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In Sociocracy, a "circle" is a committee or team. (See "Self-Governance with Circles and Double Links, " Communities #161, Winter 2013.) Every circle has an "Aim"-a statement of the things the circle produces and/or provides and delivers to the people it serves, stated as an overview. For most communities "the people it serves" are the community members themselves. So a community's Finance Circle, for example, provides financial services-collecting funds, paying bills, and so on. If the community also has an educational mission, "the people it serves" include the visitors who take the community's tours, classes, and workshops. In this case, the community's Education Circle, for example, provides workshop trainers and services and logistics for the workshops and classes for the public.
As described in the last article in this series, "Consent Decision-Making and Community Vision, Mission, and Aim" (Communities #163, Summer 2014), all of a community's circles are guided by Sociocracy's three values: equivalence, transparency, and effectiveness.
The six steps of Consent Decision-Making are: (1) Presenting the Proposal, (2) Clarifying Questions Round, (3) Quick Reactions Round, (4) Consent Rounds alternating with, (3) Resolve Objections Rounds, and (6) Celebrating the Decision.
Step Four, the Consent Round, and Step Five, the Resolve Objections Round, are repeated until there are no more objections and the proposal is "good enough for now" and "safe enough to try." There are at least six legitimate reasons to object to a proposal (see box, p. 63) and at least nine ways to resolve an objection (see box, p. 63).
Objections must be reasoned and "argued." This means the objection is based on observable facts and the reasonable conclusions the person draws from those facts, and other circle members can understand these conclusions. Usually objections don't stop a proposal, but flag the need to modify the proposal to improve it in needed ways. [Some Sociocracy resources say that reasoned, argued objections must be "paramount," meaning significant, not trivial objections. However, several Sociocracy trainers suggest not using that potentially confusing word.]
Not every proposal must be consented to, since responses in the Quick Reaction Round can show that there's little to no support for the proposal, or it has substantial deficiencies and needs more work, or is written unclearly, and it's dropped. But usually...