This is a totally different "mini" to the one which I observed in American CCI, and which has become more prevelant, and that is the practice of someone shouting "mini", and everybody in the group is required to do a mini. Evidently in America, if one or two people shout mini, then automatically everything stops, and a mini takes place.
To my mind, this can be very disruptive. Generally it happens at a tense time in a meeting. That is a point when perhaps a breakthrough may come. If the energy is totally diverted into a mini, then the problem is postponed and avoided, and the real issues may never emerge.
Also, it is undemocratic that if one or two people wish to halt a meeting, then the majority is forced to agree.
Again a mini is so short, that one can only surface the discontent, one does not have time to examine it, to cathart on it, and to find out what deeper patterns are at work.
I remember one co-counsellor at Harlech, after a particular mini session, pointing to the queue of people looking for tea ands biscuits afterwards. "Look at that, she said, the people have all brought their emotions to the surface and they haven't time to deal with them, so they are stuffing them all down again with food.
A mini is fine if there is time afterwards to deal with what has come up. Otherwise it adds to the frustration.
There is the additional element that when a mini is called for, there is generally some frustration going on, so there is a lot of aggression released, with shouts and screams echoing through the room. This is really indirect aggression towards the individuals raising a problem. Generally nobody has left the room, so the people at the centre of the debate are left in no doubt that people are angry. As with everything, if one person starts, then it is easy for others to follow.
I would seriously question the value of agreeing that a whole meeting or workshop should grind to a halt if a few people say mini. In particular, this is not appropriate to a business meeting. A point has been made in a previous issue that a mini was refused at the business meeting in Dutch CCI. The amount of time which would be lost in a business meeting with a heavy agenda would be disastrous to any discussion. I was one of the people who objected to a mini at that meeting. It had been agreed that the discussion on the item on "Conflict resolution would go until 11.30. When the mini was called for, it was just after 11.00. A mini of 5 minutes each way, with time for choosing partners and time for coming back into the meeting, would have left very little time for a real discussion. As it was, the meeting voted by a majority not to hold a mini. Only two people left the room for a mini, and one person went with them to talk to them.
The suggestion is that a request for a mini should override every other consideration at workshops, circles, and business meetings. I would suggest that mini-s on demand are disruptive, and that instead, we should stay with the issue and listen to each other as far as we can.