Process: Infoco minutes: 2008-07-13

Agenda:

Infoco meeting

7/13/08, 7:30 - 9:00 pm, Sarah's house

Present: Alicia, Amy, Patti, Sarah



Agenda

1. Next meeting: 7/21/08
2. Budget process recommendations
3. Next work season
4. Learning activities: Ice breakers

Minutes:

1. Next meeting: 7/21/08

Mary and Amy facilitating. Township supervisor Charles Nielsen will
attend and both other communities have been invited. They'll bring
nametags, refreshments, no ice breaker, announcements at the end of the
meeting. Steering and the facilitators have collected lots of questions
(which they'll send to Charles in advance,) but there should still be
plenty of time for discuss following his presentation. Amy will clarify
with him that this is not a "campaign speech," but in his current role.



2. Budget process recommendations

Several folks have agreed to participate on budget committee (Sarah,
Debbi S, Tammy, Elph, with Rod in consulting role.) They're looking at
four meeting process with optional fifth meeting beginning in August,
and with final decision on 11/17. (Tentatively planning for 8/18, 9/22,
10/20, and 11/17 meetings for budget discussion. Likely September and
November will be full meetings devoted to budget.) Reminder that the
community will be holding two community meetings (no alternative
meetings) during October and November so there's room for the budget
discussions AND any other community business.



3. Next work season

Patti not planning to convene infoco; we'll need to have someone step
forward (we nominated Jillian in her absence). We'll add facilitator
for the additional regular meeting. We'll continue to meet once a month
for the fall season for meeting prep and learning.



4. Learning activities: Ice breakers

Alicia and Sarah prepared activities for tonight's conversation about
ice breakers and other community meeting openers. (See below for useful
handout from Laird's dynamic facilitation training on openings.)

Purpose of openings:

1. As an entertaining warm-up. To get the meeting started. To bring
the energy into the meeting. A relaxing opportunity to mix it up with
our neighbors. Emphasize participants intention to be IN the
group/meeting. Can have more value added if we close this portion with
some reflective questions: How was it to think about X. (Sarah had
some examples from the GO Library book, The More the Merrier.

2. To begin to introduce the content of the meeting. Can ask people
to begin thinking about the topic or other related issues. Can be more
serious. Could be a chance to chat in pairs, for instance, if solo or
large group work will be done for the rest of the meeting.



Participation in openings:

1. We talked a bit about feelings and perceptions of folks who choose
not to participate. A number of folks at GO seem to come late to
meetings in an attempt to avoid participating in the ice breakers (maybe
five people?)

a. What are the concerns of people who choose not to participate?
Being put on the spot? Too personal? Not enough connection to the
content?

2. How can we create the opportunity or open invitation for folks to
participate in the "challenge by choice" because the activity is
experienced as valuable by others. Seems to have devolved into a power
struggle? How to make it more comfortable for everyone? How to hold
people accountable for the impact of their choices on others?

3. We could try being more descriptive of the activity and its purpose
on agendas to try to draw people in.



Tonight's ice breaker activities:

1. Questions: Distributed some pieces of paper with questions-could
be related to the content or not. Pair up and answer question. Then
rotate.

2. Spatial Relations: Must stay in relation to center point who keeps
moving around the room

3. Avatar: Pair up to discuss and then describe to the group your
shared "avatar" based on work, , play, rest/renewal





(FROM LAIRD)

Openings, Closings, & Break Dancing

Good meetings start and end on the right foot. (Weak meetings, rather
like weak jokes, may or may not start on the foot that's left.) Openings
and closings are the energetic bookends of a meeting, and I want to
discuss those in the same context as breaks, because they also are best
thought of as energetic markers.



Openings

There is a wide variety of ways to open a meeting, but all have the
feature of coalescing attention and drawing people into being together,
as a prelude to doing the work for which the meeting was called. With
rare exceptions (and yes, I have experienced meetings where the
unexpected stuff that surfaced in openings was so compelling that we
never got to anything else on the agenda), openings should be crisp and
light-they are an appetizer, not the main course.

If the group is new to each other (or at least some are new in the
group), it is typically a good idea to select an opening which will
create an opportunity for participants to say their name (and the
affiliation they have with the group, if that's relevant and to some
extent unknown).



Presenting Purpose * On the most immediate level, it's useful to create
a clear moment that gathers the energy and indicates to all participants
that they have now entered "meeting space" and the expectations of
behavior that go along with that. Side conversations are expected to
end. Participants are expected to pay attention in a different way and
put their urges to speak through a filter that asks, "Does the group
need to hear what I was thinking of saying or not; will it help the
group move forward on this topic?" (While this is likely useful advice
at all times, it is especially valuable meeting behavior.)



Underlying Purpose * Beyond the immediate is the opportunity to select
an opening or closing that enhances or complements the work that you
think lies ahead. For example:

* If you knew you were going to do a sharing circle in the
meeting, where you wanted participants to drop into a heartfelt place,
your opening might encourage people to share something tender (rather
than jocular).
* If you expect to go into a brainstorm featuring up-tempo, full
participation you might start a meeting with small group check-ins about
something you knew to be exciting and positive, to give participants an
early experience of talking and thinking good thoughts.
* If you anticipate work that will require a high degree of active
cooperation, you might open with an exercise that requires people to
work together to complete.
* If you are looking for people to access their intuition or right
brain, you might start with an exercise where people give impressions of
a drawing or image, or share a dream.
* If you think people will have to stretch significantly in the
work at hand, you might want select an opening where they'll have to
stretch a little, to "warm them up."
* If you're in a series of meetings, where the group will be
gathering multiple times, it may not be necessary to open more than once
a day. The test is whether the group seems scattered or focused.



Closings

With openings, you are trying to bring people into meeting space; with
closings you're looking for an "up and out."

The end of meeting will often have the following components (while there
are always exceptions, this is a good template), likely in this
sequence:

* Summary of what was accomplished in that session

* Evaluation

* Announcements

* Closing

As a facilitator you need to think about how these things will flow
together and how to end the meeting on time. Part of this is a matter of
good planning; part is a matter of being flexible to what's needed in
the moment. (One time I had about 60 seconds to replace the upbeat song
I was going to use in a closing because a group member unexpectedly
asked during Announcements for a moment of silence for a friend who had
just been in a serious car accident. [I once read a description of
flying as hours of unremitting boredom, punctuating by brief moments of
sheer terror. Facilitation can approximate that experience. Especially
the terror part.]) If the meeting becomes complicated and powerful, you
may need to start the wind down on content sooner, in anticipation of
the need for a longer Evaluation.



If you have entered a space of vulnerability in the meeting, it's
important to provide a closing which brings people gently back to
everyday life, where it may not make sense to have your psychic
apertures wide open to the random inputs of the world.



If you've been doing remedial surgery (such as excising the cancer from
a malignant conflict), be sure to close the patient up before ending the
meeting. If at all possible, don't leave anyone hemorrhaging!

Closings can take many forms. Find ones that resonate with you. Here are
some examples:

* a song (which may be coupled with movement)

* moment of silence

* people tossing out 1-2 word nuggets of their mood leaving the
meeting

* people tossing out a half-sentence highlights of the meeting

* a procession (which may be coupled with a song or gestures)

* a poem

* a story (usually one with a point apropos the work just done)

* a simple announcement ("Thank you all for coming. The meeting
is now over.")

It is fine to get someone other than the facilitator to lead the
closing; the important thing is that it gets done.

What you don't want is people drifting out of the meeting space as
last-minute reflections or announcements drag on. Just as with openings,
make closings crisp and clear.



Breaks

When meetings run past 90 minutes, it's generally a good idea to
schedule a break. The most common way to handle this is to let people do
their own thing without instruction. They'll use the time to stretch,
get coffee, go the bathroom, chat about the meeting, ask neighbors about
their kids, make a date for later... whatever. Often that's fine, but
don't lose sight of the opportunity to ask people to do something on the
break, either right after people come back to the meeting space, or in
lieu of a free-for-all. It can be an opportunity to shift the energy and
refocus, providing an energetic lift while the same time offering
physical relief.

Here are some thoughts on the possibilities:

* Simple body movements (such as gentle yoga poses) can help
release tension-either of the stiff butt or the nail biting variety.
Depending on variables such as age, physical space, and need, you might
ramp this up to include something more vigorous, like dancing the
hokey-pokey.

* Exercises where people touch one another can work well (e.g.,
having people stand in a circle and massage the neck and shoulders of
the person to their right, and then reversing), yet you need to use
judgment about whether that's a level of intimacy that your group is
ready for.

* Ask participants to think about a particular question on the
break, then make room to hear their responses as the first thing when
you reconvene.

* When time is tight, you can get 80% of the psychic benefit of a
10-minute break (though none of the bladder relief) by two minutes of
group stretching or other easy movement exercise after asking people to
stand in place.



Caution: participants need time to talk feely among themselves about the
meeting. It's part of how they process and understand what's happening.
If you deprive them of it by substituting a group activity it can have
the inadvertent result of the group carrying significant unreleased
tension into the next session.



Laird Schaub-CANBRIDGE Consensus And Network Building for Resolving
Impasse

& Developing Group Effectiveness

Rt 1, Box 155 * Rutledge MO 63563

660-883-5545 * laird at ic.org

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