BATH

People from Bath and the surrounding communities gathered at Patten Free Library on Saturday to discuss fake news, biased reporting and how to know what to believe at the second Make Shift Coffee House.

The event follows the first Make Shift Coffee House, titled “Questions for the other side,” which was held at Curtis Memorial Library in January and was facilitated by Craig Freshley of Good Group Decisions. The event was created to engage in open discussions about politics and help people gain understanding about different points of view.

After seeing a flier for the first event, Adult Services Manager for Patten Free Library Leslie Mortimer invited Freshley to hold a Make Shift Coffee House in Bath. Together, they decided the topic should be “How do I know what to believe?,” with the conversation tackling fake news, alternative facts and biased media.

“Since we’re a library and we’re all about information and helping people get good information and pay attention to sources and citations and things like that, we decided on this broad topic of how do I know what to believe,” said Mortimer. “It’s very fitting for a library — it was perfect.”

Freshley noted that some changes were made to the Make Shift Coffee House formula after receiving feedback from the last event. For one thing, they decided to tighten the focus of the topic for discussion. He also changed the format of the opening segment.

“This opening conversation is a little more structured. Last time, we just had total free time when people arrived, for almost an hour,” said Freshley. “So we’ve got nine different questions and we’re asking people to pair up and talk about these questions.”

Bruce McGlauflin of Bath said that he was draw to the event because he was “starving for civil discourse.”

“Hoping to see some light in the darkness of civil society that’s just torn apart right now, and not able to have people of disparate views have civil conversations,” he said.

Delia Lunford, who is moving to Bath, said the inability to discuss politics civilly has had major impacts on her own family. Escalated tensions on Facebook and in person because of politics has caused her to fight with friends and others.

“In all of this, I am no longer in contact with my son,” said Lunford. “I mean, there’s always been difficulties … and I can tell you that it wasn’t just the politics. The politics are breaking open schisms that people have had for years.”

Later in the group conversation, Lunford shared how she has opened herself up to new beliefs throughout her life, from growing up in Georgia to traveling to Japan and converting to Buddhism.

People began arriving at the event a little after 6 p.m. As they entered the room, they were handed a paper with a question relating to fake news and how they choose what to believe. Participants paired up to talk, and often moved around to find new questions and new partners.

After an hour of grappling with those questions, Mortimer introduced the evening’s topic and Freshley opened up discussion to the entire group, asking people to share how they personally decide what to believe.

Another Make Shift Coffee House will be held at Patten Free Library on April 29.

“The second one is going to be called ‘Exploring our political divides.’ Since the country is so polarized, how can you approach people who believe differently than you and how do you actually listen instead of just reacting and getting defensive and things like that?” said Mortimer.

“We’re also going to have one in Lewiston on May 6, and I’m planning others,” said Freshley. “If anybody is interested in hosting one of these in their own community, let me know. We want to keep doing it.”

A full list of events can be found online at makeshiftcoffeehouse.com.

There’s more

• ANOTHER Make Shift Coffee House will be held at Patten Free Library in Bath on April 29.

• A FULL LIST of events can be found online at makeshiftcoffeehouse.com.