Process: Infoco minutes: 2011-07-05

Agenda:

Infoco Meeting
7/5/2011
6:55-7:55
Present: Jillian, Elph, Nicholas for part

AGENDA
1. Checkins
2. Monkeys
3. Next work season facilitators, and budget schedule
4. July and August meetings
5. Request re use of paper instead of whiteboard
6. Check in on meeting date - 2nd vs 1st Tuesdays - switch with Process?
7. Next Facilitation recipe
8. Next meeting

1. Checkins

2. MONKEYS

MONKEYS from previous meetings:

MONKEY: Jillian will add each faciliation recipe as we complete it, to the
Process section of the wiki for now.

RE-MONKEY: Jillian to add the Anatomy of a Monkey facilitation recipe to the
Process section of the wiki (see June Infoco minutes.)

RE-MONKEY: Jillian will update the infoco mandate draft, take out all the
extraneous formatting, make some changes and bring it back.

MONKEY: Jillian will fill out facilitation slots in work survey.

MONKEY: Jillian will email work and infoco to ask about the process for July
18 - what outcomes is Work looking for and how do they envision getting
there.

MONKEY: Jillian will email CH to see if F&L would come forward with the
recommendation, and if it needs to be in July, if so we would need to plan a
105-minute meeting.

MONKEY: Jillian will email those who are not here about changing to second
Tuesday.



3. Next work season facilitators and budget schedule

Patti and Amy H would like to take a break. Catherine says it doesn't work
right now with her kid-care schedule but hopes to in future. Tammy and
Alicia and Elph and Jillian are willing to stay on. Sarah willing to jump
back in. Mary King asked for 2 slots so she can do the budget meetings.

MONKEY: Jillian will fill out facilitation slots in work survey. 7
facilitation slots needed in the fall, each person covers 2 meetings per
"slot".
Mary: 2 slots
Alicia: 1
Sarah: 1
Jillian: 1
Tammy: 1
Elph: 1

Here's what Mary said about budget schedule:

Minutes:

Oct. 5 Community Meeting: The budget committee (which I will be on to
prepare the presenters) will present an outline of how the budget process
will work and take clarifying questions - not the whole meeting. (I would
co-facilitate).

Oct. 14: committees get budget requests to the Budget committee.

Oct. 17: first budget meeting to discuss the draft budget. (I would
facilitate the meeting on my own)

After that committees process the feedback they've gotten from the meeting
and revise their requests if appropriate. The budget committee will work
with committees to make this as easy as possible.

Nov. 2: community meeting: non-budget, but there possibly might be some time
for urgent concerns if necessary.

Nov. 21: second budget meeting. We hopefully agree on a budget. (I would
facilitate the meeting on my own)

(If for some reason we can't reach closure at that point, we do it again,
and come back for more discussion in December - which I could co-facilitate
if necessary.)

This would allow me to be on F&L, Facilitation & Head Cook for a total
allotment of 9 hours - which I can pull off. Thanks for considering.

------


4. July and August meetings

July 6: Megan leader, Elph facil. Vincent Minutes. Maia and Willa childcare.
Hopefully Megan can stop by tonite, she talked with Alicia about her idea,
has to do with sustainability and disaster planning.

July 18, regular community meeting, Facilitators - Patti & Tammy, Minutes -
Jillian, Childcare - Kendra.

Work cmtee asked for the whole meeting on July 18. Do we know what process
they want to use for that?

MONKEY: Jillian will email work and infoco to ask about the process for July
18.

But CH just asked for 15 minutes on July 18 to discuss the amount of money
CH can take out of reserve fund to replace the carpets before fall - the
Reserve study had the wrong square footabe listed for the carpeted rooms.

Clarify - F&L will come forward with a recommendation that we should do
this for CH? That would take a lot less time to have F&L do it directly.
Having CH say it for them doesn't seem as direct.

MONKEY: Jillian will email CH to see if F&L would come forward with the
recommendation, and if it needs to be in July, if so we would need to plan a
105-minute meeting.

August alternative meeting - Pam's museum tour.

August regular meeting - from Becky - a heads-up that F&L will need time in
August to present a proposal on the Reserve Fund itself. 20 minutes for
intro.



5. Request re use of paper instead of whiteboard

If there's a chance that what is being scribed is useful to presenters
perhaps use paper. The minute taker was capturing verbatim so did not think
they needed to capture the summary.

But I think that the verbatim is good AND the summary/bullet version is good
to have too, electronically, in the minutes. Make it clear to minute takers
that at the end of the meeting they should please record the
bulleted/summary version too from the whiteboard or piece of paper.



6. Check in on meeting date - 2nd vs 1st Tuesdays - switch with Process?

Seems like it would be better to have the Infoco meetings be closer to the
regular community meetings, which are the third Mondays. What if Infoco met
on second Tuesdays, and Process met on first Tuesdays, instead of the
reverse?

Ok with Elph and Jillian.

MONKEY: Jillian will email those who are not here about changing to second
Tuesday.



7.
At our May 2011 meeting we brainstormed pieces that go into facilitating so
we could expand on them one at a time, create teaching tools similar to the
powerpoint we created on what is consensus, which new people have found very
useful. We need to teach more people about how to facilitate, need teaching
tools. Recognize that facilitating is a complex and large topic that people
write entire books about. And, we need more facilitators at Great Oak for
commuinty meetings. We decided to pick one recipe at each infoco meeting and
expand on one in the meeting. Here's the list we brainstormed in May 2011:

- meeting prep/logistics
- calling the question - what are the things to say when getting ready to
ask for consenus
- quorum
- how to deal with emotion (bring out the posters (emotional input))
- naming names in the discussion of someone who is not there
- stacking or not stacking - discussion management
DONE (6/2011 Infoco meeting) - anatomy of a monkey - we often leave them off
- due date, who's responsible
- timekeeping - planning the agenda, time managment - eg doing a
warning before the topic time is done etc
- roles and duties of the presenter - prep, presentation with a range
of methods, and then presenter can sit down and participate


Let's do "Calling the Question" - what are the things to say when getting
ready to ask for consensus

There's several loops of discussion but let's start at the end.
If you've addressed all the concerns that have come up already during the
discussion. Then you're at the end of dicussion, and you ask if there are
remaining concerns.

If there are one or more remaining concerns that can't quickly and easily be
resolved, and you are out of time, you table it for the next meeting or for
between-meeting work, you don't call the question, you take it off the table
for now.

If there are small concerns that can't be addressed by the presenter right
then, then what. Depends on what they are, how many there are - lots of
people with small concerns, one person with a big concern - either will keep
you from moving ahead. A few stand asides are ok, which is what may result
from personal or small concerns, but too many is unwieldy. But the real key
is how consequential or inconsequential the concerns are. Is it worth
waiting a month if its really a trivial issue, balanced against how much
effort has gone in to it already - is this the first discussion on this
item, or the third? Could ask the person with a small concern, "Will these
concerns cause you to stand aside from this agreement?"

You ask for standasides after remaining or strong concerns. If you get any
stand asides you ask the person to make a statement for the minutes about
why they are standing aside.

Then ask are there any blocks. The block would need to have been a concern
already - if the blocking concern is new to the discussion then the
discussion needs to be tabled and brought back, you can't just blow it up at
the end, need to participate during the discussion to give the group some
time to work with the strong concern.

So if you have a block that has arisen from a concern. We ask them to state
how they feel this proposal endangers the community. And then we ask the
community if they agree with that statement. Is the reason that they're
stating for their block, within the realm of possibility and is it a
community level concern? Do they have a good reason to block - not
necessarily a reason you agree with but its a logical, not fantastical,
reason. If the block is reasonable then the proposal is laid down. If the
block is not reasonable, more discussion may be needed, and it is likely a
stand-aside.

If there aren't any blocks, you can say congratulations, we have reached
consensus on this, applaud the presenters.

8. OUr next meeting will be the first Tues in August unless people want to
change to second Tuesday.
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