Process: Infoco minutes: 2011-09-06

Minutes:

Infoco Meeting
9/6/2011
6:45-7:55pm
Present: Sarah, Elph, Gail, Jillian, Becky G for the first part

AGENDA
1. checkins
2. monkey review (monkeys at end of minutes)
3. Fall facilitation scheduling
4. Tomorrow's meeting
5. November training
6. Next meeting date


3. Fall Facilitation Schedule

Jillian will see if Tammy can switch for November 2 and Jillian will take
Sept 19. So that will be:

Sept. 7 - Alt. Mtg. - Leader: Becky; Facilitator: Elph

Sept. 19 - Business Mtg. - Facilitators: Sarah & Jillian

Oct. 5 - Business Meeting (Budget) - Facilitator - Mary

Oct. 17 - Business Meeting - Sarah & Alicia

Nov. 2 - Business Meeting (Budget) - Elph & Tammy

Nov. 21 - Business Meeting (Budget, if needed) - Mary

Dec. 7 - Alt. Mtg. - Leader: Pam; Facilitator: Jillian

Dec. 19 - Business Meeting - Alicia & Tammy

The other question is Tom's minute taking slot. Work was going to ask
contingency labor. Tom is scheduled for Oct 5 and December 7. (FYI Sari will
be subbing for Vincent's minute taking on Sept 19 and Nov 21.)

Seems like Process cmtee should look at the list of contingency workers and
ask some directly about each taking 1 minute taking slot, either Oct 5 or
Dec 7.

Here's the list of contingency workers for fall 2011:

http://www.gocoho.org/~gocoho/wiki/index.php/ContingencyWorkers

MONKEY: Sarah will look over the list of fall contingency workers and email
a few folks who seem likely candidates to see if they can take 1 minute
taking slot, for Oct 5 or Dec 7.


4. Tomorrow's meeting

Becky G is the alternative meeting leader, but this snuck up on her. CH
cmtee doesn't have anything ready and Becky has F&L related ideas but no
time to get with F&L about it.

Becky thought that a conversation might be what she'd like to do. Asking
what questions?
"What are you currently learning about?" - she envisions both adults and
kids, might be good for kids to see that you always keep learning, its not
just in school.

We spent some time brainstorming about it.

Idea - ask people to bring something from their home that is unusual or that
they think might not be in others' homes and then they can talk about it.
Something interesting or odd or that they'd like to tell a story about. Kind
of like Great Oak Show and Tell - hooks in to the first day of school thing!
Please emphasize that its for adults as well as for kids.


5. Community weekend event, November 12-13, 2011

It was nearly a 3-way tie between three of the topic suggestions for our Nov
12-13 community weekend:

- Community building activities with a focus on helping long-timers and new
residents connect - with a suggestion for some hands-on activities

- Practical ways to make GO more sustainable - continuing Megan's
alternative meeting

- Community art project

A new question / idea has come up that could be worked on at the weekend, or
at a regular meeting. Work cmtee brought up the question about convenors and
why we don't always have enough people willing to convene.

Many facets to it. Concern about convenors taking on much too much and then
other people feeling like they need to do the same and not wanting to.

The convenor job description is very clear, it is supposed to be a simple
job.

I feel like our systems are well designed and are flexible and adaptable,
things wax and wane. We have survived effective and ineffective committee
leadership, transitions, etc.

I think the question is, can we make leadership better and if so how.

Support and inform people of the limits of the convenor role, and recognize
that some people go beyond that and recognize that that is a choice, some
choose to make with their passion and time. But that that is not an
expectation.

- Tweak convenor description

- Look at the counted member role, to make sure that a good mix of people
are assigned cmtees - not have all-new people all at once.

Gail had an idea about the weekend, called it "Leading GO into the Future."
One possible scenario would be to have one session (3-4 hours) focus on
what it is to be a leader or how to be an effective leader, possibly with an
outside presenter. Then there could be a second, "unrelated" session that
could focus on something else, like effective committees (for both conveners
and committee members), or training facilitators, or a refresher for new and
experienced head cooks, or sustainability, or Incorporating new members in
to GO.

I'd find it interesting to hear from other GOers about what they've learned
about how to be an effective leader, here especially. But I would not find
it appealing to just have it be about convenors, too much whining.

Want to be positive, creating. I'd be careful about trying to go under the
leadership umbrella - its an empty bucket - leadership is finding solutions,
leadership is about doing. Needs more of a strucure to it - what are the
pieces - what is it leading to, what is it made up of.

Leaderhip in a peer environment - place it in a place. Leadership in a
hierarchy, vs leadership in this setting that is more about identifying
problems, framing problems, who you talk to about a problem.

If we tried to do a community meeting on the role of the convenor - go over
the current job description - talk about it, have people think about how to
apply it. Section on convening - identify convenors who are effetive, don't
feel overwhelmed, who set the limits and get thigns done. Have thme talk
about how they've learned to convene within our framework and what they've
learned to do to make it work well. Learn from the happy people, not listen
to whining. Hear strategies for being an effective and happy convenor.
Catherine? Amy H? Demonstrated is can be done on important cmtees and can
be managed.

Other ideas:

To try to combine all three things - make more cloth napkins for the common
house. Touches sustainable piece - making it is arts and crafts and I know a
fun process that can make something pretty - takes 2 days - step 1 on first
day, step 2 on second day. Dying fabric. And could do a session before we
decorate and ask people to think about something about themselves or their
household that they would have fun representing on their napkin - favorite
food, color, anything, someplace they've been, their home, their dog. Could
have a little art show, peopel could write a small card explaining I made
this and this is what it represents and then as we use the napkins we make
know who made it and why.

How much time would it take? Not that much - might only need 2 hours for the
first day and 1 hour for the second day.

Mixture of head and hands people seemed interested in.

Another idea - each building could make a fairy door and install it on their
building and have a fairy door installation ceremony on each buliding.

Building something like a cobb structure or outdoor oven kind of thing -
we'd need something with experience, and November is not a great time for
that. But it could be something to plan in winter and build in warm months.

Identify one or two other nuts and bolts GO topics that would benefit us,
and we could do one or two on one day and one or two on the next day and
then do an art project on breaks.

Maybe have a party at the end of the second day, potluck gathering?

Key component will getting new people to come - will need to approach them
directly.

What would a good next step be? Talk more about it on Monday 9/12 at the
Process meeting.

6. Next meeting
Infoco meets on first tuesdays, so our next meetings are 10/4 and 11/8.
However it will be great to have Infocoers involved in helping create the
November weekend so we should think about an additional meetup or two.

MONKEYS

Re-MONKEY: (was this done already?) Mary will send an email out to "talk"
with the budget schedule, as a heads-up to committees especially.

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

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

MONKEY: Sarah will look over the list of fall contingency workers and email
a few folks who seem likely candidates to see if they can take 1 minute
taking slot, for Oct 5 or Dec 7.
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