INDIA GREENS PARTY
Greens meeting participants are expected to:
1. Come with good intentions:
1.1. Be at the meeting in good faith and with the goal of the best interests of people, and following the core values of respect for diversity, ecological wisdom, sustainability, nonviolence, participatory democracy, and social justice.
1.2. Be honest and have integrity.
1.3. Extend goodwill to all participants.
2. Speak responsibly:
2.1. Express yourself clearly so others can understand your point of view.
2.2. Don’t repeat a point if it’s already made by someone else.
2.3. Speak with brevity.
2.4. Address the issue at hand.
2.5. Share the opportunity to speak: Encourage quieter people to speak, and don’t request repeated opportunities to speak, to the exclusion of others.
2.6. Contribute new information and perspectives.
2.7. Address the issue not the person, and do not conflate debate with personal grievances.
2.8. Don’t interrupt — indicate to the facilitator that you want to speak, and speak only when called.
2.9. Avoid all aggressive verbal or non-verbal interaction, including negative body language, swearing and other disrespectful language.
3. Listening:
3.1. Listen to understand, listen actively, without preconceptions, be open to new ideas, and respect others’ points of view.
4. Process:
4.1. Have the intention of reaching consensus and a commitment to consensus decision-making.
4.2. Follow procedures laid down in the past which are known to be positive and successful.
4.3. Leave the meeting space when undertaking any activity which could distract the meeting, including leaving the room if you don’t want to listen, avoiding side-conversations and interjections and turning off mobile phones.
5. Confidentiality:
5.1. Meetings and workshops of the Greens are to be conducted using safe meeting procedures, and unless explicitly stated that the meeting is open, are confidential. This includes phone-based meetings, and applies to invited guests as well as Greens members.
5.2. Different levels of confidentiality may apply to different meetings/parts of meetings and will be determined at the beginning of the meeting, and may be altered by the agreement of the participants at any stage.
6. Translation and Interpretation:
6.1 Meeting Facilitator /President/ Convener to:
(a) Confirm at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting that both the person needing interpretation services and the interpreter are able to join.
(b) Provide the Meeting Agenda and any meeting documents to the interpreter at least 48 hours in advance to the meeting.
(c) Confirm with the Interpreter that the technology and process being used for interpretation works.
(d) Introduce all meeting participants to the Interpreter at the start of the meeting and explain guidelines (below) for how to work effectively with Interpreters.
(e) If the meeting contents are confidential, the Chair should ensure the Translators have signed a non-disclosure agreement.
(f) Make translator profiles available to the meeting participants in advance.
6.2 Meeting Participants will:
(a) Speak slowly and attempt to pause after every few sentences to allow interpreters time to catch up.
(b) Say your name before starting to speak.
(c) Try to avoid highly idiomatic speech and complex sentence structures.
(d) Note that the Interpreter might need to ask for clarification or for the Speaker to repeat what was said.
6.3 Translators / Interpreters will:
(a) Ask the Speaker for clarification if the meaning is not understood or you do not know who is speaking
(b) Make the Chairperson or Facilitator aware of any difficulties or challenges that impact your ability to interpret either as they arise or after the meeting.
If there is a breach of good meeting practices the facilitator will inform the meeting as soon as possible. The meeting will determine a course of action or refer the matter to the Coordination committee.
Repercussions of breaches of good meeting practices and confidentiality include but not limited to:
(a) Asking the person to stop the inappropriate behaviour;
(b) Asking the person to leave the meeting;
(c) Stopping the meeting until respectful interactions are maintained;
(d) Strongly recommending the person refrain from attending future meetings;
(e) Requesting the member organisation to consider the suitability of the person as a delegate to future meetings and report back to next national meeting their decision;
(f) If the person is an observer that person not be allowed to attend future meetings