5.5. Organising participation

5.5. Organising participation

SUBSTANTIVE PARTICIPATION

● As a trainer/supervisoryou remain responsible for realising the overarching objective of the activity ● You can involve the group as much as possible in terms of content if you are able to have a conversation with them before the start of the activity ● If that is not possible, you can work with a provisional programmewithin which you provide moments of choice. In the case of short activities, participation will be limited; in the case of longer activities,a little more participation is possible. ● The age of the participants also plays a role

Preparatory discussion

During the preparatory discussion, you look for a connection between your objectives and approach, and the social environment and desires of the participants. In that discussion: ● tell about the learning goals you want to achieve; ● explain your working method; ● envisage the artistic disciplines in which you will work; ● let the group tell you which components they find important and appealing.

In addition, you can explore the following elements: ● Why do they find the activity useful? ● What do they want to achievefor themselves? ● What do they want to achieve for their group? ● What do they want to do afterwards with what they have learnt? ● Do they have any further plans?

Such a conversation can easily take an hour. If you add a warm-up, you already completed a whole part of your activity.

A preliminary programme with moments of choice

Because a preliminary discussion is rarely possible in practical terms, you can alternatively start with a preliminary programme, in which, for example, you provide enthusiastic tastemakers (appetisers) of programmecomponents that could be discussed further (you can do this during the exploration phase). After this, you will provide a moment of choice in which the group is involved in drawing up the follow-up programme. You can also spread this out over several defining moments. Some tips and points of attention for a smooth running of such defining momentsare:

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● Take your time so that everyone gets enough attention

● Don't push your own programme preference but don't lose sight of your overarching objective

● Choose combined solutions

In a vote, the majority gets everything and the minority nothing, while you have to try to give everyone as much as possible. Ask the group to combine the suggested options into oneactivity. If this does not work, you can formulate some proposals yourself.

● Explain why these conversations are important.

Participants are more motivated when they can choose for themselves. Moreover, by looking for a combined solution, we train our social skills (taking care of our own wishes, listening to those of others, democratic decisions, tolerance, clear communication) and our creative thinking.

● Support the silent participants.

Everyone should feel fully involved. So openly invite more quiet and less influential participants to express their opinion and ask the other participants to pay attention to this.

● Clearly define boundaries.

You can safely point out that certain proposals cannot be realised. It is essential to communicate clearly about this,and not to elaborate on it and give it later a different twist, as this will undermine the credibility.

● Note: defining moments can cause agitation.

Among natural leaders in the group and among participants who want to do everything (for whom choosing means losing), moments of choice may encounter resistance. If the resistance is so great that a moment of choice would disrupt the group too much, it is better to postpone the choice. Then, for example, first work with a system in which everyone in small groups can become acquainted with the different choices you propose to promote group dynamics and participants' affinity with the proposed parts of the programme.

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ORGANISATIONAL PARTICIPATION

The longer the activity lasts (such as a course or a project), the more you can give participation on an organisational level, especially with regard to practical arrangements. A number of these are fixed, such as the location (regarding time for lunch, use of the rooms, etc.), the organisation (regarding course duration, dates, etc.) and the trainer (regarding use of materials, number of participants, etc.). Nevertheless, it is important that you have as many rules as possible drawn up by the group itself so that you do not introduce too many prohibitions and that you apply rules flexibly.

1. Let the group arrange what they can arrange themselves

An environment where everything is arranged to the last detail rather creates a passive, wait-and-see attitude. Even though a group discussion takes time, it contributes to an active, initiating attitude.

2. Be careful with prohibitive provisions

Too many prohibitions cause a shift from imaginative to docile behaviour.

3. Rules must be able to change

Flexibility is important in connection with freedom. For example, breaks should be able to be extended or shortened according to the situation. Flexible rules encourage creative thinking: they encourage the participantsto think about what they want, where they stand. Initially, such flexibility is not self-evident for many of us. You can help by asking questions like: What time do you want to start again this afternoon?

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