The Empty Gallery is meeting place for the community to have conversations around questions that matter. Based on the World Café methodology, it's a simple, effective, and flexible format for hosting conversations that can accommodate large group. Each element of the method has a specific purpose and incorporates one or more of seven principles. The Cafe can adapt to a wide variety of needs, context, numbers of people, purpose, location; these and other circumstances are factored into each event’s unique invitation, design, and choice of question. However the following five components comprise the basic model:
1. Setting: We create an environment, mostly replicating a café, often with distinctive features in response to the theme and circumstances. We began the Empty Gallery Cafe in May 2020 as an online zoom model in response to the Covid pandemic, In the 'rel world' we would have a sufficient number of tables covered with a white paper tablecloths and supply, coloured pens, a vase of flowers, and other items to create a friendly ambience. Each table would have three or four chairs, and no more than five. In our zoom model we have breakout rooms.
2. Welcome and Introduction: The host begins with a warm welcome and, if there are new people, an introduction to the Café process, setting the context, sharing the Cafe Etiquette.
3 Small-Group Rounds: The process begins with the first of two, three or more twenty-minute rounds of conversation for small groups of four people seated around a table. During the conversation people are invited to doodle and make notes on the table cloth with pens and pencils supplied. At the end of the twenty minutes, each member of the group moves to a different new table. They may or may not choose to leave one person as the “table host” for the next round, who welcomes the next group and briefly fills them in on what happened in the previous round.
4 Questions: each round is prefaced with a question specially crafted for the specific context and desired purpose. The same questions can be used for more than one round, or they may build upon each other to focus the conversation or guide its direction.
5. Feedback: After the small groups (and/or in between rounds, as needed), individuals are invited to share insights or other results from their conversations with the rest of the large group. These results are reflected visually in a variety of ways, most often using graphic recording by illustrators in the front of the room and sharing the images drawn by the participants.
The basic process is simple and simple to learn, but complexities and nuances of context, numbers, question crafting and purpose can make it optimal to have an experienced host to help. We an support and train people to be competent hosts of Cafe events or tables.
1. Setting: We create an environment, mostly replicating a café, often with distinctive features in response to the theme and circumstances. We began the Empty Gallery Cafe in May 2020 as an online zoom model in response to the Covid pandemic, In the 'rel world' we would have a sufficient number of tables covered with a white paper tablecloths and supply, coloured pens, a vase of flowers, and other items to create a friendly ambience. Each table would have three or four chairs, and no more than five. In our zoom model we have breakout rooms.
2. Welcome and Introduction: The host begins with a warm welcome and, if there are new people, an introduction to the Café process, setting the context, sharing the Cafe Etiquette.
3 Small-Group Rounds: The process begins with the first of two, three or more twenty-minute rounds of conversation for small groups of four people seated around a table. During the conversation people are invited to doodle and make notes on the table cloth with pens and pencils supplied. At the end of the twenty minutes, each member of the group moves to a different new table. They may or may not choose to leave one person as the “table host” for the next round, who welcomes the next group and briefly fills them in on what happened in the previous round.
4 Questions: each round is prefaced with a question specially crafted for the specific context and desired purpose. The same questions can be used for more than one round, or they may build upon each other to focus the conversation or guide its direction.
5. Feedback: After the small groups (and/or in between rounds, as needed), individuals are invited to share insights or other results from their conversations with the rest of the large group. These results are reflected visually in a variety of ways, most often using graphic recording by illustrators in the front of the room and sharing the images drawn by the participants.
The basic process is simple and simple to learn, but complexities and nuances of context, numbers, question crafting and purpose can make it optimal to have an experienced host to help. We an support and train people to be competent hosts of Cafe events or tables.
Disclaimer It is important to recognise the Empty Gallery Cafe is a 'conversation' space where different people air their views and points of view, and that they should feel free to do so. The value of these conversations are that they allow us to hear all points of view and gain a greater understanding of the complexities of what people think and feel about any given subject. Any statements presented by an individual as factual cannot necessarily be verified and should be taken at face value, nor can we guarantee the accuracy of the reports as they are written by volunteers elected at each conversation. The opinions expressed in the reports on the conversations belong solely to the individual who expressed them, and not necessarily to the organisation, committee, group or any of the other individuals in attendance.
