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Appendix Two – The Methodology in Action - Page A2-6
demonstration of the use of the model to articulate thinking on what these processes
represent, and on how the group might seek to address difficulties within these
processes.
The group involved is a local branch of a national professional organisation. The group
holds a monthly meeting to which all members are invited, and in addition, senior
members of the group responsible for overseeing the professional development of their
more junior colleagues meet five times a year. The meeting of the seniors used to follow
some meetings of the wider group, but the scheduling was changed. Ostensibly, this was
in order to avoid an excessively long meeting time for the senior members, so that the
meeting of seniors is now held at a different place and time.
This development led to some members experiencing a split between the two groups. 1
Following concern at the separation, attempts were made to bridge what had become a
divide, and it was agreed to hold two ‘joint’ meetings 2 a year. Arrangements for these
meetings represent something of a compromise, in that one of them is held at the time of
the meeting of the seniors, the other at the time of the regular branch meeting, but both
take place in the venue used by the wider membership. At the same time, it seems very
telling that the groups continue to behave as separate, and hence take it in turns to
provide food for those attending rather like a home/away arrangement in team sports
matches.
1 I notice that I have slipped in my thinking and language here, because rather than there being two
separate groups, the senior members are in fact a sub-group of the wider group of all members of the
branch. However, the slip is indicative of a process of perception that took place within the membership,
such that the two entities seemed to become two separate groups.
2 I wanted to write ‘joint meetings’, but in a sense all meetings of the wider group are ‘joint meetings’, in
that all members are welcome to attend. It can be hard to know what to call the meetings, but the most
accurate (albeit inelegant) label seems to be ‘the meetings of the wider membership at which the senior
members undertake particularly to be present’.