Process minutes: 2004-01-11

Minutes:

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Process [[Committee]] [[Meeting]]
Sunday 1/11/04
4pm, Jim Sweeton's house
Present: Amy H, Lisa, Gail, Jim Sweeton, Mel, Jillian, Susan

1. any next steps on the cohousing council
2. getting committee input for proposals
3. book of agreements committee


1. Cohousing Council

Gail went to the Sunward meeting on thursday, where Ken Winter was presenting info about the Cohousing Council. Gail said it was fine, it was a smaller meeting. A couple of questions, one was what about Eagle Point, Gail talked about GOs conversation about that, and another was why not by email? The council could decide to operate however it wants.

Sunward has a number of volunteers, so now GO needs to come up with a few people too and they can schedule their first meeting.

MONKEY: Amy H will email go-talk to ask for interested volunteers.
MONKEY: Gail will ask Hope if she has a TouchStone contact she could talk with about this, to make sure the idea has been passed along.


2. Community Input for Proposals

How to help committees get input on proposals ahead of time.

For really complex things, informational pieces coming to the group before actual proposals is good, so the committee can hear what people say about it. Several steps before a proposal. Might take an extra month but might help save pain later.

[[Committee]] would have to do prep work, come in with questions to ask the group to get feedback.

People are not at every meeting though. so its not guarantee.

And sometimes we beat things to death and drag things thru the mud too long. Everyone has a hot button issue. Not everyone can go to every meeting, not everyone can make time to think about issues outside of meeting.

remind committees to refresh the group with the big picture, with what they're working on. What are the goals, overall.

I do this kind of thing a lot at my work and I've learned to stop taking it personally when my proposals get heavy feedback and change. I am good at certain things, I've worked on them hard and I know them, but I need to sit with others, and give them a very clear explanation a,b,c,d of what I'm working on, and listen to other people and their reaction. Other people can show you what needs to be changed. The price to pay is coming back again, spending the time.

another conversation about email, email as a mode of communication has its drawbacks. Someone makes a point and then another point and then another, it gets hard to follow, hard to remember what the original point was, and everyone gets all the emotions and the chance to misinterpret the emotions.

A proposal about how we're going to process things via email? its not about etiquette, how do we use it as a communication tool for the work that we do. Does a committee put something out and then tell people not to email "talk" about it, send responses only to the committee. Do we suggest you go talk to someone personally about it? But people like to post to "all" so everyone knows their feeling about something. Especially if they feel really triggered.

Its always going to be easier to say something to a computer screen than to someone's face. Before I send an email now I think about it, should I pick up the phone instead? Walk down the block to ask in person?

We're still learning how to be a community. And we don't have the common space we need yet.

Time built in the community meetings for people to raise miscellaneous items. Not announcements. People could submit items ahead of time.

this fits in with the "difficult issues" teddy bear discussion, people could talk about what's been hard. and people said that was a good thing. Brought the temperature down.

this email thing fits into this category of communal issue. Every third meeting we suggest 20 minutes for the "kvetch corner" - what needs to be aired. So long as its kept in the I statements, how I'm feeling.

good practice for us in sharing.

Tools for dealing with conflict - fishbowl technique, with people representing different positions. Might be helpful. There are a number of hot issues around. if we could model a way of dealing well in discussion.

Back to the committees thing - Amy H said we could use Work [[Committee]] as an example.

MONKEY: Jillian will ask Becky what's happening in the budget cmtee to see how people are feeling right now.

[[Committee]]s gathering input from the group, that does not mean you have to do everything everyone says! You learn from experience how to balance it all. You listen to it all, you come up with the best proposal you can and your best justification and your reasons why. It will NOT meet everyone's expectations but if people listen to eachother they'll hear how it meets needs and the purpose. And a block for personal interest will not stand.

Process could take ten minutes on an agenda and refamiliarize everyone with how we're learning still how to go from idea to proposal to community meeting and what happens when the original mandate shifts. These are thing we've learned. Get input from the community.

Work committee had that long session where everyone got cards etc. And now they're wanting to change it, so they will come back to the community again.

[[Committee]]s should not feel like they have to craft a perfect thing that will sail through, or try to guess ahead of time all the things that will come up.

Another strategy is to break proposals down into chunks, go a bit at at time, see what can be agreed on now, what needs more work.

I often don't have time to read things on email, have not had enough time until the community meeting comes and here's a proposal. I feel badly not having given feedback ahead.

When that comes up for me at a community meeting I try to monitor how strongly I feel about it, do I need to say this, can i live with it as is, wait and see if anyone else has that concern. I may or may not say it.

Do some more mini process training, no reason why we shouldn't review aspects of process with the community. Maybe one piece we could pick up is proposals.

Different styles of proposals (eg, pet proposal that was broken down into smaller pieces), other proposals that come back repeatedly, when the parameters change do we have room for input for a proposal stage. When does the community need input time, before a proposal is created. Completely defining the problem, so the solution is clearer.

Jim Graham could model this - he was tasked by F&L to create a plan of response to an emergency association fee.

The two F and L discussions at the last meeting were outstanding, people had really good questions. Wisdom of the group is wonderful.

MONKEY: Gail will talk with Jim about him using this kind of in-meeting process rather than just email.

Any monkeys about email?

maybe in context with other 'how to gather info and create a proposal' issues this will just naturally come up. lets wait til the next process meeting, and see if we want to put something on a feb agenda about proposals.

Its been a couple of months or more since the teddy bear thing. we're in the dead of winter, we have no common house, maybe do another one of those, too. Monday 1/19.
MONKEY: Susan will check her schedule if she could lead this.

icebreakers - maybe we can use them more, where we learn about eachother. Balanced with the singing which is also great. membership was doing them for a while. but now its pretty much meeting by meeting. But membership did come up with a long term vision of icebreakers.

Last time we did the teddy bear we took the icebreaker time plus 10 more minutes, why don't we do that again.

Idea that icebreakers could rotate through committees. Or "icebreaker" signup - along with minute taker etc. Or we could have each household be responsible for an icebreaker one after another.

I really feel like I don't know people. I would be glad to learn more.

but as an introvert I don't like that too much.

how about breaking into small groups? easier to share more personal discussion with 2-4 people instead of 50.

but some like that and some don't. seems like we should try it sometimes though.


3. Book of Agreements
wonder if it could be for work credit. I think [[Rod]] and Ted have created something, its getting urgent to have it up and running because the longer it takes the more back-work it will take to get all the data input.

4. Next meeting, Tuesday Jan 27, 7pm.