the neutral zone

vol.5 issue 2
3.05

     News and Updates
  Mediation Lessons
  Volunteer of the Month
  Welcome Cathy Sellers
   2004 Statistics
  Legal Language
  Conflict Resolution in the Field
  Note from Pete Mahoney
  Our Mediation Community

News and Updates:

Mediation Week Activities: April 8-9  Save the Date!
Our mediation community---you!---will have a wonderful opportunity for lunching, learning, and lots of mediation discussions!  Please plan on attending and bringing a friend.

What:  Luncheon and afternoon "salon" discussions, followed by an afternoon of mediator appreciation!

When:  Friday, April 8  Noon-4pm

Where:  Southern Graces Cafe, 4900 Chambliss Avenue, just off Kingston Pike in the Bearden/Homberg area. www.southern-graces.com.  This is an intimate, gourmet cafe, with enough room for a crowd!  We plan to have our keynote speaker, along with special guests be conversation "guides", one at  at each table

Who is speaking: 

Keynote speaker:
Honorable Randy Nichols, Knox County District Attorney General, a great booster of mediation as a potential  alternative dispute resolution in adult and juvenile court.

Discussion table hosts:
Honorable Chuck Cerny, Knox County General Sessions Court Judge, Division I, and one of CMC's supporters in its General Sessions mediation program, http://knoxcounty.org/gsjudges/mediation.php
Mary Rose Zingale, Esquire, Program Manager for both Rule 31 Programs and for the Parenting Plan Program, Administrative Offices of the Court (AOC) for the Tennessee Supreme Court www.tsc.state.tn.us/
Jay Banks, a well-known motivational speaker who will be presenting an anti-bullying program at the Peer Mediation Fest Friday and Saturday.  Jay's unique performance and comedic style bring the message "to life" as he combines music, audience participation and physical comedy. www.jaybanks.com

Who is invited:  Everyone in our CMC and TVMA family is invited, as well as guests you think would like to lunch and learn.

Donation:  $25 per person covers a wonderful lunch and all program activities.

As a very special treat, Knoxville's newest bookstore (and only independent new bookstore), Carpe Librum, will provide a reference book and mediation info table!  (For those of you who would like to browse at leisure, Carpe Librum---latin for "seize the book"---is located at 5113A Kingston Pike, in the Bearden/Homberg neighborhood!)

and also during that week...
   

Peer Mediation Update/Mediation Fest:
     Mediation Fest 2005 is quickly approaching! We are certain this year’s event will be very successful and provide entertainment and educational opportunities for students & adults alike. This year’s event will take place Friday, April 8 from 5-9 pm.  It will be held at the Free Evangelical Fellowship Church, www.fefc.com, and  our keynote speaker will be Jay Banks at www.jaybanks.com .  In a unanimous decision by our Peer Mediation Advisory Council, we have chosen to make it possible for all peer mediators in our active programs to attend, regardless of their ability to pay admission.  Also invited will be the coordinators and administrators from those schools, as well as nonparticipating school, students and adult supporters, to partake in the event. In this way, we can spread the word that mediation can have great consequences on a school community.

If you are interested in helping us, please call 215-6570 and ask for Sarah or Cathy.

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Volunteer Training Update: As the newsletter goes out, CMC is in the midst of a biannual training for volunteer mediators.  We have had a big turnout from TCAC www.tcac1.org/home/FactSheet.htm, mostly from Upper East Tennessee, as well as a great group of local CMC mediator trainees.  We can't wait until they're ready to mediate with our "seasoned" mediators, and we will be introducing them in future editions of Neutral Zone.  A special thanks goes out to Board Member and veteran mediator, Delores Mitchell, for assisting us in the training on both weekends.

VORP Quarterly Meeting: Jackie Kittrell traveled to Nashville on March 3 to attend the Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program quarterly meeting.  There is a large network of community mediation centers across Tennessee who are administering VORP programs of various kinds.  VORP caught on in the mid-1980s in our state, and is certainly one of the longest-lived community ADR programs.  Coming up in April is the National Victim Offender Mediation Association (VOMA) meeting in Philadelphia, PA.  If any in our community are interested in these meetings or in helping CMC build up its VORP casework, please call Jackie at 594-1879.

TVMA NEWS:  Mark your calendars because Tennessee Valley Mediation Association has planned a busy spring calendar of meetings and speakers!

3/15: Jean Munroe, Rule 31 mediator and trainer extraordinaire, "Breaking Mediation Impasse"

4/19: Carl Pierce, Professor at UT Law School, "Mediation Ethics"

5/17:  A Judges Panel, with Judge Cerny (General Sessions I); Judge Swann (4th Circuit); and Referee Joseph (Juvenile Court), "Mediation as a Solution to Disputes"


All meetings are on the 6th Floor of the Candy Factory, World's Fair Park.  There is always a social hour from 6-7pm with refreshments, and then the program is held from 7-8pm, with the May judicial panel program running from 7-8:30pm.

TVMA's website will be up and running by April 1; look for it at www.tnmediators.com

Website Development: We are in the midst of a creative reshaping of our CMC website, and will send each of you an email announcement when its ready to view.  Expect the unveiling in April.  Look for "user-friendliness" to be paramount, with different entry points for our various users:  volunteer mediators, Rule 31 mediators, court personnel, peer mediators, and board members, as well as interactive calendars and listservs.  Our online address is still www.2mediate.org!  (Look below for our new email listings.)  Thanks to Jim Davis for his past webwork!

CMC Board Meeting:  Thursday evening, 6-8pm, March 17, at Juvenile Court.

 Thanks to the Friends of CMC for their generous donations and other assistance:
   Claude Ramer III

   David Tandy

   Sally and John Hogan

by Lon Young, CMC Volunteer Mediator

Here are a couple of the many lessons I have learned in the last year and half of CMC mediating--actually "re-learned" would be more apt with respect to the following.

Know thyself.
     When in the course of mediation I perceive an impasse and am inclined to broach termination of the mediation, I ask for a separate session with my co-mediator. I have found that I tend toward the pessimistic when the parties' positions harden and the potential for reaching agreement seems small, and I need to know whether my co-mediator shares my perception of the prospects for agreement. In some instances my co-mediator's greater persistence and optimism have led to continuation of the mediation and ultimately to a good agreement. The lessons I draw from the foregoing are that a mediator (i) should be alert to any tendency he or she may have to either terminate a mediation before its time or drag one out that is beyond hope and (ii) should consult with his or her co-mediator to check any such tendency.

 Trust the process.
     Quite often in General Sessions Court mediations the parties have already worked out an agreed resolution to their dispute and want the mediators to write it up for them. While in these circumstances we typically can work through the six stages of the mediation process quite quickly (often truncating stages 4 and 5), it pays to generally adhere to the process--because the process is designed to surface all of the issues that require resolution. And sometimes the parties, unbeknownst to them, have not reached agreement on all of the matters that should be addressed. For example, in a landlord/tenant case, though the parties may have agreed on a date for possession and a back rent payment plan, they may not have thought about disposition of any damage deposit or who will be responsible for court costs. Stages 2 and 3 of the process help ensure that such additional issues are surfaced as the parties briefly discuss the dispute and the problem statement is developed.

February’s Volunteer of the Month is Carol Robbins! Carol has been a volunteer mediator with the CMC since spring of 2000. Last summer, she also completed the requirements for Rule 31 mediations. As a volunteer, Carol has completed over 75 mediation sessions. Not only does Carol make herself available to mediate once per week, she has also frequently been willing to fill in at the last minute for mediations. In addition, Carol is a member of our Peer Mediation Advisory Council.

Carol is a mother of two and a resident of Knoxville. She has her master’s degree in deaf education, and is certified to teach ESL (English as a Second Language). She teaches at the Tennessee School for the Deaf and also teaches ESL classes. Always a joy to be in the company of, we thank Carol for her continued support and commitment to CMC.

STAFF NEWS:

Welcome New VISTA, Cathy Sellers

     Cathy Sellers, our new VISTA volunteer, comes to us from the big, friendly state of Texas. Cathy was born and raised in San Antonio and completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Texas at Austin. While a student there she studied a variety of fields, including art, psychology, literature, and history, before finally deciding on Art History as a major. Cathy’s interests are many, and she has often contemplated law as a profession.

   Cathy is a single parent of a three-year-old boy (Devon Michael) and claims to have spent much of the last four years immersed in the legal system trying to establish a workable parenting plan. She says she can attest to having witnessed first-hand the benefits of mediation. We welcome Cathy to our team and hope that the next year will be an insightful and rewarding experience.

Our new staff email addresses: (We will still check the old email!)

John Doggette:  jdoggette@2mediate.org
Jackie Kittrell:  jkittrell@2mediate.org
Sharon Upshaw: supshaw@2mediate.org
Sarah Krivenki :         skrivenki@2mediate.org
Lesley Rohrer :          lrohrer@2mediate.org
Cathy Sellers :           csellers@2mediate.org

2004 Statistics

CMC had a great year in 2004! In the Juvenile Court (including both family services & child support divisions), there were 325 referrals, 223 mediations, and 154 agreements. Since 1995, there have been 1,914 referrals, 1,374 mediations, and 980 agreements. Additionally, in the Dependency Mediation Pilot at the Juvenile Court, there were 41 referrals, 40 mediations, and 32 agreements.

In the General Sessions Court, CMC saw 236 referrals, 229 mediations, and 161 agreements, with $208, 777.30 in restitutions. Since 1995, there have been 2,122 referrals, 1,987 mediations, and 1,445 agreements, with in excess of $929,015.82 in restitution (restitution records were not kept prior to 2000).

None of this would be possible without our amazing volunteers - thank you so much for your continued efforts!

By Don K. Ferguson
(CMC volunteer mediator in Knox County General Sessions Court and author of the "Grammar Gremlins" column that appears in The Knoxville News-Sentinel every Sunday.)


tort: a wrongful act that results in injury to someone or the property or reputation of someone for which the injured party is entitled to compensation. The word derives from French Law meaning "wrong, injustice" and ultimately from the Latin term "tortus," which meant "twisted," "crooked" or "dubious."

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et al. -- "and others"

et ux. -- "and wife"

et vir -- "and husband"
"Et" is Latin for "and."  Note that "al." and "ux.," which are abbreviations for "alia" and "uxor," respectively, have periods after them.  But "vir" is not an abbreviation and, therefore, does not have a period after it.

A Note from a Former CMC Volunteer, Pete Mahoney
(Pete was a long-time mediator and retired naval officer who is now serving stateside.)

I wanted to say hello and pass on some observations.
I recently started some volunteer work with the Virginia Aquarium here in Virginia Beach. There was an opportunity to work in the bird department helping with the care and feeding blah, blah, blah.

Although the folks there are friendly enough and I'm having fun, I can't help comparing their volunteer program to the CMC. I am (again) reminded of the great experience you afforded me, and how welcomed and appreciated I felt as a member of the CMC family.

My continuing thanks to you, the staff and all the volunteers who make the CMC the CMC.

Keep well,
Pete Mahoney
Advanced Engineering Information Services
Strike Force Training Atlantic

"Conflict Resolution in the Field - Assessing the Past, Charting the Future" is the focus of the Winter 2004 issue of the Conflict Resolution Quarterly. The Community Mediation Center staff and board have identified 2005 as a year to better shape our organization for the future. As I read most of the 15 authors I reflected on how involved our organization and volunteers have become in the issues of conflict resolution. Sample article titles include: The Effectiveness of Court-Connected Dispute Resolution in Civil Cases; Family Mediation Research; The Evolution and Evaluation of Community Mediation; Employment Dispute Resolution: and The Case for Mediation; Restorative Justice: Beyond Victim-Offender Mediation.

The editor in her introduction recognizes she cannot generalize across the diverse and complex issues reported in the issue. I surely cannot do more than recommend the issue to volunteers with one exception.

Linda Baron, the Executive Director of the National Association for Community Mediation wrote a commentary on the field of community mediation and the following is from her section on policy implications for the current and future.

The challenges facing our mediation center are encapsulated in the above paragraph. Not-for-profits, like other businesses, must remain viable for both customers and suppliers. CMC remains committed to our vision and to charting our future within our East Tennessee community.

In 2005, “Our Mediation Community” will air Mondays at 11:30am and Wednesdays at 9:00pm. The program features guests who help to promote peace in our community. The schedule this month is as follows:

2/21 & 2/23: Hon. Cynthia Chapman, Chief Referee, Knox County Juvenile Court

3/2 at 9pm, 3/28 at 11:30am, & 3/30 at 9pm:  Bob Becker, Knoxville City Council

3/7 at 11:30am & 3/9 at 9pm, Gary Honaker, Boys and Girls Club
3/14 at 11:30am & 3/23 at 9am, Hon. Catherine Quist, Knox County Circuit Court Clerk.
3/21 at 11:30am & 3/23 at 9pm, Jack Neely, MetroPulse