Process minutes: 2004-09-28

Minutes:

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Process [[Meeting]]
9/28/04
7:15pm, CH sitting room

Present: Sarah, Gail, Mel, Jillian, Susan

1. Check-ins
2. Agenda check-in
3. MONKEY review & NEW MONKEYS
4. Report on decision revisiting policy revamp - Jim and [[Elph]]
5. Next meeting
6. Open Mike question
7. Fall training


3. MONKEY REVIEW
DONE: MONKEY: Sarah to make a poster about Fall Process Training date of 10/16
DONE: MONKEY: Sarah will email F&L with a cc to Mel to ask what the status is of the proposal on what happens when people don't pay their association dues. (finance said they were talking about it.)
DONE: Gail did: MONKEY: Sarah to look in New Member Packet and Book of Agreements and ask around to find out what our agreements are so far about consensue processes and terminology, to clarify whether we just need education or a decision on this.
DONE: MONKEY: Sarah to e-mail other Process people if they could do the scheduling of facilitators, minute takers, and timekeepers for fall comty meetings. Not really very hard to do. Jillian, Jim Sweeton, Gail, [[Elph]]. (Subsequent to the meeting, Jillian volunteered to do this.)
DONE: fell thru. MONKEY: Sarah to contact Adi to ask him if he'd like to present with her at the September meeting, a review of recycling policies.

NEW MONKEYS:
MONKEY: Clarify open mic guidelines -
- please give response after meeting not during meeting
- if you comment during open mike, be open to responses after the meeting
- we encourage people to give their ideas and responses to people after the meeting
MONKEY: Gail would be glad to do an Open Mike sign.
MONKEY: Sarah will talk with Debbi
MONKEY: Gail will rewrite the goals, together with the ground rules
MONKEY: Sarah will talk with Lisa about getting a sheet for the lunch meal in the signup book.
MONKEY: we need to have at least one other meeting to talk about Oct 16. After Oct 6. How about on Thursday Oct 7? 7:15 to keep working on Oct 16. Can Melisa make it then? don't know. Maybe we could meet twice. maybe sunday afternoon too?
MONKEY: Susan will call Moe and ask him what his best offer would be for 75 people.
MONKEY: Sarah will check with Jim re: meting location.
MONKEY: Sarah will ask Sandra for a short summary of her communication workshop.
MONKEY: Sarah and Susan will work on a message to send out to talk.
MONKEY: Jillian will keep working on the childcare issue


COOLER: Lets evaluate open mike in January (approx 6 months after we started).

4. Decision Revisiting Policy revamp
So, [[Elph]] and Jim have had this in their court for a while. Convenor is asking for help in what should be her next step. Ask again. Ask is there something that you need assistance with and what is your expected date to return it to us. Urgency is ramped up because we'll be looking at our whole decision making system.

5. Next meeting
Wed Oct 13. At Jim's house? 7:15.
MONKEY: Sarah will check with Jim re: meting location.

6. Open Mike question
Concern - that the community then has the responsibility to check in or clarify with the person, the person gets to "dump" without having to take responsibility.

Our guidelines -
use I statements
no response/feedback
community issues only
give ideas/suggestions back to people after the meeting
1 minute per person

Is Debbi concerned that this has happened or that it could happen? Don't know. The only issue I can think of is the climbing on the playstructure. That one eventually got redirected to the correct committee.

Someone to keep track of what's said an refer it to a committee?

Would it be appropriate to ask the facilitators to talk to the person who brought it up and offer them their ideas after the meeting of where their concern could go, if there is a channel?

Open Mike still seems valuable to me and it is still a learning curve. It might help people share things, and help route things to committees. Gives people a space to share things they might think are trivial, have no other clear place to go but they want people to hear. (eg, Mimi's concern about little kids following big kids to the pond.)

Remind people that there is a responsibility to be open to talk with people after the meeting, if they share something at open mike that makes people want to comment.

Personal responsibility is the issue.

Debbi's concern - someone might say, I said it so now its no longer my responsibility.

That isn't the intent of it, that someone could drop responsibility for their feelings around an issue or their desire that something change. It might help someone know how to pursue the issue, since people would probably come up to them afterwards if it was relevant to a committee or needed to be taken further.

MONKEY: Clarify guidelines -
- please give response after meeting not during meeting
- if you comment during open mike, be open to responses after the meeting
- we encourage people to give their ideas and responses to people after the meeting

MONKEY: Gail would be glad to do an Open Mike sign.

COOLER: Lets evaluate open mike in January (approx 6 months after we started).

We had talked about alternating open mike with talking stick, but passing a talking stick thru the whole room can take a long time.

At the first open mike a lot of people talked, it wasn't issues really, it was people thanking eachother for things.

Clarify the goals and purpose of Open Mike.
- its for things that can fall thru the cracks in terms of other processes we have, maybe its not big enough for a proposal, doesn't fit in with a committee.
- a way for individuals to address the whole community, to create the space for that.
- seems like the potential gain is worth the risk - that people will feel heard and that they have an opportunity to speak.
- we should go back and look at our original minutes too, maybe what we said before needs to be reiterated.
- way for people to ask questions and just get information - maybe you really don't know where to go or who to ask.
- a way to get it out there that you have a concern and that you want some feedback.

MONKEY: Sarah will talk with Debbi
MONKEY: Gail will rewrite the goals, together with the ground rules

7. Oct 16 and Oct 6

Recap - Sarah and Jillian met with Sandra weekend before last. Came up with a 2 part idea - 2nd half, Sandra doing non violent communication training, first half, led by Process, to work on GO decision making structure. Sandra happy to help us craft our proposals for that. Sarah, Jillian, and Susan met last weekend. Talked about that first half. Decided that we need to hear from people first about how they see the current system, how its been for them this first year, we can't "fix" something without knowing first how people are feeling about the status quo. Oct 6 - Conflict Res cmtee will lead a sharing, for people to share stories of the first year.
MONKEY: Susan/Jim will email this out ahead of the meeting on Oct 6 so people can think about it.

9 or 10-12 GO
12-1 break
1-3 Sandra's piece

side note - Need to be careful about what we're asking, we're asking about how to adjust the system to best use consensus. We're not saying we want to think about scrapping using consensus.

I just want the storytelling/sharing to have that kind of weight - have it be seen as valuable, more "sacred" somehow to have it on Oct 16?

I can see it either way. One way to look at this is we're starting it in the biz meeting because its all part of our community business.

I would like us to start it on the 6th.

Seems like we need to build it up though, need to let people know what the question will be, line up the "helpers", let people know what it will be. We don't know for sure how much time we have though.

We should be prepared for how to talk about it differently if we don't get the time on the agenda that we want on the 6th. Somehow we need to prepare a piece, and a substantive piece, for letting the community know what we will be doing, on the 6th and the 16th.

MONKEY: Sarah will ask Sandra for a short summary of her communication workshop.

What do we see happening in the morning.

We should have coffee, cider, milk, cereal, and donuts in the morning, at 9:30?
9-9:30, coffee
9:30-12 - GO consensus review /feedback
12-12:45 lunch
1-3 communication workshop with Sandra

Ideas for the first part of Oct 16 -

- Brief review of consensus - role of facilitator, role of meeting participants, how proposals go thru the system now, what are the committees that we have. 30 minutes? how to make that fun/interactive? ask people to brainstorm? - what do they think the current system is? and see how it jives with what we wrote up ahead of time? might be eye opening.

- smaller groups and ask people questions - what's working for you about our committee system, what's not working for you
- asking people to break down into committees (and just sit in on one if you're not one one) to review their job description and mandate.
- take feedback and then begin to move into creating proposal.


What if storytelling can't happen on the 6th?
9:30-10:15 on Oct 16 then? and then the rest would start at 10:30.

ways to do the storytelling quicker if we have to? Break people down in triads - the witness, the essence listener, and the storyteller. There are many storytelling techniques.

reflecting on your experiences in community, seems like a great way to kick off the day.

how to make the first thing exciting - make it into a brainstorm, ask the group what they think the structure is. eye opening and humorous. to then compare it to what process thinks the deal is.

MONKEY: Sarah and Susan will work on a message to send out to talk.

MONKEY: Jillian will keep working on the childcare issue

$200 is what we budgeted.

That place in Westgate, (Star cafe?) is $6/minimum each will get you trays of mjdarrah and fatoosh. Its cheap and good and they're good people. Would probably also want hummus, pita... Would be worth calling them ask telling them the situation.
MONKEY: Susan will call Moe and ask him what his best offer would be for 75 people.

we will need to ask people to pitch in. Could we make a signup sheet for that day in the meal book, and process can say we'll put in the $200 we have, and then divide the rest among the eaters.

make it explicit that we're hoping people STAY and eat - if you don't want to sign up for that lunch, please bring a bag lunch.

what is our max population? 66 adults. 32 kids.

lets just be explicit that people need to bring a bag lunch for your child if they won't like the food.

MONKEY: Sarah will talk with Lisa about getting a sheet for the lunch meal in the signup book.

MONKEY: we need to have at least one other meeting to talk about Oct 16. After Oct 6. How about on Thursday Oct 7? 7:15 to keep working on Oct 16. Can Melisa make it then? don't know. Maybe we could meet twice. maybe sunday afternoon too?