Process: Infoco minutes: 2017-01-15

Special Notes:

Tri-Community Facilitators Potluck Brunch

Agenda:

1. Brief round of: What's up in our communities?
2. Discuss idea of 3-comty facilitation pool
3. Next steps
4. Next Tri Community facilitators' potluck brunch date

Minutes:

1-15-17


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Present:
From SW: Ralph Keith
From TS: Maggi Rohde
From GO: Jillian Downey, Elph Morgan, Mary King, Nicholas de Paul, Patti Kardia, Amy Harris


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1.Brief round of What's up in our communities?

# Security/Break-ins:

# All three communities are now locking our common houses
# Break-ins at TS, GO - all were in unlocked houses, some houses
were entered while people were sleeping, most recently there was a break-in
during the day
# SW: some packages were taken from their mailbox area, they were
sitting out on a bench
# There are all economic crimes: people need money, not hurting
anyone physically

# TS is getting ready to build on the empty lot near the big oak:

# Lots of talk with developer Bill Kinley about this - he owns the
land - a lot of trouble coming to consensus - to the point that Bill wasn't
sure he wanted to work with them.
# Mary & Sarah helped with facilitation early on
# Laird Schaub came and spent a week with them and he was very
helpful. They want to bring him back again. GO might be interested in
piggybacking when he's here. Would he do another 2-year facilitation
training?
# Still not completely certain what will be built, but whatever it
is, the residents will be part of TS.

# Maggi's take on the differences between the 3
communities/discussion:

# Sunward's people were pioneers - vision, energy
# GO still had motivation and knowledge/vision of intentional
communities
# TS, the people involved didn't have much knowledge of intentional
communities. Also more people more inclined to follow than to lead. Some
passive-aggression has happened with people not speaking up at meetings,
but then unhappy afterwards. Or speaking up only at the last moment,
frustrating for all. Each cmty has a different way of being. Laird
helpfully identified some process things they can fix when at TS recently
as consultant.
# GO benefitted from having the 2-year facilitation training when it
was very young.
# Great Oak is at a point where we are "post-new" - there's kind of
a split between the early members and the newer ones in their knowledge of
process. Membership Committee is doing some serious work on this that may
help.
# SW has struggled with orienting new people. The buddy system
doesn't always work because some buddies are knowledgeable about some areas
and not others. On the whole, though, SW has had a big improvement lately
because some very difficult residents left, and some great new people have
joined.
# A factor is significant burnout of people who have the skills to
support process.
# At SW: "CODM - Consensus-oriented Decision Making. Go through
consensus process up to the end, then vote with a super-majority (60% or
more). Helped them overcome the barriers thrown up by the difficult people
when they were still there. Even the difficult people agreed to this
process. Rowena did amazing facilitation work to achieve this.
# GO & TS have been so lucky not to have those kinds of
personalities. But it would be good to talk about how to determine how to
handle a block - we have not discussed that in a very long time, the
process to take to determine whether the reasoning is valid, what to do in
the moment.
# SW experienced a significant drop in energy in the community
because of this.
# SW had people block who enlisted others to align
# How do you make space for people's authentic contributions? 1/3
of GO is new, 2/3 is "founders." There's a powerlessness that goes with
being a new person that goes up against the "wall" of experience,
knowledge, etc. It's also about what you believe and how you view.
# Jillian read aloud a section of an article about power and
powerlessness but we did not have time to discuss the article. Good idea to
have regular discussions about power in communities.
# Some people bring a lot of baggage to meetings - perhaps from bad
meetings at work as an example - they don't see the possibility that
meetings can be rich and connective. "Process people" bring an idea that
meetings are great opportunity to connect, and forget it might not be like
that for others.
# Hearing challenges are a factor.
# We forget that meals can be a bad experience for some. Too much
like school cafeterias. There are some who always sit together and just
want to be with their friends. We still need to put ourselves out there to
meet new people.
# TS Process Committee has decided to explicitly reach out to people
who are not participating - invite them to dinner at our houses, eat out
more often, how does it look?
# SW is struggling to have more frequent meals.
# Praise for TS's beautiful Common House
# Concern about how we live in a political bubble and don't talk to
others with different points of view.


2.Discuss idea of 3-comty facilitation pool

# All three communities are giving work credit for facilitation, so
in theory, a facilitation pool could work across the communities
# TS is pairing people to grow their pool. They prepare their
agenda a month in advance, allowing room for stuff that comes up. The
Steering Com sets the agenda.
# SW does not have a large pool of facilitators. David Hall has
experience, Rowena has become super-duper. Sandra Greenstone is top-notch
but is not available. Nancy went through the training but is not active.
Ralph is relatively new.
# Amy said she feels more comfortable facilitating at GO because she
knows the people and the history, but facilitating at another community
feels a bit scary. It would take a lot of preparation to feel comfortable.
# What if we started going to each other's meetings to observe? We
could let our communities know this might happen. Going to meals is
another idea, to get to know each other better.
# Mary has been paid to facilitate at TS and at SW. She put in a
lot of preparation. But if she were a volunteer, how much time would she
be willing to put in to do this? Each community has a different culture and
"language" around meetings that you need to learn.
# What's our intention? To expand capacity? Or to help process
improve? To help facilitators grow? If we sent in external facilitators
as backup, that seems like a much lower bar.
# Facilitator debriefs at GO do not always happen, and are not well
attended. Depends on the meeting content. It's undervalued and could be an
important opportunity for facilitators to grow.


3.Next steps

# MONKEY: Let's go back to home communities to say that over the next 6
months, we may have neighboring facilitators attend as guests, make sure
that's ok.

# SW Meeting Schedule: 1x month, alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays. Next
meeting is Tuesday February 14, next is Thursday march 16, next is Tuesday
April 18, next is Thursday may 11, followed by a Sunday meeting June 11.


# GO: Third Monday of each month at 6:30 pm. Alternative meetings on
first Weds, except during budget process.

# TS: Meet 2x month, 3rd Saturday AM and 1st Monday evening. Sat., Jan.
28, 10-12 noon. Steering meets the Monday before to plan the meeting -
that could be good to attend also. Next Steering meeting is on Feb. 6 at 7
pm. Next Monday evening meeting is on Feb. 13. Next Saturday is Feb. 25.

4.Next Tri Community facilitators' potluck BRUNCH DATE: Sunday,
April 23, 12pm to 2pm, Touchstone
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