Process minutes: 2018-04-15

Agenda:

Hi all, was good to meet today, let me know if I missed anything / any
edits, thanks! -Jillian

Minutes:

Tri-community facilitators' check-in brunch (quarterly)
4/15/18
12-1:30, Sunward CH

Present: Ralph (SW), Jillian (GO), Lesli (TS), Mary King (GO), Wendy (TS),
Olas (GO)

Minutes: Jillian

(Our previous quarterly brunch was 1/28/18 at GO. Previous task force
meeting was 3/4/18 at TS.)

AGENDA
1. Brief check-ins
2. Announcements
3. Brief summary of process- or issue-related stuff at each community -
what's up
4. And coming out of that, topics arising for more discussion or advice
5. Next meeting date(s)

2. Announcements

- Wendy - at TS's last several meetings people have said they are glad TS
is paying for the facilitation training, that meetings are getting more
succinct and clearer. (FYI Laird coming to TS next in late August, August
23-27 or so.)

- April 28, 10am-12:30pm, Great Oak is running a Consensus Training open to
all - Sarah and Mary King will lead a deep dive into consensus decision
making - key components of both facilitation and participating. "Consensus
- the good, the bad, and the ugly" - the reality of it - its not always
pretty but it can have really good results and it can be done. Please note
that it will be at TS common house. Some TS folks may be helping make
brunch for everyone.


3. What's happening at Each Community

Touchstone

At TS's last several meetings people have said they are glad TS is paying
for the facilitation training, that meetings are getting more succinct and
clearer.

Its the whole community being trained, learning about good meeting
behavior. We asked people to be kind since facils are in training and to
give positive criticism. It is on the whole much better.

At the last meeting there was a challenging moment but facilitator was able
to rephrase it and it went ok.

Building a culture of trust. And always have to be careful with email!


Sunward

Just a reminder that we are not using consensus - we are using
consensus-oriented decision making, CODM. We use consensus techniques to
bring as many voices in as possible before the decision, but the actual
decision is made by voting. Typically a 2/3 majority is needed in order for
a decision to be made and a of 20 households.

Question - how do you deal with factions - if you have winners and losers
in a vote - do you see that happening?

Since we've done this we've had good meetings, peaceful meetings, people
are enthusiastic - we're had good results.

Why is that?

We have a couple of really good facilitators - Rowena, Dalinda. Sandra does
not do it much any more. Ralph feels like he's just learning. When we
switched to this process it seemed to take the pressure off us. And there
are not hard feelings about the votes.

Do you think that's because you do a lot of prep, discussion, before the
vote?

Yes I'm sure that's a big part of it. We come to the vote in an organic
fashion, we don't force or rush it.

When you vote, is it unanimous a lot?

We do have unanimous votes sometimes. 50-60% of the time I'd say. And then
we have pretty clearcut winners most of the time. We had a very close vote
at least 6 months ago, trying to recall what it was about. But the closer
the vote the more challenging it can be.

Was it about the school situation? No, that never came to the community,
was CHOPS - common house committee.

CHOPS tightened up some of their decisions about what you can and can't do
in the common house, and when to get buy in from the community

I convene the CH cmtee at TS would be interested to know what CHOPS at
Sunward learned from the "school" situation.

I think with empowered committees, you have to always keep working to
create a culture - if the committees understand that yes they are empowered
but they should not do anything too big on their own, they know to bring it
to the community, then it can really work well. If they overstep then
things can get rough, sometimes the cmtee can feel like they have a
bullseye on, and it needs to come to the community. I convene Buildings
cmtee which is empowered, but we often will talk about how, we could make
this decision on our own, but should we - and there's no rules to tell you
when that is, you just have to go case by case.

Overall at Sunward things are going well.


Great Oak

What's up for GO again / still is CH misuse, and how to respond to the
misuse, as well as how to create a culture where teens feel part of the
community. Discussed the situation. Very multi layered. Process issues on
several levels - a committee not realizing something would be a hot issue,
the committee mostly hearing from people with strong support, people with
concerns not going direct and/or not following up with face to face
discussion, odd use of CRC, etc. Process committee struggling a bit with
how to bring it to the community in what order.

Figuring we probably can't start by diving in to what needs are there that
need to be met, and what are ideas to how we can meet those needs - if
people are upset they won't be able to hear each other yet for this
problem-solving step. So perhaps sharing circle is next steps, allowing
people to share feelings around the issues happening in the common house.
Not sure of best question to ask, but maybe: “How are you feeling about
the misuse of the common house, and about the potential step of adding a
camera to the hallway?”

GO for the first time trying a six month work season starts May 1.


4. General discussion

Discussion about email - Sunward played with idea of a moderator for
Sunward-talk but not agreement there, and no one would want to do it!
Useful discussions CAN happen, but not on complex topics - but they can
also spiral out. People have different levels of comfort with conflict. And
some things just can't be conveyed on email. People can too easily misread
tone and intention in email. And, people can feel free to say something on
email they would never say to a person's face!

Discussion about communication and time commitment, and how long we've
lived in community.

To me it seems like the longer we live in community the less time people
have for community. People are too busy for it.

I think some of it is the ebb and flow of lifecycles.

We all have the CH use and abuse issues.

Discussion about weekdays vs weekend meetings.

At the request of a few households, Sunward has started trying occasional
Sunday afternoon meetings, but have noticed that those households who asked
for this are not actually coming to them. Sunday meetings are late
afternoon, 4pm. Normally meetings alternate Tuesdays and Thursdays - 2nd
Tues and 2nd Thurs - we just have the one meeting a month. We might have a
"forum" - on a Tues or Thurs night on the "off" week. More of an
information discussion, or sharing circle, or whatever is needed.

GO also has been trying a few Saturday meetings each work season, some love
it some hate it, at least for now will keep trying it out.


5. Scheduling next tri-community quarterly facilitators' check-in brunch:

Sunday August 12, 12:30-2, at TOUCHSTONE

MONKEY: Jillian will email Maggi about if she will be doing a doodle poll
for a May task force meeting.

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