Citizens often arrive at what has been slated as a public hearing or a public forum to find that things don't seem quite right; that there is suddenly this new way of conducting meetings that somehow doesn't seem right. Instead of chairs set up for the audience with microphones where they can give input; there are now tables with chairs where people sit in circles and are facilitated by a pre-chosen facilitator.

The links below will take the reader through this facilitated process of consensus building, what it is, and why it stands diametrically opposed to the foundations upon which this nation was founded.

"Ah consensus … the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner 'I stand for consensus'?"

— Margaret Thatcher

Note: If you are opening this page from another section of this website, please click here to bring up the About Consensus and Facilitation web page where the corresponding links can be found.

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