Steering minutes: 2020-03-21

Agenda:

A summary of just the key points is to follow in a separate email.

Great Oak Cohousing
Steering Committee and Covid 19 Ad Hoc Committee Meeting
March 21, 2020 11:00am - 12:30pm Via Zoom

Present: Sharon, Susan (rep for Membership), Marta (rep for Common House),
Debbi (Steering Convenor), Polly, Mac (rep for Grounds), Amy (rep for
Finance and Legal), Mary(rep for Buildings), Glenn, Patti(rep for Process),
Eric(rep for Meals), Tevah (rep for Work), Terrence, Syndallas, Nicolas,
Gayle, Elph, Kelly, Willie, Katie, Hope, Annie, Hermann, Catherine

Facilitator: Mary King
Minutes: Catherine Fischer

AGENDA
Check-in
Update from Sharon on Covid 19
Activating the Steering Committee--Debbi
Common House--Marta
Special Work Season--Tevah

Minutes:

CHECK IN--how are you feeling in one word--not every response was captured,
but here are some: Comfortably numb, empowered, foggy, unusually rested,
okay, scared, bored, a little stressed, good, well, fine, freshly bathed
baby, cabin fever, mystified about baby comment, fine, crowded, cabin
fever, productive and clean, perky

SHARON’S UPDATE:
Sharon spoke to the UMich Deans. Testing has ramped up. Statewide measures
to ask people to stay in place in order to stop the spread of the virus.
Although the virus lasts for hours or in some cases, days on a surface, it
will disintegrate on its own (it needs a body to survive).

Sharon suggest not to look at social media for information. Track source
back if you can. If the guest room is empty for 2-3 days it will be virus
free. We could double that to be safe.

Models from Imperial College, London about the number of critical care beds
and projecting the number of cases. The model looks at how well we can slow
the spread of the virus by doing what we are doing. We have a short, acute
set of things that most people think we need to do in order to stem the
tide, but the virus will pop back up. We probably need a 12-month
plan--wants to make sure that people are thinking about the long haul.
Sharon is willing to work with the community on this. This is not a
strategy to figure out individually--we need to be more unified.

Q & A
Community members posed questions for Sharon. (Note: many epidemiologists
are developing laryngitis because we are keeping them talking so much.)
Q We have sore throats -- how long should we isolate?
A When someone’s symptoms are gone, the virus isn’t contagious. Sore throat
is not a major symptom of coronavirus. It’s mainly fever.

If you have cold or flu symptoms, something that doesn’t look serious, what
is the right action?
A good idea to self-isolate until those symptoms resolve. It’s personal
health information and people have a right not to disclose. As long as the
person is self-isolating, they don’t need to share unless they want to. But
they shouldn’t be walking around, they shouldn’t be going into the common
house.

Should the whole household self-isolate?
That is more nuanced. If there is not some way known to indicate there may
have been explosure to coronavirus, it’s probably something else.

Q What about the people who are returning to the community from elsewhere?
A For example, Joe will be coming home tomorrow evening. At a minimum,
those people should stay out of the common house for 10 days, (average
number of days to symptoms is 5) If known contact with the coronavirus, or
from a hot spot of the virus, then 14 days is better.

The number of cases in Michigan has “flared up” and one of the reasons for
this is that testing has widely expanded.

Q I work in a health care setting, is there more I should do? I work mainly
in telehealth, but we do have a drive-thru for testing.
A If you are actively interacting with sick people we will need you to
self-isolate. Someone else can do your laundry for you, but you should not
be in CH

Q This is the start of allergy season--I keep worrying that allergies are
covid 19
A Take your temp regularly, (not after exercise, being in the hot tub, etc)
and also, if your allergy meds work, it’s not covid or the flu

Q What do you think the likelihood is that we will be ordered to shelter in
place?
A The Governor says she isn’t planning on it. It really only works in urban
settings, where people are constantly interacting with each other. Even
Detroit is very different from NYC.

Q If we are told to shelter in place, can we go outside at all? Can we be
on the pedway?
A We can come up with norms if it happens. It will depend on our risk level
as a community.

STEERING COMMITTEE
Background for this meeting: As many of you know an ad hoc group of
neighbors have been gathering on Saturday mornings at 11am and developing
responses to COVID-19 to try and
keep us safe and informed. The meetings have been open to everyone, and
Sharon Kardia has been able to attend and give us up-to-date info.

Because this ad hoc group has been making some decisions out of necessity,
we thought it was time to request that the Great Oak Steering Team be
activated. This is an empowered body, whose membership includes the
conveners of each of our committees. The Steering Team was created by the
community to act in times when quick decisions needed to be made that can
not wait for a regular business meeting.

Steering Committee was set up early on to be able to talk with the
developers in order to make quick choices.

The current mandate states that the Steering Committee is made of the
convenor or another representative from the following standing committees:
Buildings, Common House, Finance nad Legal, Grounds, Meals, Membership,
Process and Work, and also the convenor of the Steering Committee. Those
convenors and the Steering convenor can be called together to make
decisions when there isn’t time to go through our two meeting process.

Steering has been mostly dormant and we haven’t been giving work credit for
the positions.

In this special circumstance, Debbi has gotten the committee going because
decisions need to be made and the Covid 19 ad hoc committee does not have
the authority.

Proposal:
8 hours of work credit for steering reps for the special work season

Creation of three new jobs: ad hoc virus committee convenor, reporting to
Steering 10 hours
Scientist in chief (preassigned to Sharon) 10 hours
Designated minute taker hours tbd

It’s also important for people to understand what our empowered committees
are and what they can do. These committees are empowered: Buildings, Common
House, Ground and Meals.

Those committees are empowered to make decisions in their domain.
Preference for community input within the timeframe for decision. Go ahead
and make the decision if you need to, right then and there. Then, be
flexible if needed afterward.

Discussion of proposal:
How many hours do we expect to be assigning people in the April work season?
Tevah--when we take meals out of the work system, it will be 40-50% lower.
Best guess is that people’s work hours will be 4-5 hours. However, we are
also asking committees to create other jobs. So we are saying that these
new positions will be all the work a person can do.

This sends a huge message to the community that we are taking this
seriously. Let’s not get nit picky about the number of hours. Lets err on
the side of giving as much credit as possible for this work.

Work committee will need many comments from people about what their ability
to work will be.

We can also consider having back-ups for these roles and other important
roles.

Amy is willing to help with minutes, but would this be a job better done
shared, or with a back up?

Could we record the meetings and share the recording when the minutes come
out?

Should we change the covid 19 convenor role to Steering facilitator role?
It would be good to have a few people who can facilitate. There are several
facilitators in the group already. Debbi is happy to defer the decision to
the facilitators. Facilitators can meet with Patti to figure this out.

Process question--how do I get on the stack? Mary has been trying to track
people raising hands on video and also track chats.

Dan sent out the link to the survey and we already have 3 responses. Does
Sharon want responses by the household or for each adult. Ideally each
adult but people can answer for a household.

Decision : approval of the proposal to create new jobs for Steering
Committee

COMMON HOUSE
Marta summarized decisions made last night. Minutes and a recording of the
meeting are forthcoming.

The two week period of volunteers sanitizing the ch is over but we need to
continue. Everyone who is able and willing will need to come to the ch to
learn what the job is, why we are doing it.

Rules of using the ch will change. We will plan to use it one household at
a time.

Laundry room use as well. People from different households will not be able
to use the same room at the same time. Reservations will be available on
Gather.

A group is working more in depth on the laundry room and will be coming
back with more suggestions.

People will need to sanitize a room before and after using it.

People with travel, people who are sick should not be in the common house.

We also need to continue sanitizing the rest of the common house.

If this doesn’t work, we will put a lock on the door of the laundry room
and people will not be allowed to use a room if they are not following
protocol.

The laundry room is currently pristine, thanks to Kelly.

CH rooms have been added to Gather so that you can reserve them. There are
time limits set. If those are not working, CH committee will need to hear
feedback.

Regarding people who are moving back to Great Oak or don’t live here.
Sharon will write a list of the places people will need 14 day quarantine
before being out in the community, including the common house.

If you or someone have been at a gathering with 25 or more people, or an
airport, for example, you and your household need to self-isolate for 10
days.

Sharon will work on a table to make these distinctions clear. Our risk goes
down over time as we limit our contact with others.

What about if we have contact with someone who has been at an airport? How
close were you? How long were you together?

What about Melisa seeing clients? Most of her clients will be virtual. She
will be at GO for both her virtual and in person sessions, because the wifi
at her home is not adequate. This could change quickly, but for now she is
also requesting that the bathroom be maintained and Tim will also be coming
in to use the WIFI. (There was more discussion of this later, aequest for
Tim to use wifi outdoors. Marta will communicate with Tim. The discussion
will likely continue outside of this meeting.)

We don’t have cleaning procedures for most of the rooms in the common house
right now. What are the risks of having people come in for individual use
while we are not cleaning.

Sharon--it’s a bit of a free for all there, it would be best to restrict
usage until we have a protocol, also sitting room and media room should be
used only every other day--to give the virus time to disintegrate because
we can’t disinfect fabric.

Common house--anyone going in there has to take precautions.

Syndallas is willing to train people in how to sanitize the common house
tonight and Sunday night at 7:30.
Marta will send out the info. People who are getting trained will be among
the first people to get the new code to the CH.

This is evolving and we’ll get additional information next Saturday.

Q If someone uses the sitting room, how long do I need to wait to use the
sitting room after them?
A The droplets don’t stay in the air, giving a half an hour is probably
sufficient if they are not sick.

You can also open the windows while you are sanitizing.

SPECIAL WORK SEASON
Everything I have to present is also in email. Work committee has a tight
time frame to start a special work season. By end of day tomorrow, jobs
need to be updated in the work survey. We do want job descriptions included.

Survey March 23-28
Job Allocation on 29-- Convenors will be able to consult only during that
day, by video or phone
Season will begin on April 1
The season has been created and is called April Work Season


Is the guest room still reservable? Preferable to wait until next work
season but CH will work it out in case of emergency

Request for posters on the south door. Patti will post. Debbi will print
it.

Reqarding mail: Wash your hands and take your mail. Don’t bring anyone from
outside your household. There will be a mail delivery job in the work
system.

Question about restarting seasonal work

Request to reach out to Nancy who is bored and lonely. Aslo, can we begin
assigning buddies for our elders? Membership is working on this.

Are we communicating to the teens? Yes, we are working on it.

MONKEYS
Patti will coordinate the facilitators to decide how to handle facilitation
of Steering Meetings
Patti will send poster file to Debbi
Debbi will print the posters
Patti will post the posters on the CH south door
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