The Common Ground Network for Life and Choice Manual

• Periodically sponsoring a day-long dialogue workshop for new people, with “graduates”
invited at the end of the workshop to become participants.
• Holding small evening “living room dialogues” that mix a few “old-timers” with new
people— as a shorter and simpler entry step into the group.
• Letting people join over a series of meetings but then calling a day-long workshop for the
group to deepen their dialogue and relationships.
Anytime there is a new face in a group, attention needs to be paid to articulating the
group’s ground rules and its purpose (if one has been developed). Any written materials of the
group (or from this Manual) are helpful to “orient” a new participant and gain his or her
commitment to the process. Appendix 1.1 is a good handout. We have found that a good opener
in this situation is to ask new people to tell why they are interested in participating in common
ground dialogue (“Why are you here? What are some of your hopes and expectations?”) and
then to ask existing members to tell why they have participated, for how long, and what they
have gained from their participation.
Meeting Facilitation
In every group meeting, someone needs to have the responsibility for:
• guiding the group through its agenda and dialogue,
• monitoring whether ground rules are being honored,
• helping the group identify decision-making needs and approaches, and
• identifying the purpose for any next meeting.
Chapter Four.
The facilitation role and ideas for how this role can be filled are discussed extensively in
Linking to others
Being in contact with other people around the country who are involved in bringing prolife
and pro-choice advocates into constructive dialogue and/or joint action is inspiring,
informative and may create possibilities for acting together in a broader forum. Chapter Nine
provides information about how to do this.