Process minutes: 2019-11-10

Minutes:

11/10/19
Tri-community facilitators’ group
GO CH sitting room
12pm-2pm
Jililan, Patti, Elph, Olas, Mary King, Andrew

Hot cider on the stove in the kitchen help yourself!

NEXT MEETING: How about Sunday, January 26, 12-2pm, GO CH dining room
unless someone else would like to host.

Patti just came back from Columbus, OH, visiting two forming cohousing
communities. One had come to visit Great Oak in spring 2019 - Columbus
cohousing. Aline was the organizer on their end. The other one is Columbus
lesbian cohousing. Columbus cohousing has five families as of now, and meet
monthly. They have hired Katie McCamant of The Cohousing Company. The other
one has periodic meetings. One is looking at a 60 acre place that used to
be a YMCA camp, just south of the city, and at another place of 100 acres
north of the city, but that’s an hour away.

Patti also reached out to forming cohousing in Grand Rapids about the
national cohousing conference too, the conference has asked if Michigan
communities would like to put on the conference in Ann Arbor in 2021.

Discussion about bringing the national cohousing conference here. There
were some people on board originally but then they got worried it would be
too much work. The last conference had 600 volunteers. But I would think
that the conferences on the west coast would be by far the largest. The
Midwest has more smaller forming communities. Have a big strength in
student co-ops, would be so great to connect them to this.

Patti will talk to NASCO, their annual conference is in Austin in 2019, but
might be back in Ann Arbor in 2020. Might tap out energy if NASCO is in Ann
Arbor in 2021. If they can get student co-opers to come to the Coho Conf
they might want to stay at the other co-op houses.

So how is facilitation going at Zingerman’s? A bit low on numbers, just two
of us. However the big group that we facilitate is only once a month now.
We are on the agenda planning committee, meet every two weeks, agenda is
sent out a week early, has all the prereading, all the expectations of what
we will accomplish - here’s the purpose, here’s what we want out of it. We
pull in the people who are presenting and get them as prepared as possible.
Which is not always easy. The ongoing low bubbling tension we have in our
meeting as facilitators and planners is around projecting info on a screen.
People generally think that whatever you have, if you put it up on a
screen, its better. Long documents etc. I think its generally just
distracting and takes people away from paying attention to each other, they
just stare at the screen. We are a consensus group that sits in a circle,
to talk at each other and see each other. If we were a gathering come to
hear a salesperson, the screen is perfect - everyone looks at the screen
and does not focus on the other people.

Who facilitates the ICC board?
The ICC president. Patti has been working with them to think about a
co-facilitator model. But mostly its being "traffic cop", the way they
currently do it. Calling on people, not trying to summarize, chunk out
agreements. They don’t always seem to grok they are working with consensus
and not voting. They use Robert’s Rules of Order for technicalities (eg, if
you want to extend time, if you want to approve the minutes) but then use
consensus for the rest. They don’t allow blocks, but use a
force-reconciliation process, though you could ultimately kill a proposal
but there’s a complex process for that. The reconciliation cmtee has to
work on the issue. The person with the concern, and the original proposers.

If people don’t have context they can misunderstand facilitation. Patti’s
example of in an ICC meeting where she was actively facilitating, not just
traffic cop, and she summarized someone’s statement, and it freaked them
out, they felt disrespected.

I always try to ask, did I get that right, when I summarize something.

Mary did a facilitation training on Friday - once a semester she does it
for her interns and opened it up to leaders from Nation Outside, a group of
formerly incarcerated people. It was the best and the most fun facilitation
training she has ever done. When Mary was doing the last part of the
workshop they were calling out - hey you just summarized. Hey you just made
a contact statement, they were totally into it and it was fun. Its not
magic, its skills you can learn.

Conversation about doing more work as facilitators to equalize voices in
meetings. Maybe we should do more go-rounds. Use clearer stacks, call them
out more. Make sure you’re scanning the whole room. Make sure you are clear
if you are interrupting the stack and then make sure you get back to the
stack.
Equalizing participation can also be a format issue, taking the time to
break into small groups, do a go-round, do a pair and share. Break up the
popcorn dynamic a bit.

Planning the 11/16/19 training - Mary King and Sarah have a phone call
about it this afternoon.They were asked to focus on community building and
also do some more in-depth things about how do we reach consensus and
building community while we do it.
Another additional suggestion - equalizing voices, but need to take it to a
level that everyone can benefit from. Explanation of group responsibilities
for communication, balance, offering your piece.
What are facilitator responsibilities and what are participant
responsibilities.
Remind facilitators that there are different formats that you can use in a
meeting. Maybe be intentional about using more of them. And as we know it
takes more planning, and also more meeting time, to do them.

(minute taker had to leave at this point.)
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