I was nervous about coming across as the Great White Brother from the North and, in a noble attempt to head off such charges, suggested to my African colleague that she should run the meeting and that I would simply call on speakers and keep order.  I could already sense from the feeling in the room and the expressions of my once seemingly benevolent colleagues that blood would flow.

We started by announcing our hastily crafted rules for the meeting (I think they call it "winging it") as I did my best to come off as polite yet firm, leaving it to my African sister to set the tone and remind us of our purpose there.  We started off the introductions.  "Hi, my name's Bill Buck, I'm from California.  I've been a youth activist since I was 15 years-old, and first got involved while fighting the largest toxic waste dump in the Western U.S., near my hometown.  After a five-year struggle, we were able to shut down the dump."  Everyone applauded and I smiled politely, trying to retain the composure of a facilitator without seeming uncool.

Introductions continued around the circle and they continued, and continued.  It wasn't as bad as it could have been, we only had to remind the group of the need for brevity about six times.  There were some good kids in the circle but I had pinpointed the potential problem people by the time introductions wrapped up an hour later.  Now it was time to get into the nitty gritty: determining the future of the Youth Caucus.  We assigned a time limit and opened the floor.  Already, six hands shot up.  Who would control the caucus?  Would we scrap the current structure in favor of a more autonomous, floating leadership?  Would we end up mirroring the endless kawing of our elder UN brethren as we attempted to build an effective plan for our young alliance? Would the guy in the purple shirt keep trying to steamroll his agenda of a secret UN conspiracy theory?

The meeting was in full swing and individual agendas were bulging like the Incredible Hulk's biceps under a tight, soon-to-be-shredded shirt.  Thinking logically about the situation, I knew I was facing a sobering challenge: everyone had to feel they were a part of the process -- with their wildly varying, almost polarized opinions -- yet the meeting could not be allowed to crumble into anarchy and indecision.   Over the years, I've ran many meetings with all ages and agendas and I'm sorry to report that the majority of them were based on concensus decision-making.  Today's "global power circle" was certainly no exception!

One of the worst issues was that I didn't know very many of their names so as tensions swung and hands shot up like missile launches, all I could do was scribble down "chubby guy", "moustache guy, right corner", and "blondie" on the fly.  I think I even wrote this one girl down as "Legs."  (What can I say...) It was getting messy, people were starting to interrupt one another thoughtlessly, too many of them were rambling without solid proposals, and I knew I had to become... Great White Jerk!  There was no other option.  I knew this for certain when I looked over to my African sister sitting next to me and her head was in her hands and she was shaking and groaning in monotone, something like "uuuuhhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuu..."

I threw a deep, commanding voice into the circle.  "Look, I know there are lots of people in line waiting to speak.  You're going to have to be patient.  But you have to keep it as brief as you can and we've GOT to limit it to speaking directly to the issue at hand!"

After this firm, bordering-on-mean approach obviously hadn't done the trick, I got mad.  Maybe they didn't understand what I was saying.  "People are obviously frustrated," I boomed.  "But you're going to have to wait your turn; there are seven people in line to speak -- yes, I got you (to "moustache guy" as he waves his arm at me) -- and you're going to have to be patient.  But you have to focus on SOLID PROPOSALS!!"

My co-facilitator, thankfully, countered my now certain Great White Father from the North image with an eloquent, calm speech reminding everyone of the issue at hand and re-summarizing the proposal.  Why did I have to be the sacrificial bad guy, I thought. 

The Dutch guy sitting at my left had agreed to use a wristwatch to help me keep time limits on each person and to loudly call out "Time!" -- though to my dismay he was wimping out.  "Blondie" from Germany had been rattling on for six minutes now and she was quite sure that what she was saying was gospel.  "Dutch timekeeper guy" could only seem to timidly raise his hand to face level, then quickly pretend to be scratching his chin when no one noticed.  Great! 

I cut blondie off, reminding her she had gone about five minutes over what was reasonable.  Sighs of relief could be heard.  Then blondie snottily declared her right to continue and did so for two more minutes.  I felt like putting her in a headlock but not wanting to represent the majority of the international group in that way, I let her cast her own fate. (Would anyone want to have to work with this person in the future? Who knew.)

After a raucous, agenda-laden two hours, suddenly there was concensus.  Most of the real work happened in the last twenty minutes of the meeting, after the spouting had taken place and the majority wisdom seemed to rise like the sun, steadily.  A steering committee was quickly elected, a structure for the network was agreed to and a follow-up meeting was set. 

It was over.  The purging was complete.  Hallelujah.  Immediately, people began smiling, chatting and playing around like nothing had happened.  Me, I was vibrating like a flag-pole in a hurricane.  One of the girls from Germany grabbed me and said "You really did a good job. That was a difficult meeting to run."  Yeah, I said, and you were one of the reasons why!  She laughed and said, yeah, I guess I was. 

Is that all?!  A simple, dubious admission? 

Oh man, it ain't easy being a facilitator.