Process minutes: 2011-09-12

Minutes:

Process meeting
9/12/2011
6:45-8pm, CH sitting room

Present: Gail, Becky H, Sarah, Jillian, Nicholas

1. Checkins
2. Monkey Review (monkeys at end of minutes)
3. Process jobs for fall - final scheduling
4. Fall event
5. Next meeting


3. Fall Schedule

Facilitators are all set now as far as we know, as well as childcare,
alternative meeting leaders.

Sarah is contacting contingency workers to see if they can pick up a minute
taking shift (2 of them need to be filled).

Catherine may be available for December 7, we should check in with her
closer to the time.

Sarah will check in with Syndallas, who will be staying at GO, yay! (If
Syndallas is not available to take minutes perhaps she could take some meals
work from someone who is available to take minutes.)

4. Fall event

Nov 12-13.

Remember the event we did with Evan. People liked the weekend with her - it
was checking back in with ourselves, where are we now after 7 years.

And last year's was learning something practical weekend, people wanted to
"do" rather than "talk".

Could do a combo of things. Could even split it into two different weekends
if we wanted to.

The F&L suggestion for financial training. Could it be started at an
alternative meeting? Seems like a lot of people would not come if it were
the community weekend topic - a deeper level of finance learning would be
daunting for most folks, and a much lighter level would be too easy for
some... Would need to bring it back to a community meeting if we were
excited to go this way, and as of now don't think it's practical to try to
line it up for this November. Idea, F&L could contact Process about 2012,
the 2012 event does not have to wait until November 2012, if F&L wants to
build a case with the community as to the benefits of focusing this kind of
full-group time on finance learning, they could propose a structure and talk
about the reasons, we can get community support and do it next year any time
during the year.

Ongoing MONKEY: set up at least one alternative meeting ahead of time: each
work season process could take ownership of one of the alternative meetings
and pull up some of these ideas that have come our way - we would make the
arrangements for someone to do a presentation or lead the item that had been
suggested.

Community-building to me supports a lot of interaction between people, not
sitting and listening.

To me its structured time with discussion topics, so the conversation is
deeper than our chat over the dinner table. Conversation Cafe, people really
liked it when we did it before. Small tables, 4-8 people, set up nicely,
with a starter topic. And some structure - first time a go round so each
person shares, and then a more general converstaion. And then depending on
purpose each group could gather a few points and report back, but often
mainly its to connect.

Idea - question could be - What has your experience been taking on a
leadership role at GO. People could define that how they wish - not
necessarily a convenor.

I like the idea too of asking, When I'm not a leader how can I support a
leader here.

Waht's exciting about being a leader, what's challenging about it.

Raising awareness. Start with a panel or a fishbowl of people with various
experiences of being a "leader" at GO? Or should we talk in Conversation
Cafe first, then fishbowl?

Leadership meaning, taking responsibility, could be in many areas - not just
convenors.

Having someone talk about the "patterns" of leadership and power in
community - Laird does a workshop on this. Jillian may still have the
handouts.

MONKEY: Jillian will look to see if she has handouts from Laird's NASCO
workshop about Leadership and Power in community.

Perceptions about leadership at Great Oak.

Leadership and involvement at Great Oak, taking responsibility and being a
part of Great Oak. It gets to the core of who we are, we are a community and
things need to get done, and, we operate by consensus as a board and we all
have opinions about things, and its always a balancing act of discussion,
involvement and action, criticism and praise, time and energy and lack
thereof.

What does leadership mean here - we have a lot of new people too.

I also liked the art idea and a hands on idea and tieing it in to
sustainability - like the napkins.

It could be something disposable that does allow us to interact. Group
project that could hang up for a couple weeks. (Like we did the GO timeline
as a collage, last year.)

(FYI Sustainability group is meeting and will meet again on Oct 2.)

Something fun should happen on Saturday night - we could do a potluck? Had
folk dancing that night one time, was really fun, involved all ages, was
physical instead of sitting. Did Megan bring that person? Was energizing and
connecting. Maybe we can do it again?

Cake walk rather than potluck dinner - cook cakes and win a cake?

If we did Sat morning event, then evening cake and dance that night? Sunday
night screen a movie as an idea.

MONKEY: Process to bring a refreshing policy moment about our convenor
agreement.

So what should we do the second day? Art? Or could Sunday be a project work
day that we could all do and get done in 2 hours, something tangible and
working together? But weather makes it challenging to plan something
outdoors, and something indoors to meet all ages and abilities and doable by
a lot of people at once, is not easy to come up with, hm.

Group painting process - break into small groups and there's a process you
go through to create a painting together. Syndallas has a lot of ideas
about art projects - not something that will last forever but they can be a
lot of fun and tend to be all ages and not expensive.

Four or five different groups making a small piece of a mural that gets put
together?

Instead of making napkins how about making cloth tablecloths? Maybe stencils
so its more elegant looking? Specific colors for each group using the same
pattern or two patterns? Put the same border on each before we turn people
loose? You have to give people artistic license or it will be boring, can't
standardize it too much. But some people will want a lot of guidance and
others not so much.

(Just in time for GO Thanksgiving.)

MONKEYS: Sarah will find out some costs re the tablecloth idea for skills
and thrills and talk with others who could be part of the project.

MONKEY: Jillian will look to see if she has handouts from Laird's NASCO
workshop about Power in community.

MONKEY: Jillian will email out a draft structure for Saturday morning 11/12
for Process to react to - find the Conversation cafe guidelines.

MONKEY: Becky H will contact Megan about the dance person she brought in for
a community weekend 2 years ago (? when Evan was here), it was folk dancing
- see if she might want to do that again for Saturday night 11/12.

Who might like to honcho a cake walk? Mary King? She'll just be getting back
from Hawaii.

MONKEY: Jillian will ask Debbi and Tammy if either might like to honcho a
cake walk for 11/12.

5. Next Meetings:

Sept 27 at 6:45

Oct 25 at 6:45

(Gail leaves 9/15 is back on 9/25. Jillian leaves on 9/29. Jillian back on
Oct 25. Sarah leaves on October 27.)