Process: Infoco minutes: 2007-09-23

Agenda:

1. Monkey Review
2. Brief discussion about Lakestone relations
3. 10/3 Budget meeting planning
4. Next meeting

Minutes:

MONKEYS and COOLER ITEMS

--------------------
From previous meetings

COOLER: Strategic planning discussion

COOLER: bringing forward a pre-proposal about giving feedback to
community meetings when you can't come to the meeting

COOLER for Alt Meeting topic: Discussion about HOW we talk about
things. It sounds like this fall we already have topics though, but
we should keep it in the cooler.

COOLER for Alt Meeting topic: revisit our vision statement

COOLER for Alt Meeting Topic: The teacher, Grace Bogs, that Rod and
Melisa had for strategic planning said she would do a 2-hour workshop
for free, might want to contact her for a spring alt meeting.

----------------------
From the previous meeting 9/11/07:

DONE: MONKEY: Jillian will email out the three proposed topics for
Nov 10 from Diana Kardia.

DONE: MONKEY: Patti and Sarah will check in with a neighbor about Nov 10.

DONE: MONKEY: Jillian will print out the parking agreement for the
9/17 meeting.

Re-MONKEY: Alicia has reconstructed the basics of the minutes from
the second meeting in August and will send those out soon.

Re-MONKEY? (Rod will check): Rod will add new facilitators to Infoco
- Alicia, Robert, Megan, any others? Should make sure Elph, Mary
King, Amy H are still subscribed

-----------------------

MONKEYS from this meeting 9/23/07

MONKEY: Jillian will resend out the infoco pre-proposal for how to
give feedback to community meetings if you can't be present.

MONKEY: Jillian will check in with Alicia about the August and June
minutes to see if those can be sent out this week.

MONKEY: Gail will bring the discussion of GO connecting with the new
Lakestone management, to steering, and see if steering should take it
on or ask Membership to do it etc.

MONKEY: Jillian will check in with Alicia about if she is
willing/planning to bring forward the discussion about non-GO kids in
the common house to the 10/15 meeting.

MONKEY: Elph will hang the O&I board and get clipboards. (bill to process).

MONKEY: Rod will get in touch with committees both in writing as soon
as possible, and then face to face about this process, will let
Infoco folks know if he needs help in prep and for roles during the
meeting, and can potentially ask for Infoco to meet this coming
Sunday 9/30 if more discussion is needed.

----------------------

2. Lakestone relations

This is being talked about in many other areas apparently. Including
at Touchstone.

The most important thing to me is for Great Oak to have a
conversation about our own boundaries - ie if you see a kid in the
common house you don't know, you need to ask them who they are with
from Great Oak, and if that person is not there with them, the kid
needs to leave. No unchaperoned non-GO kids in the common house. This
was only ever discussed on email. The most critical piece is the
common house but there's also when kids do things outside (ie picking
garden produce, etc).

MONKEY: Jillian will check in with Alicia about if she is
willing/planning to bring forward the discussion about non-GO kids in
the common house to the 10/15 meeting.

MONKEY: Gail will bring the discussion of GO connecting with the new
Lakestone management, to steering, and see if steering should take it
on or ask Membership to do it etc.


3. 10/3 Budget meeting

Idea is to have meaningful small conversations with committees.

Might be a good time for committees to talk about new projects and
see where there's energy. (Such as grounds talking about redoing the
east end entrance, or Process talking about another weekend event a
year now that the facilitation training is done.)

What do we want people to leave with?

I think we want committees to leave with a clear sense of what the
community is interested in in their area.

Not every committee may need to present or have a small group.

Which ones will probably want focused time?

- Grounds
- Process
- Common House
- Membership
- Buildings
- Hot-tub?
- Workshop?

Probably not Finance or Meals or Work but they certainly can if they want to.

So we either have a large group discussion where everyone gets the
same info or we have 7 small groups talking and people may go to 1 or
2 or 3 but not all.

Comes out to what we want out of it at the end. The goal can't be we
want everything in one meeting.

Goal - How do we get committees good info about what they need to do
next in creating their budget.

Could this meeting be the creation of an O&I board - opinions and
information board. So after the community meeting, the ideas go up on
clipboards and people have a week to comment, and the committees
should be reading the clipboards too and responding to questions etc,
a written, visible dialog.

The committee would have to prepare the material for the clipboard
based on the meeting that just happened, answer obvious questions,
and then post that on the board.

So there'd need to be some prep time.

Its a way to have small group discussions and yet also let others
learn about and participate in groups they could not go to, or could
go and have more to say or new ideas.

So I see a starting pitch from each committee not unlike the open
space soapbox - this is the interesting exciting questions we have
this is the kind of feedback we're looking for. Drawing people in.

We could say to committees, what we're aiming at here are new
initiatives. Assuming the same for most line items, talk about what
would be different. New ideas. Or if there was a line-item that was
way too much or way too little talk about that too. The standard
items should still be available in writing but what we talking about
are the changes.

New ideas and also clear lines of WHO is working on these initiatives
- who will figure out answers to all the questions that come up, etc.

What needs to happen:

Committees need clear instructions:

Committees should email out info about their new ideas, what they
will want to talk about at the 10/3 meeting, ideally by late on 10/1.

Committees should give this pitch very briefly at the start of the
meeting, then break into committee discussion groups.

Could ring a bell at 30 minutes in to let people know they can
switch, people can switch any time.

What would come back to the full group at the end?

You could ask each committee to report back, what was the most talked
about issue or question the group had? Or, what changes are you now
looking at doing that you hadn't thought about? Or, what feedback
does the committee need now to move forward? Or, what was the most
exciting or contentious idea?

And then we need a clear format for how the clipboards should be
formatted so committees can get them started.

Discussion about the small group setup, keep the energy close
together and allow for easy switching - maybe we could have all the
groups meet in close proximity in eachother - dining room sitting
room foyer.

What would go on the clipboard for each committee?

Budget proposal - the committee's whole budget - what you want money
for an how much
Describe the changes to the budget, describe the new initiatives.
Minutes from the 10/3 meeting? Summary? could be.
Could do an FAQ if you want

Then people can give their written feedback and it should be SIGNED
not anonymous.

The idea of these clipboards is that they are both giving info and
letting people respond. Won't get everyone to respond, but whoever is
interested.

A way for people to interact with the information more directly so
its almost like a survey. But it lets people change their minds as
they read others' ideas so its more dynamic than a survey.

The committee needs to keep up with their clipboard - read it,
respond to questions.

MONKEY: Elph will hang the O&I board and get clipboards. (bill to process).

MONKEY: Rod will get in touch with committees both in writing as soon
as possible, and then face to face about this process, will let
Infoco folks know if he needs help in prep and for roles during the
meeting, and can potentially ask for Infoco to meet this Sunday 9/29
if more discussion is needed.



4. Next meeting

Tuesday 10/9. Sarah facilitating. Jillian minutes.

--end--