Process minutes: 2008-03-02

Agenda:

Process Cmtee meeting
Sunday 3/2/08
7-8pm in the common house sitting room
(Not our usual meeting time, due to vacations.)

Present: Gail, Jillian

Agenda:

1. Checkins
2. Monkey review
3. Alternative meeting agenda item for March
4. Next meeting

Minutes:

2. Monkeys/Cooler/Freezer items from previous meetings:

FREEZER: bring this back for a future agenda (see minutes 9/14/05,
social expectations around parties and invitations.)

FREEZER: Process to request agenda time for discussion and brainstorm
about community meeting attendance.

MONKEY and COOLER: Process to ask minute takers to come to a process
meeting at the start of each work term to talk about the full minute
taker job description, and talk about the using names issue so they
are aware of some of nuances.

COOLER: Outreach to people not here to increase participation - I
think this came up around offering specific invitations to households
encouraging them to come. This might be something process could bring
to a community meeting, to increase awareness - committees should be
talking with folks who have strong opinions about an area or idea,
before the meeting, but also will want them to come to the meeting
itself, and a direct invitation can be very helpful.

COOLER: - the "knock on my door", do we need signals issue? Some
people use door shades, but some don't want door shades and some
don't want to worry about remembering to put it up or down. Maybe the
thing to do here is IF you have a system, tell people about it so
they know. Not that everyone needs to follow any particular thing.

COOLER:
- Discussion about how CRC members are chosen, is that working ok?

COOLER: Naming names in committee meeting minutes, reread current
guidelines, make sure they're ok for both committees and plenary

COOLER: guidelines about participation when you can't come to a
meeting - Infoco has a draft guideline.

IN-PROGRESS: Another thought for the future - give people credit for
being in a facilitation guild and then that group decides who is
facilitating when - and over a year you may facilitate a lot or not a
lot but you get credit for attending the guild meetings and being at
debriefings... More flexible and would end the problems of someone
being assigned to a meeting with a topic they are vested in. (More
like the old days, of raising hands at the end of a meeting for who
will facilitate the next one!) If this season's assignments turns out
to be hard this may give us incentive to switch over to something
like this... Might be a good followup with Laird's training being
done. Might help keep a cohesive group of folks of all levels of
experience involved in facil, rather than just 8 at a time.

Re-MONKEY: Catherine will buy hooks/attach fishing line for the new posters.

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

MONKEYS from the previous meeting 2/13/08

DONE: MONKEY: Gail will announce at the Feb regular community meeting
that the question about Alternative meetings continuing will be up
for decision in March, in one meeting. Ask for feedback - please
email process or talk to any of us - should we extend for another
certain period of time, should we just say this is what we're doing
from now on? Should it be tweaked in any way? etc.

DONE: MONKEY: Jillian will let Patti know to add an Alternative
Meeting agenda topic to Infoco for 2/24.

DONE: MONKEY: Jillian will email Process the text of the Alternative
Meeting agreement, to refresh our memory.

DONE: MONKEY: Jillian will email Lisa to get the non-GO kids in the
CH discussion on the stack, hopefully for April.

-------------------
Monkeys from this meeting, 3/2/08

MONKEY: Jillian will tweak the previous proposal and email to Gail.

MONKEY: Jillian will email Lisa to make sure the Alternative meeting
item is on the 3/17 agenda.

MONKEY: Gail will email out the Alternative meeting proposal ahead of
time, since its up for decision in one meeting. (If its not possible
to do it in one meeting its not the end of the world, its just the
goal due to the upcoming work survey.)

MONKEY: Gail will find out when the next work survey will be coming
in. Gail will check in with some of our roles (maybe Catherine can
help too?) - Infoco convenor, CRC, Agenda planner, and see if they
want to continue in the summer work term. We also should start
encouraging folks to sign up to lead alternative meetings. Also check
in with Alicia to see if she'd still like to join in the facil group
and see if anyone else is interested in that as well.

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

3. Alternative Meetings proposal

Gail and Process did get email from numerous GOers - resounding
support for the alternative meetings themselves, with a caveat
expressed that they really be alternative, and with a concern from
many people about how to still keep regular community meeting items
moving, especially in the fall during budget time. Also heard a
concern that some feel that some other GOers feel like alt meetings
are just nights to blow off. Also a concern about content follow-up
after alternative meetings - if we generate a brainstorm or list of
ideas etc, clarity about where its going, how will the input be
useful. Perhaps the facilitator assigned to help the alternative
meeting leader for that evening can be more active in helping clarify
the next steps for content, before the meeting adjourns.

Re what to do about keeping agenda items moving in the fall. It is
challenging to say to someone who is excited to do their thing, if
they've signed up to be an alternative meeting leader, sorry we have
to cancel your alternative meeting so we can have another regular
community meeting to work on agenda items. Plus there's often not a
lot of lead time to make these decisions to cancel an alternative
meeting to make it a regular meeting.

I think we should say now that October and November will be two
regular community meetings each month, so that we can work on the
budget some of tha time and keep other items moving too. That concern
was voiced by at least a half-dozen people. And if in the end we
don't need two regular meetings those months we can always see if
someone wants to lead an alternative meeting (or one of the scheduled
facilitators could do something) or just cancel. But seems unlikely,
seems like we can use those dates. That was the concern we've been
hearing most often, is keep things moving in the fall.

We've been checking in with alternative meeting leaders after their
gig to see if they felt supported, felt good about it and about their
hours etc, so far they seem to be quite happy with it. But the hours
they get is not part of the proposal, that's something Process and
Infoco will look at for the next work survey.

Permanent or just another year? Why not make it another year, so it
will bring up the conversation automatically next March of how its
going, so we can get feedback again, and improve. And see how people
feel about it, if people are signing up to lead them still etc. Look
at the balance of the two kinds of meetings and how we're doing.

MONKEY: Jillian will tweak the previous proposal and email to Gail.

MONKEY: Jillian will email list to make sure this is on the 3/17 agenda.

MONKEY: Gail will email out the proposal ahead of time, since its up
for decision in one meeting. (If its not possible to do it in one
meeting its not the end of the world, its just the goal due to the
upcoming work survey.)

MONKEY: Gail will find out when the next work survey will be coming
in. Gail will check in with some of our roles (maybe Catherine can
help too?) - Infoco convenor, CRC, Agenda planner, and see if they
want to continue in the summer work term. We also should start
encouraging folks to sign up to lead alternative meetings. Also check
in with Alicia to see if she'd still like to join in the facil group
and see if anyone else is interested in that as well.


4. Next meeting
Jillian will be away 3/12. And the next one would be 3/23, but that's
Easter, not good for some of us. How about potentially Monday 3/24?
We can keep that in mind. The next regularly scheduled Process
meeting after that would be April 9.

--end--