![Minutes: Process 2004-04-27 [Minutes]](display/images/gocohologo.gif)
Process minutes: 2004-04-27
Minutes:
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Process [[Meeting]] 4/27, 7 p.m. at Sarah's house
Present: Sarah, Gail, Jim Sweeton, Amy H., Janel, Melissa B.
Agenda
- Check-in
- Monkeys
- Scheduling comm mtg facilitators
- Process job descriptions/reports
- [[Committee]] structure research update
- Report on Play Structure meeting
- Mini-process teaching moments/fall process training event discussion
- Conflict resolution check-in
- LiLacc check in
- New mtg start time
- Next meeting
MONKEYS
- Sarah heard back from two people re: how their work is going. She will contact the others in person to get some feedback.
- Sarah will check infoco/agenda setting job description on wiki - does it include meeting with facilitators before community meetings to discuss/ strategize about agenda? Also, does facilitator job description include such a meeting?
- Sarah will talk with 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.
- Sarah will talk to membership and ask them to find out if Touchstone would like to use our CH one Saturday a month for their community meeting. If so, membership would be the GO sponsor and reserve the appropriate room or the meeting.
- Sarah will create a calendar for facilitators to sign-up for four months worth of community meetings. The sign-up will be on a hard copy in the CH, possibly putting the schedule on the wiki once it is set.
- Jim will get on the agenda for the Community meeting on May 5, to present a reminder on the conflict resolution agreement the community consensed on a while back.
- Amy H. will get a binder for the book of agreements
- Jillian will print out the agreements she has
-Sarah will write up goals/feature list for the electronic book of agreements
- JIllian will check with Tree about suggestions for info on community organization structures
- Jillian will check with Sandra and Bea and Ruth at the Michigan Friends Center about possibly doing a GO training
- Jim S. will check with Sally Johnson at UM about possibly doing a GO training
FREEZER
Make sure there is money in the budget for a new easel next year
Scheduling Community Facilitators - Amy H.
In response to feedback from community members the work committee is revising how they are assigning facilitators for the community meetings. They will solicit a larger pool of 12 - 16 facilitators for each work cycle. This means each person will facilitate one meeting for that cycle and get 3 hours of work credit.
To help with the scheduling piece this they would like Process to create a three (or four month ) calendar of upcoming community meetings that the facilitators could sign-up on once they have been identified. Process agreed to do this.
Process also thought that since a group of 12 - 16 facilitators will be identified all at once at the beginning of a work cycle that this could be an opportunity for us to meet with facilitators as a group to provide them with some resources, training and coaching for their role.
Process job description and feedback - Sarah
Sarah sent out an e-mail about three weeks ago asking folks how their jobs were going and to please update/flesh out their job descriptions on the wiki. So far she has heard back from two people about how their jobs are going and has gotten two job descriptions - one for facilitating and one for the archivist position. She will contact the rest of the job holders in person to see how things are going and encourage them to revise their job descriptions as needed.
Gail shared a concern Jim G. has about the facilitators not meeting with the infoco/agenda planning person before a meeting to discuss the agenda. He found that to be very useful a while back when he was facilitating and Amy H. was doing the agenda thing.
We need to check and see if that's even on the infoco/agenda planning person's current job description. If not, maybe we should add it and encourage facilitators to start making a point of getting together before meetings again.
[[Committee]] structure resources/discussion - Sarah
This ended up being an update on research I did to find information on different kinds of community structures.
It is difficult to find information on organizational structures that is geared toward intentional communities. Most of the literature is for the corporate world.
I searched the AADL catalogue, the cohousing-L list, the IFC web site and contacted Diana Cardia for other suggestions. I haven't gotten any information back from Diana yet, though she did indicate she would see what she could recommend.
I found one newer book that is directed towards intentional communities and will suggest that the AADL purchase the book for their collection. Many of the books about intentional communities focus on the development phase and do not spend as much time or go into depth on decision making or organizational issues once the community is up and running.
The cohousing-L list is very fragmented and time consuming to search through. I found several comments relating to processes and structures which I clipped, but there was not anything close to an overview or comprehensive list/description of various organizational strategies.
The IFC site had a listing of all the back issues of Community Magazine. I scanned that and noted issues that seemed to have relevant articles or themes. Back issues are $4 a pop.
Jim S suggested looking at the UMich library catalogue, I will do that next.
I also asked the committee for some clarification on what got us searching for this info in the first place. We couldn't remember too well. Gail thought it was in response to the need to re-define the Steering committee's role/function, and infoco's. Also, it would be nice to have some thing to compare to as a way of evaluating how we're doing things.
Report on Play Structure meeting - Sarah
The meeting was well received. End result was to move ahead with structure at the current location. Some disappointment with this result was voiced by two community members who wold like to have seen the structure moved, but did not have the time right now to work on a new proposal.
The meeting format included a teddy-bear go around followed by a more structured brainstorming/problem solving session.
The group came up with some good suggestions for addressing concerns about the current site, which were passed on to Grounds.
We got a very positive evaluation at the end with an emphasis on appreciating an opportunity to problem solve as a group and in person.
I went over my notes from the play structure meeting as well as the Grounds meeting the previous Thursday and pulled out comments re: process, attitudes, perceptions of community processes, etc.. Hopefully these distilled comments can give the Process committee some kind of overview of issues that are surfacing in the community beyond this particular topic. This may lead to ideas for training topics, ways to modify or augment our current processes, etc.etc.
Mini-process training discussion
Here are some ideas for short in meeting exercises or ice-breakers the Process committee came up with:
- acknowledge and recognize that our stresses didn't go away once we got moved in, they just changed;
- acknowledge our many individual obligations and recognize how our individual priorities impact our priorities as a community;
- acknowledge that as a group our energy is going to wax and wane, and learn to recognize and be patient with that rather than think the group isn't interested in something or doesn't think an issue is important;
- recognize how much needs to be done right now during the first year and acknowledge that as a group we have some pretty high expectations for what we want to accomplish;
- review past decisions, especially relating to processes we agreed to use to get community work done.
- present some guidelines for when it's appropriate to use e-mail and when it's appropriate to talk with someone directly on the phone or in person. Remind folks of some of the limitations of e-mail regarding communicating emotional content and how that can be a source of misunderstanding and hurt.
- solicit ideas from community
Conflict resolution check-in
Susan wasn't here and Jim was just back from Jerusalem so no news is good news, I guess.
LiLacc check-in
Next meeting Wed, May 12, 10 a.m. at GO. At last meeting they decided to try to put together a master calendar of events of interest to all three communities and are working on getting that going.
Next meeting
Our next meeting will be Wednesday, May 12 starting at 7:15 p.m. Location TBA.