![Minutes: Process 2004-01-27 [Minutes]](display/images/gocohologo.gif)
Process minutes: 2004-01-27
Minutes:
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Process [[Committee]] [[Meeting]]
at Jim Sweeton's #13
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Present: Jim Sw., Susan, Mel, Gail, Amy H.
MONKEY: Amy H. to contact Nick & JD about updating GO on TS plans at 2/19 cmty meeting
MONKEY: Gail to pursue relationship-building ideas with TS via Cohousing Council, including idea about being an information resource for their construction decisions
MONKEY: Amy H. to bring thoughts about GO and TS meal and community meeting schedules to GO-Work
MONKEY: Amy H. to check with Jillian, [[Elph]], and Sarah about whether 2nd Wednesdays would work for them.
MONKEY: Amy H. to ask committee members who were not present to contribute ideas for future Process [[Committee]] work.
1. Check-ins
2. Update on Cohousing Council
The GO delegation is meeting tomorrow over lunch in town. Members include Heather, Hope, Susan K., Gail, and Mary S-C. Ken Winter is organizing the Sunward counterpart. Touchstone is also interested.
3. Community Input on Proposals
All agreed that our efforts had gone well at the last community meeting, to demonstrate that it's ok to bring a draft proposal to the community for feedback (e.g. GO-Work proposal) or to ask for discussion before writing the proposal (e.g. Jim Graham's discussion about waiving community association fees in the event of an emergency).
4. Icebreaker at 1/19/04 meeting
Thanks to Susan for leading a good icebreaker at the last meeting, at which people shared how they are feeling about things at GO. It seems like a good idea to keep doing this periodically, to give people a safe place to share, and perhaps establish a norm about sharing.
5. Touchstone's plans
Following a conversation with Jim & Gail, Sarah initiated a discussion on e-mail about figuring out a way for GOers to learn what Touchstone has planned on their site. This way, when construction and its inconveniences begin, it may not come as quite as much of a shock. Sarah had suggested inviting TS to send someone to present to us, or to offer a "gallery" style viewing of plans, or to send a GO delegation to a TS meeting. The present group felt concern about making TS folk(s) feel uncomfortable in our large group setting during a presentation or by sending a delegation to their meeting, when they still seem to be a rather small and somewhat fragmented group. There was agreement that we'd like to move cautiously and gently with our relationship with TS. We agreed that a simpler, more expeditious approach would be to ask JD or Nick to come to the Monday, 2/16 GO meeting, whether at Sunward or at GO (fingers crossed!!!). Ask them to put up the plans on the wall during dinner, so people could browse, and then have a 10 minute Q&A session, and that would be it. Meanwhile, the Cohousing Council could explore ways to build a relationship with TS. How could we be be a resource for them as they are making decisions about construction, for instance? Will they want to move their comty meetings to GO's common house when it is done? How would this affect meals?
MONKEY: Amy H. to contact Nick & JD about updating GO on TS plans at 2/19 cmty meeting
MONKEY: Gail to pursue relationship-building ideas with TS via Cohousing Council, including idea about being an information resource for their construction decisions
MONKEY: Amy H. to bring thoughts about GO and TS meal and community meeting schedules to GO-Work
6. Process Brainstorm - What are we going to work on in the coming months?
This agenda item came up as a result of feeling like we were reacting to issues coming at us, rather than proactively generating projects.
MONKEY: Amy H. to ask committee members who were not present to contribute ideas for future Process [[Committee]] work.
- Fall training. Don't know how much money we will have for this until operating budget dust settles.
- Could do frequent process mini-trainings at comty meetings; review blocks, stand asides, etc. Review the proposal proposal.
- The message Jillian forwarded about blocks was excellent.
- We could demonstrate some meeting techniques at meetings, e.g. fishbowl, etc., or suggest these to facilitators so they can watch for opportunities to use them in meetings.
- Could we do some experiential community building instead of an intensive weekend meeting? E.g. learn more about people, get to know each other better, find out about their "journey" into cohousing. Building by building, we could have households talk about their experiences, bring photos, etc. Have a gallery of baby/child photos and guess which one is who as a grownup.
- What about the difficult issues piece? We presented the list of ideas for how to handle them. But some will come back, and there will be more. Seems like it IS appropriate for difficult issues to come to the Process [[Committee]] so that we can triage them. Trouble is, some of the problems have been so difficult to resolve! There was one issue in which we were able to review the minutes of the relevant committee's meetings and suggest a process for the concerned person to follow to resolve or at least to monitor their concern.
- What if we set up a process where the entire Process [[Committee]] doesn't spend a lot of time trying to resolve difficult issues? After triaging, we could delegate the issues to a subset of people, perhaps the folks who self-identified as mediators. This smaller group could generate ideas and send them back.
7. Alcohol Policy
- this seems to have moved to the back burner, despite the idea of having a kaffee klatch and inviting some parents to be part of the discussion. No energy to pursue this right now.
- this may be easier to revisit later, perhaps after we've lived here longer, when we have more experience living as a community. It may feel more concrete later.
8. [[Meeting]] Dates
Next meeting is scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 8 at 4pm. Gail can't make it. Amy may not be able to. This generated discussion about not wanting to meet on Sundays at all. We'd changed to Sundays to accommodate Danny's schedule, but he has not been attending. There was interest in moving back to 2nd Wednesdays and 4th Tuesdays. This worked for everyone present.
MONKEY: Amy H. to check with Jillian, [[Elph]], and Sarah about whether 2nd Wednesdays would work for them.
9. Adjourned at 8:30.