Steering minutes: 2020-05-30

Agenda:

Great Oak Steering Committee Meeting 5/30/2020

Present: Sharon (Chief Scientist), Annie (Membership), Marta (Common
House), Debbi (Steering Convenor), Mac (Grounds), Amy (Finance and Legal),
Mary (Buildings), Patti (Process), Eric (Meals), Suzette (Work), Gail G.,
Catherine, Pam, Syndallas, Glenn, Susan, Olas, Erik K, Hope, Willie, Justin

Facilitators: Syndallas Baughman & Mary King
Minute-taker: Catherine Fischer

AGENDA
Welcome, Agenda Review

Check-in

COVID-19 Update

Affordability Proposal

Report from Membership regarding CDC guidelines and Governor’s Orders

Announcements

Evaluation and thanks

Minutes:

TODAY’S DECISIONS AND ASSIGNED TASKS:

DECISION: Steering meetings to go to every other week starting with next
meeting.

TASK: Meals will find a volunteer Grill Cleaner for June and add a Grill
Cleaner job back into the work system after that.

TASK: Grounds will re-send guidelines for cleaning outdoor furniture, and
include a link to MI Safe Start Map.

WELCOME/CHECK-IN
Quorum check: we have quorum at the start of the meeting.

What are looking forward to or what are you going to miss this summer?

Mixed feelings about going camping. Miss sending kids to summer camp.
Looking forward to going camping with our camper. Miss camping with other
people.
Hoping daughter in Minneapolis will have
Missing having family visit. Looking forward to maybe going back to work.
Miss annual trip to Vermont in August
Looking forward to having family and close friends visit our new house in
Beaver Island.
Missing huge annual game convention that I’ve been going to with my son
since a toddler.
Looking forward to vegetable garden not being eaten by 3 bunnies who are
out there.
Looking forward to reconnecting with former book study groups.
Will miss cabin up north that we sold last winter. Looking forward to days
like this with fantastic weather.
Gratefulness to have more time at home; good for my mental health , missing
lots of events I was hoping to go to.
Variety of flowers blooming, especially my poppies! Go see them on Patti’s
corner.
Going to miss our trip to Ireland this summer.
Going to miss playing music with friends. Liking less traffic noise.
Going to miss art fair and top of the park. Looking forward to reading in
the sun.
Having bees this summer, but will miss Melaine and Jared’s wedding.
Not sure what I will miss.
Going to miss having a quiet summer--not having my usual down time. Will
enjoy the warmth and sunlight.
Looking forward to planning a possible family camping trip out west.



COVID-19 UPDATE - Dr. Sharon:
Website was launched on Tuesday--the MI Safe Start Map
Put together by the School of Public Health and School of Information at
request of the State of Michigan.

You can look by region and by county to see test results, cases per million
and more. You can use it to see where the problem areas are. Shifts
downward in risk will be happening this week in several regions, which
allows things to open up. When a region turns blue, “that’s when you can
get your haircut.”

Advisors are pushing to open up parks because outdoors is the safest place
to aggregate.

Positive movement toward a vaccine. We are still very far from herd
immunity, so we will really need those vaccines.

Enjoy your summer! It would not surprise Sharon if UM has an in-person
fall/winter semester. As the town doubles in size, we will also double our
risk.

Q: Is there a new date for vaccine?
A: We still need more studies before rolling out to the public. That takes
time. No one is signing up to get the virus… Optimistically, we could see a
vaccine by January or Feb.

Q: Have there been any changes in the thinking regarding immunity after
someone has covid?
A: It’s confusing. There are tests that show whether or not you have the
virus. These are used to diagnose. The tests that show antibodies mean that
you did have the virus and your body produced antibodies as a response. But
these tests are not stable/sensitive enough. There hasn’t been enough work,
to Sharon’s knowledge, on the real question: do the antibodies protect you
from the virus?
Some people are testing positive multiple times for the virus. There are a
set of viruses that know how to integrate into our DNA and live there.

Q: How many people are needing extensive rehab after a bad case?
A: 20% who get sick get a severe case. 5% of those will die, and
approximately 2% will live but need extensive rehab.

Q: Is there any more indication that the virus is affected by heat?
A: Not so much. But spending more time outside reduces our risk of
transmission and cases go down--that can look like heat made a difference.
Then it will pop up again when we start going into work in one way or
another in the fall.

Q: The US Justice Department is joining the lawsuit against the governor.
That will be a lot of pressure on her to go faster than is advised. How do
you think she will handle this pressure?
A: The good news is that advisors are already giving her the go-ahead to go
faster. Grand Rapids is the only area that is having big problems now…..

Q: Will the practices from daycares that have stayed open for front line
workers help with the reopenings for schools, other daycares, etc?
A: Sharon has been looking into what has and hasn’t worked. It has been
both.



AFFORDABILITY PROPOSAL
Pam summarized the results of the Affordability survey. Steering and F & L
reactivated the Affordability Committee (AC). For the full report, see here.

Approx 40% of the community affected
14% expressed difficulty paying for things
70% were willing to support neighbors

60% are monthly income affected

Offers of assistance--very rough dollar amounts: 6500 in emergency gifts
offered. Loans offered too.


AC put out a list of resources available for mortgage, food, utility etc.
assistance. See the end of this document for the list.


Because the needs are different from past needs, AC thinks new process
would be useful. Rather than matching, create an emergency fund for now.
Keep loan offers in mind for the future. People also offered to hire
people. AC will create a document with offers for work.

Q: Did you talk individually with people who are struggling?
A: We are still going to offer resources, but using a different process. We
based our decision on the survey, and comments included in the survey.

Still trying to honor a two-meeting proposal process.

Justin presented the plan for the Emergency Fund. Thanks to Pam, Catherine
and Glenn to put in the time to hash out this plan to help people who are
able to give to do so and to help people with need to access it.

We wanted a plan that is easy but also upholds people’s dignity with a
mostly anonymous process.

Creating a new group: Neighbors Helping Neighbors. This will be a purely
voluntary group of 3-5 people, outside of the community, including a fund
manager and 2 or more people with experience of hardship.

NHN will be outside of the work system and the GO books. Becky ran this by
the GO auditors and attorneys. There are still some questions about the
personal impact of the fund on the fund manager (taxes).

Funds will go directly to the requestors. Any GO member can apply.

Decision making would be by consensus.

Work and financial contributions are entirely voluntary. Other options
remain available to people for helping.

New option that is nimble, discreet, and complements existing options.

Clarifying Questions:
Is there an idea of a sunset clause?
We plan to revisit the need and the funds balance in 6 months and report
out at that point.

What if there is a surplus of funds in this account for a long period of
time?
No answer at the moment. Could keep open, or do prorated returns...but this
would be decided at the 6 month point.

Discussion:
Because the proposal doesn’t involve the GO books, and isn’t part of the
work system,
it does not require a decision from the community, and people are free to
set it up.
I do have concerns about whether the set up will decrease participation. I
personally am uncomfortable giving money where there isn’t accountability
into Great Oak. I think there is a way to balance confidentiality and
accountability. Becky shares this concern.
I’m grateful for the time you put into the proposal, but I’m not
comfortable with the accountability.

The concern about accountability has been there since the beginning and we
were advised to keep the fund off the GO books.

Let’s focus on the process piece: if we don’t need community approval, then
participation would be based on individual choice. Comments on that?

It seems like the AC wants to involve the heart and the mind of the whole
community and to report to the community. But legally the fund cannot sit
within the community. And the group wants to be nimble and able to respond
quickly.

I also don’t think that this needs to be something that needs to be
consensed upon by Steering. Example, at UM student organizations are not
under the auspices of a particular school. NHN would be like a social
organization that wants to operate within the community, with information
flow and feedback.

What would be the reason to vote against it?
If there were a risk to the community, then there would be a reason to
block. But Becky’s groundwork with the auditor and lawyer gave us the info
we needed to prevent risk to the community.

AC will welcome additional feedback outside of this meeting. Possibly bring
to a community meeting.

Change wording to plan from proposal to avoid confusion.



REPORT FROM MEMBERSHIP REGARDING CDC PROPOSALS AND GUIDELINES
In light of the governors orders and Membership’s work in the community:

Discussion with Caring ongoing.
Outreach-tours, prospective renters and buyers. Tours are now virtual. Some
virtual house tours have happened. Catherine and Mary, the Orientation
coordinators have invited prospective members to attend community meetings
by zoom. Orientations offered by zoom. Physical tour was conducted under
current govt orders with social distancing maintained.
Fun Club has been following state guidelines, takes them very seriously.
Organizing events with social distancing
Back up: Annie is Convenor in training in the event that Emily had to stop.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
These days Steering has less business. Proposal to meet every other week.
Agreed.
For the next agenda: Having a community discussion about eating
outside--tables, grills, etc. People are itching to start having community
meals outside.
Today is Drew’s 50th birthday!
Hope’s cat is healing well from having his eye removed after falling off
the balcony.
Marta is sick, but not with covid. Hoping to be better in a week.
Compliment people if their hair has changed. (About to cut 15 year-old’s
hair, could use some support)

EATING OUTDOORS
Following up on whether discussion is needed about eating outside or
whether more clarification would be enough.

Suggestion for Grounds to re-send the info about cleaning and using grill
and outdoor space. Share a link with the Mi Safe guidelines.

Task to Meals to come up with guidelines/suggestions for the community
about eating outside in groups based on the current guidelines? Guidelines
are changing so fast that this won’t be necessary. Important for people to
know that we do not have a grill cleaner.

Put the grill cleaner back into the work assignments. Look for a grill
cleaner volunteer for June.



EVALUATION AND THANKS
Good facilitation, Syndallas!
Short, on schedule and we get to skip next week!
Even though suffering from meeting fatigue, it’s so nice to see all your
faces.
No chocolate

Next Meeting 6/6/2020 - email your agenda items to Debbi
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