An affinity group is a group of 3-10 people who have an "affinity" of some kind for each other, who learn to know each others' strengths and weaknesses, who support each other, and who do (or intend to do) active nonviolence work together.

1) Identify at least one other person who you know also wants to take some kind of action about the War on Terrorism
2) Pick a time to meet.
3) Get some yummy food or find another way to celebrate while you are together. It is audacious to try to stop a war.
4) Share in prayer or song, share your thoughts and feelings about the war right now, and brainstorm some simple actions you can take in the next week.
5) Meet a week later to report back and identify next steps.

Getting together with others is an important step in breaking out of isolation and feelings of powerlessness in the face of the war.
Affinity groups build on our best experiences of groups by clarifying your intentions, following a good group process, and developing common projects in active nonviolence work. What distinguishes an affinity group from a study group is a shared commitment to act publicly in some way.
Affinity groups lay the groundwork for a movement to emerge. When people get connected, change happens that is way beyond what you might expect. Affinity groups can serve as seeds for widespread social change, centers of social change and agitation.

The concept of "affinity groups" has a long history. They developed as an organizing structure during the Spanish Civil War and have been used with amazing success over the last thirty years of feminist, anti-nuclear, environmental and social justice movements around the world. They were first used as a structure for a large scale nonviolent blockade during the 30,000 strong occupation of the Ruhr nuclear power station in Germany in 1969, and then in the United States occupations/ blockades of the Seabrook nuclear power station in 1971, when 10,000 were arrested, and many times in the highly successful US anti-nuclear movement during the '70's and '80's. Their use in sustaining activists through high levels of police repression has been borne out time and again. More recently, they have been used constructively in the mass global justice protests in Seattle and Washington.


Christian base communities in Latin America bear parallels to Affinity Groups: A small group of people come together to reflect on their lives and on Christian Scripture, asking how they will take actions together or alone which grow from this reflection and support. In addition, many groups in the Plowshares movement (which typically enter military bases to symbolically turn "swords into plowshares" by hammering on nuclear submarines, etc.) spend as much as a year or more in reflection, spiritual preparation, and study before they take action.

The simple answer to this is the people that you know, who feel the same way about the issue(s) in question. They could be people you see go to church with, are in a class with, work with, go out with, or live with. Perhaps you play ultimate frisbee together, or you are all single mothers! The point to stress however, is that you have something in common other than the issue that is bringing you all together, and that you trust them and they trust you.
An important aspect to being part of an affinity group is to get to know each others feelings and perspectives regarding the campaign or issue. This can involve having a meal together, and discussing after eating, or prayer or bible study together, or attending some form of training together, like attending a nonviolence, conflict resolution or facilitation workshop.
It is good to have a shared idea of what you want to do individually & collectively, what support you will need from others, and what you can offer others. It can help if you have agreement on certain basic things: how active, how spiritual, how touchy-feely, how willing to risk arrest, your overall political perspective, etc.
The previous two sections are adapted from Starhawk's handout on Affinity Groups, available at www.starhawk.org/activism/affinitygroups.html

Gather for snacks or a meal and some shared reflection for a few times to get started. Below are suggestions for several beginning Affinity Group meetings. Since all groups will be different and have unique needs, you're encouraged to modify these suggestions to meet your own needs. All meetings are intended to last about an hour.

(Note: You may want to give people a chance to read through the first two pages of this guide as you gather.)
1. Choose or appoint facilitator

2. Introductions – Check-in using your name, and something interesting like: Something good that has happened in the last week or something no-one here knows about you. If some in your group are meeting for the first time, be sure to share basic information (name, where you live, how you ended up here).

3. Begin with silence or prayer to center yourselves. Invite people to name aloud the resources that they would like to draw on in this time together (God, creativity, Jesus, dreams, intuition, ancestors. . . ).

4. Ask, Why are you here? Why form a group? Ask the group, and also share these reasons: -- To build trust
-- To lay the groundwork for later action as a group or as a part of a larger action or movement
-– To share and strengthen analysis (political and spiritual and all kinds)
-– For support – emotional, spiritual, etc.– related to the political work you want to do

5. Read & respond. (Note to facilitator: you might want to just write the bold words below on the board or on newsprint. Or, give everyone a copy of the paragraph to look at. Decide what will work for your group.)

Responses? Open conversation. . .         Ask, How does this statement connect your hopes for this group?         How does it differ?

6. Hopes for next steps, etc. Share, at this point, what hopes or reflections you hold for this group and this group of people. What kinds of roles, interests, skills do people have?

7. Appoint facilitator(s) for next meeting and set next meeting time.

CLOSING: Close with a go-round: From each person, one sentence about how people felt about this meeting, and one hope they have for the next meeting

Begin with a time of silence or centering.

Say, "One of the ways affinity groups work is through rotating roles such as group facilitator and vibes watcher. Let's look at these two important roles."

Ask, What kinds of things do facilitators do?

Here are some possible answers to include:

• help members decide what they want to accomplish in their meeting, and then helps them carry it out;
• reminds group of its tasks,
• initiates process suggestions that the group may accept or reject
• tests for consensus,
• summarizes;
• invites everyone to participate

Ask, What are examples of things you WOULDN'T do or say as a facilitator?

Ask the group, and include these:

• Make a decision on behalf of the group
• "Take over" the group's own process/decision making

Ask, Just from the name, what kinds of things do you think "vibes watchers" say or observe?

Some things a vibes-watcher may notice aloud:

• An unresolved tension or conflict ("Seems like things are a bit tense in here.")
• Fatigue in the group ("I think we might be getting tired")
• Happiness, success on a goal, . . .
• Consider appointing a "vibeswatcher" for your next meeting!

[Some material in this section was drawn and adapted from Coover et. al, Resource Manual for a Living Revolution, (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1985).]

6. As you close, start brainstorming names for your affinity group! Have one quick go-round with suggestions.

7. Go-round – What is one thing you liked about this meeting? One specific suggestion for improvement for next time? 8. Appoint a facilitator for the next meeting and set next meeting time.

9. Close with a song or some other light or fun activity.

1. Choose a vibeswatcher for the meeting.

2. Check-ins – Check-in with something good that happened in the last week

3. Begin with a moment of silence, prayer, or song to center yourselves.

4. Go-round about how people are feeling related to the war. How are you feeling this week?

5. What have people been doing this week in relation to the war? Name one action, or conversation, no matter how slight, in which you expressed your opinion about the war.

6. What are your hopes for the immediate future in terms of alternatives to the war? (Share around the circle, or create a list on board). (Depending on the nature of your group, you may want to brainstorm, then clarify these goals to reach some shared understanding, or it may be enough to simply state your personal intentions.)

7. Begin to assess how things are in the peace and justice work of your group/community/church. Here is a format you can use to help your group think about this: Make a big circle on the blackboard or on newsprint, divided into three sections (like a Mercedes-Benz symbol). Title the top left pie-piece, "What's working well (in our peace and justice work)," the top right pie-piece, "What's not working well (in our peace and justice work)," and the bottom pie-piece, "Puzzles and questions (about our peace and justice work)."

Fill in each part of the pie. Explore specific items together.

[This tool comes from George Lakey, Training for Change, www.trainingforchange.org]

8. Go-round – What is one thing you liked about this meeting? One specific suggestion for improvement for next time?

9. Appoint a facilitator for the next meeting and set next meeting time.

10. Close with a song or some other light or fun activity.

Begin with: Check-ins, appointing a vibeswatcher, and a moment of silence, prayer, or song.

One way to develop an analysis of what is happening in a political situation is the three-part framework of myth-secret-widely held values.

MYTHS are the "truths" that the power-holders would have us believe in the current situation.

For example, in the Civil Rights era, there was a myth that public facilities and educational systems for whites and blacks were "separate but equal."

SECRETS are what is hidden from general knowledge.

The secret hidden from public knowledge, or the actual reality beneath the myth, is that facilities for African Americans were inferior and severely lacking, and that inequality prevailed in systems across the United States.

WIDELY-HELD VALUES are the general public values – democracy, safety, liberty and so forth – to which you appeal in making your case.

Martin Luther King, Jr., and the broader Civil Rights movement, appealed to the best of the American tradition in making a case for change– liberty, democracy, equality, justice for all.

– Ask, What are the MYTHS, SECRETS, and WIDELY-HELD VALUES which we can reveal and to which we can appeal now, as people seeking a nonviolent alternative to the War on Terrorism?
– Fill in the information for each column. With each myth you identify, trace it across and fill in the accompanying secret and the widely-held value to which you can appeal in making your case.

[For more information on myths, secrets, and widely-held values, read Bill Moyer, Doing Democracy, (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2001).]

Closing:
– Go-round – What is one thing you liked about this meeting? One specific suggestion for improvement for next time?
– Appoint a facilitator for the next meeting and set next meeting time.
– Close with a song or some other light or fun activity.

Begin with: Check-ins, appointing a vibeswatcher, and a moment of silence, prayer, or song.

– How can we think about allies and opponents more constructively?

Draw a half circle on a big piece of paper (or on the black board or on newsprint).
– Imagine that the far left of the circle is the position of your group with its values and goals.
– The far right are groups with opposite goals (for example, groups which are actively pursuing or supporting military action).
– Spread all along the middle region of the semi-circle are a variety of groups which are more or less in agreement with one end of the spectrum or the other. (At the top, in the middle, would be neutrals).
– Fill in this semi-circle together, adding groups and organizations at their appropriate position somewhere along the spectrum.

Now, invite the group to observe the list. Ask, What can we notice from seeing our "spectrum of allies" laid out in this way?

• Consider this statement: "Your most effective social change work is to move any actor one step along the spectrum from their current location (NOT to move those most opposed all the way to the other end of the spectrum)."
• Are there groups close to yours in values & actions with whom you could be working more effectively? Name them, and identify specific ways you might collaborate more closely. How will you pursue this?

[For more information on the Spectrum of Allies, try Katrina Shields' In the Tiger's Mouth: An Empowerment Guide for Social Action (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1994).]

Closing:
– Go-round – What is one thing you liked about this meeting? One specific suggestion for improvement for next time?
– Appoint a facilitator for the next meeting and set next meeting time.
– Close with a song or some other light or fun activity.

Begin with: Check-ins, Appointing a vibewatcher, and a moment of silence, prayer, or song.

–Ask the following question: What are specific actions that are taking place in our community right now regarding the War on Terrorism? (for example, choose one of these: our campus, our town, our denomination, our congregation, our state, our nation)?

What to do: Make a list of actions people are taking, including everyone in the community, not necessarily just your group. ***Also include those supporting military action.*** (Prayer services? Teach-ins? Flying flags? Writing letters to the editor? Protest or vigils?) Remember as many actions as possible that people from any political perspective are taking in relation to the War on Terrorism.

– Put a star by all the actions that your group is taking.

– Review the list, and ask the group:
    What do you notice about the list?
    Draw some observations together.

– Brainstorm for 7 minutes about new actions that you could imagine taking in the next 4-6 weeks.

Sort and sift your lists, considering the merits of different ideas. Do some seem more applicable than others in the present situation?

Closing:
– Go-round – What is one thing you liked about this meeting? One specific suggestion for improvement for next time?
– Appoint a facilitator for the next meeting and set next meeting time.
– Close with a song or some other light or fun activity.

Prepared by Matt Guynn, On Earth Peace,
609 W. Main St, Richmond, IN 47374;
Tel: 765-962-6234
E-mail: mguynn@myvine.com

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