)
Deliberation
Break out into groups of 8 people, making each group as diverse as possible. Assign a facilitator who will keep time, ensure everyone is heard equally and actively listened to (no talking over each other). And a note taker who will record the ideas generated and feed back the most popular ideas to the main assembly.
Two questions per assembly is ideal but it can be more or less depending upon time and focus of the meeting. Here are some suggested questions:
Is it possible for our sport to be sustainable? What would it take to achieve this?
Should our sport declare a climate and nature emergency and use its platforms to communicate the emergency situation and solutions to its members and fans?
How quickly should our sport reduce its carbon footprint? When should we aim to reach zero emissions?
Do we adopt the Sport LOCAL for Life demands and pause competitions that can not be reached by non-polluting transportation and focus on boosting local sport, decarbonising infrastructure and restoring nature?
How could our sport thrive during the transition and within a zero emissions, nature first world?
Are we prepared to pause our sports competition schedule and await solutions for zero emission transportation?
Should fans be banned from travelling to away games if it is not possible to travel without polluting?
Output
Once the deliberative phase concludes it is time for the note takers from each group to feedback the most popular outcomes to the whole assembly.
These outcomes can become an action plan or be used as ideas for further consideration. A press release could be written and released to share the outcomes of the assembly wider.
The future of life on earth needs us to act, now.
If not you, who?
If not now, when?