Nest small circles of trust inside larger ones.
technique — attributed to Paul Bulencea & Claus Raasted
On the first days of the College, the one hundred fifty participants split into groups of about fifteen. Each group has two prefects, returning alumni, one male and one female. The small group becomes a circle of trust inside the larger circle of one hundred fifty. Participants always have a smaller group they can relate to, exchange ideas with, and return to. The structure solves the problem of intimacy at scale. A room of one hundred fifty strangers is alienating. A room of one hundred fifty people who each have fourteen people they have spoken to honestly is a community.
For retreat and conference designers running mid-scale cohorts of one hundred to three hundred participants. The prefect role requires alumni who understand the culture and can model it.
small-groups, trust-architecture, cohort-design, prefects