Training
Common Place is completely dedicated to creating civic renewal in neglected neighbourhoods and forgotten towns. As part of our efforts, we offer issues-based community campaigning services to help leaders and civic organisations to address important local issues and create lasting change.
Central to organising with Common Place are the methods and model of legendary organiser, Fred Ross Sr. At the heart of our approach to organising is a continuous cycle of learning linked to leadership development within a culture of small-group neighbourhood meetings. The outcome of this work is the delivery of self-determining community power organisations that function in abandoned towns and neighbourhoods.
To this end, mentoring of individual leaders, the tailored empowerment and internal capacity building of allied civic institutions, and learning opportunities within the local community organisation (as well as at the regional and national levels) are all a part of what Common Place embodies as a network committed to building a better future for abandoned towns and places.
Common Place National Training is generally six days in the summer held in different parts of the country and our premier training opportunity. Regional Leadership Training is generally 2 days in May and an excellent introduction to national training. These trainings assume a special prominence due to their depth, integration of key concepts and focus on habits and practices central to successful organisation building at all levels.
Experienced professional community organisers lead the sessions. These extensive trainings are for leaders and hosts of house meetings as well as the staff, board and members of charitable organisations who are members of, or who are building, community power organisations.
Curriculum
The curriculum includes how to: understand power; hold a series of house meetings; discover and act on the interests of your community; identify and develop sustainable leadership; think and act strategically; and most important, how to engage in real conversations about the mission and democratic action of your place - including the ability to discuss, argue, negotiate and compromise - while forming and maintaining collaborative relationships that ultimately lead to action.
Training Format
In small groups as well as in larger sessions, and using a variety of teaching approaches (i.e. lecture, role plays, reading and discussion, case-studies, hands-on practice, individual reflection, experience of a local action, etc.) participants will experience what it is like to think conceptually about their own leadership as well as learning and practicing the skills necessary to build community power organisations through which local people can act on their values and interests in the world.
Criteria for Participation
Common Place has important criteria for participating in National Training. Participants need to be involved in or interested in engaging with or building a local community power organising effort and need to have a minimum of 6 months experience in leadership. They have to be interested in their own development and the development of others and able to take part in small and large group sessions that generally take place in morning, afternoon and evening clusters, with ample time for rest, reflection and integration. Workshops and training sessions build on each other so it is necessary that participants are able to stay from the beginning to the end (barring illness or emergency, of course) and be committed to practicing what they have learned within their community.