Process minutes: 2004-08-11

Minutes:

Process cmtee meeting 8/11/04 7:15, CH sitting room

Present: Sarah, Sweet Jim, Elph, Gail, Jillian, Amy H

Agenda 1. Check ins 2. Agenda review 3. Monkey review 4. Archives 5. Review process changes to work jobs 6. update/progress on the decision revisiting policy 7. Fall training 8. what we learned list 9. Katie's suggestions on decision making 10. Next meeting date

good handouts at this meeting.

Review of past Monkeys:

Done: MONKEY: Elph will order gift basket next week. Done - Re - MONKEY: Jillian will send out an email with these three dates, will ask people to let me know which they could NOT make it to, and Jillian will ask again on Monday. Done - MONKEY: Elph and Jim Sweeton will work on the revisiting decisions agreement. Done -MONKEY - Sarah heard back from two people re: how their work is going. She will contact the others in person to get some feedback. Done - MONKEY - AmyH will remind Membership re: picking a date for a GO / Touchstone community meal at GO and inviting Touchstone to join us. A part of the evening would include a chance for GO members to learn about the Touchstone site plan. Amy H went to a membership meeting and said why not piggy back on a brunch - does Lilacc have contacts to TS? Its tough.

New MonkeysCan we ask Nick for a mailing list? Gail gave the latest Lilacc newsletter to Nick. But it would be better to mail it ourselves. Touchstone unit pick is Sunday, maybe after that we can get a contact list. Touchstone meets at Sunward on the first Monday of the month. MONKEY: Gail will work more on the TS contacts she has. Re-MONKEY: Jim Sw will talk with Susan when she gets back, see if she'd be willing to do mini trainings in the near future, what kind of help/support she'd need from process if she's willing. Re- MONKEY: Sarah is talking with Sandra/Michael/Tara about getting copies of sunward process agreements Re-MONKEY for Finance cmtee - when the "Can't pay your dues" agreement is finished they should please email it to process cmtee Re-MONKEY - Jillian will check with Tree about suggestions for info on commitee organization structures ( which cmtees are standing and which not). Re-MONKEY - Jillian will check with Sandra and Ruth at the Michigan Friends Center about possibly doing a GO training - Jillian talked a bit with Sandra, will wait to do more until process has more clarity about what we want to do. MONKEY: Sarah - ask bookkeeper for update on process budget. MONKEY: Amy H will look into easel costs. MONKEY: Sarah will call Carol to ask about flip chart paper.

FREEZER Make sure there is money in the budget for a new easel next year.

4. Archives Gail ordered a stamp that says Great Oak archives. $8.47. Ok to reimburse. Line item Archives.

5. Reviewing process jobs -Reducing agreements tracker to 1 hour/month is ok with Helen. Should that job be rolled in to another one? Maybe we can think about that for later. -Who is going to put the content into the book of agreements, is an open question? Willie is going to work on it. -FREEZER: Work hours for BoA content -discussion about timekeeping, haven't heard that its burdensome, will leave as is. -Minutes will be six positions, over 3 months each person will owe 2 hours of work (? or 3?), that's one meeting plus editing. Do we want to set a limit on how many times anyone can sign up? Does not seem like we need to worry about that. -After we've got the jobs allocated, process needs to get everyone signed up for the meetings. The goal is to announce jobs on Sept 1 for an Oct 1 work start date.

6. Decision Revisiting Policy See handout from Elph and Jim. -This is more about a problem solving process, not about an arbitrary number of households to "reopen". -I heard people say they wanted a limited timeframe. -I think some of those concerns though have to do with people who are not part of the problem solving process yet, they're still entrenched in their positions. -In the current agreement, you have to get this petition together, which is somewhat adversarial, and we did not embed any steps toward solving the problem at lower levels than the full community. -there was also a wish that those who want to reopen a decision to propose an alternative, but there was concern that those reopening might not have the knowledge to do that. -we need to keep in mind that the b-ball issue possibly should not have been a community level issue, it perhaps could have been worked thru at the committee level. so don't necessarily look at the b-ball case as "typical." -I think there needs to be more specifics. Write a "report" where they answer these questions. -The committee that has oversight over the particular area should be the one to get the "report". They need to have skills there to help though. -Process cmtee should not deal with the issue content itself, we can help set up the framework or find resources. -But then, what's the meaning of the answer? Is the purpose just to have the person spend time thinking about all the aspects? We need to be clear what we expect to happen with the questions and the answers. Are these criteria for whether this is appropriate to be a revisiting decision, or are these questions just for the person to clarify for themselves what the issues are? -I don't know how specific we can get. -Have a checklist for someone who's thinking about revisiting a decision? Answering these questions coudl be one thing on checklist. Talking to the committee who brought the original forward could be another. Researching the previous proposal. Writing a new proposal. Thinking about the question, is the concern individual or community? Either way it doesn't mean that nothing can be done. if its personal, maybe its not something to go before the whole community but might be a committee. Individual concerns are valid too. -Is the revisiting process a really late block? No, a new agreement must be made to replace the old. If no new agreement then old agreement stands. That needs to be stated clearly. -In our understanding of a block, it would have to be something that threatened the good of the whole community. That was part of the b-ball challenge. Was the good of the community being addressed by moving it into the parking lot. That question can be asked of anything at any time. What do we mean by opening a decision for revisiting. I had in my mind, this concept of, if there's enough to warrant it, you can come to the community and say this decision we have sitting here, that we all agreed to, I'm going to show you a different proposal, but if I fail, that previous agreement holds. -In order for it to come before the whole community it needs to be a full proposal. But before that proposal can be written all the legwork needs to be done - meeting with people on all sides of the issue, otherwise don't bother wasting the whole group's time. -we need to have individuals talk with those who disagree or have different needs. That is the most important thing. Needs people who can be advocates to help with that process. Need to have resources to help with that. Someone who can say, have you done your report, have you talked with the committee. Do you feel like you can do that. Do you need me to come, etc.- We're doing that with this proposal, to revisit the revisiting decision proposal. So since we have a standing agreement we need six signatures! We need to model. My point is, we don't have a bunch of going around to houses and talking it up - so just a point that we may not need all that with every agreement. we're starting to write a replacement proposal and that's what we're going to show up with. -But actually we may need to shop this agreement around. maybe put drafts in people's cubbies. We could also do a discussion at a community meeting. we could do the full 3 step process with the proposal too. -Would there be a different process if its the committee that brought up the original proposal that wants to reopen it? No. probably not. The committee might have changed totally in personnel, so that might not make a difference to have a different process for cmtee vs individual. -I really see what you're getting at, as far as working thru the issues outside the full community level, working with those who have differing viewpoints. Need to help support people to do that. -I think its ok for process to advocate for our proposal. A lot of people will be stuck on the b-ball situation - time limit, number of signatures, etc. We're looking at it from the long-range idea.

7. Fall Training

AGREED: Lets have the training on October 16. -Its a bit close to a community meeting but oh well. We could always debrief about the training at the meeting or cancel it. We have $700 left. -What timeperiod are we talking about? 9-5? -fundraise for goodies? fundraise for child care? ask for help with both of those? -The item at the last community meeting about the training. How did it go? Seemed to go ok. -four major groups:

*
o communication/assertiveness including personal responsibility
o difference and communication/diversity
o balance between invid and community
o nuts and bolts of consensus/committees

-could we put in some consensus training too? consensus process is a big part of how we communicate. -a comment at the last meeting was that all of us have had some basic consensus training and now we need more in-depth - but that is not true for many people here - a bunch of people have had no training in consensus.

Boiling down to two things - - communication skills, how to communicate effectively with people who are different than you are, however part of that is trust building - we need to trust eachother to listen well and to share our feelings. - consensus work

Can we do all this in one day.

the assumptions that you make about other people because of your life experience, that then interfere with your being able to understand eachother. AND there are also real skills around listening. -Two levels here - broad zone we want to cover and what are the modules we can squeeze in there. A trainer could give us a package of modules we could switch around. Consensus. Diversity Training. -What names do we have? needs to be very local, knowledge about consensus as well as the other issues, reasonable rates. -Clair Tinkerhess? and Sandra.

MONKEY: Jim will fact find about Clair Tinkerhess, just to find out her rates etc. And will find out if she would be available on Oct 16. Jillian thinks Sandra would work out so will wait to hear back from Jim. MONKEY: Jillian will just ask Sandra if she is available on Oct 16, just do we know.

2 hour consensus training in the morning, break, then afternoon with outside facilitator? People need to be there for the whole thing though, can't make it too long...

MONKEY: Amy H will send out info about Oct 16. Please reserve the whole day, we want everyone to be there. We don't have money for food or childcare but we want both things to happen, so contact us if you have any ideas.

Its getting late now, need to end the meeting.

Add to next agenda - dwindling committee participation. Do we have any way of knowing how many people are actively participating? I wonder if we could do another committee fair in the early fall? Seems like a good idea. Remember too, this is the summertime low - everyone has other fish to fry in summer.

committee passport book, like for national parks. Get stamps if you've been to a certain number of meetings, if you have a stamp can be part of committee decisions. committee fair, that has recognition of those who have been doing hard work on committees. Want to recognize those who have done a lot, without shaming others, and also we want everyone to do a little, rather than a few people doing a lot.

if we ever have a valid block, have a brass block in the common house, put people's names on it.

once a year a recognition dinner, where we recall events of the last year.

sunward had sheets you could write up accomplishments of the year. that seems good to do once a year. That's a good birthday party thing, in Feb. AND we need a group picture.

OCT 16 - GROUP PICTURE!

8. Next meeting, 4the Tuesday, that's 8/24. Lets push it to August 31st, too many of us will be away on 8/24.