Process minutes: 2004-10-13

Minutes:

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Process cmtee meeting
10/13/04
7:15pm, CH sitting room
Present: Sarah, Gail, Melisa, [[Elph]], Jillian, Amy H, Jim Sweeton

'''AGENDA'''
1. Check-ins
2. Agenda review
3. Oct 16 planning
4. Monday's agenda
5. Decision revisiting
6. Open Mike
7. Budget
8. Next meeting

(we skipped monkeys due to time constraints, need to finish Oct 16 material)

'''3. Oct 16 planning'''

Sarah talked with Sandra yesterday on the phone. She had a couple of suggestions. Where are people going to eat lunch? And if that will involve setup and cleanup we need to accommodate that. Sandra said she could start at 1:15 and go until 3:15. If the weather is nice we could set tables up on the patio, but as of now the weather forecast is not good. Ok lets do that, facilitator should get people to start setting up again at 1pm.

Evaluation needed for each part, at the end of the morning do one and then another one in the afternoon.

Sandra felt like it would be great if at the end of her piece in the afternoon, someone from conflict res could step forward and talk about how we might keep these ideas visible, review them, use them, refresh them. Bring something to community meetings, or whatever. Seems like it would be good for conflict res to do this - keep a higher profile than they have in the past. Jim Sweeton ok to do that.

room setup?
large circle of chairs
microphone?
table with flowers and candle?
pillows and beanbag in middle
cover lower part of window with dark sheet so we can hang things?

Jillian has two handouts to give to Sarah, committee list and consensus overview. Will spend most of their time on consensus overview. a bit of brainstorm, and a few skits maybe.

Note for Melisa - committee template needs something about empowerment - are they, do they want to be. If they are, what is their empowerment procedure.

Suggestion from Melisa: We've been info gathering prior to proposal writing - bringing the idea to the community, getting ideas about which direction to go. its how we've been doing things and it seems to reduce friction.

[[Committee]]s list - don't downplay the subcommittees, some are not really "under" other committees, they just happen to be attached.

one person has a concern that too many subcommitees drains people away from standing cmtees - if subcommittees are attached to standing cmtees does that strengthen the standing cmtees somehow? Don't want too many committees...

COOLER: for our structure - who and how are committees started - in most orgs its the board who starts them. do all ad hoc cmtees need to be associated with a standing cmtee? would that help bolster standing cmtees, to have subcmtees reporting to them.

Melisa's handout

add empowerment to 1?
would item 3 be confusing, process identity?
include something about where the committee gets their money - own line item, participate in the budget process

has someone dug up the old mandates? yes, Gail put them out to Sarah.

Can a committee just change their mandate? or is it a full group decision? Bring them back to the full group, get feedback.

email needs to be sent to committees that this is going to happen on saturday
MONKEY: Melisa will email that out

2. define committee roles
3. define committee processes

Sarah wrote up questions for the small groups, for those in committees, and for those not in committees.

Sarah wrote up a resources list.

Amy H will send out a reminder about Saturday, and lunch signup. She will include a revised agenda, which Sarah will email to her.


'''4. Question about Monday's agenda, do we want to do more "quilt" stories on Monday?''' People seemed to really like it and good to keep the momentum. Doesn't have to be a long time, could just be icebreaker time plus 15 more minutes, whatever the agenda planners want basically.
If we have a meeting on Monday, we can do some.
MONKEY: Jim Sweeton will intro this if Susan King is not available.
MONKEY: Jim will email the community ahead of time.


'''5. Decision Revisiting Policy'''
Checking in with [[Elph]] and Jim about this. [[Elph]] - I have not looked at it in a long time. Our last discussion, the idea was good but it needed reworking.
MONKEY: Jim and [[Elph]] will get together thursday night.


'''6. Open Mike'''
Debbi and Sarah talked about this. Debbi was wondering what it was for and if its being used appropriately. Sarah told Debbi we were going to remind people of the purpose and review the rules,and we'll evaluate it at the end of six months. That sounded good to her. Idea, if it was obvious to a facilitator that the person could check in with a particular cmtee re the topic of what they shared at open mike, the facilitator could step up and offer a suggestion to the person with the comment that they might talk with X committee. Not about problem solving in the meeting though.

Gail sent out a suggestion for open mike guidelines, we should talk about this at our next meeting.

Does it work? I feel like it does not work. It works in city council meeting where people do not have a voice, and they get a chance to go up and say their piece - when they are disempowered, when they don't have a collaborative role. But here its out of synch - in our process it would be collaborative, people do have a voice and are not disempowered. I have another idea - we set aside time at the end of the meetings to do appreciations - things that have gone well, good things about people. Groups need urging to think positively. Its much easier to have a negative reaction to any thing at any time.
I think we do not thank people open enough. hm, remember, the very first open mike, that's all people did!

In my coop in the bathroom we had an "I-like" list - people would just jot things down, and we'd read them at meetings.

zingermans does this too, just popcorn style, written in the minutes.

open mike is a place for things that people can't quite figure out where to take them, who to ask. That's a good need to address.

we should remind people they can always ask process how to get an issue aired, where to go with something.

all this clarifying of cmtee stuff will help people know where items could go.

we'll talk about this more.


'''7. Budget'''
We should prep for next year's budget.
Sarah will talk with Patti about the archive expenditures.

Archive: Gail fees can stay at $100
[[Meeting]] Supplies: need easel $150, $150 paper, pens = $300 (note this easel will last more than 1 year)

Training - we have more data now to bring more detail to this.
either two short sessions or one 2-day weekend like we used to do?
food for two lunches: $8/head, est minimum of 40 people = $800
childcare for 14 hours at $40 hour: $560
training person: $2000
Travel expenses: $300

Emergency Facilitation: 10 hours at $100/hour = $1000

sliding scale on association fees? how. has to be voluntary. You set a base that everyone has to pay, and say that if you can pay a bit more to please do so. And if there's any shortfall it gets divided among all the members. community farm does this. you could get chits - if three households pay extra you get chits to provide to other households. Or you do this ahead of time, you get everyone's commitment, add it up, see if there's a shortfall and then renegotiate. there's a role for affordability, people won't identify in the full group.

we no longer have an affordability cmtee. the Possibilities cmtee? a new turn on affordability.

what happens to money that you don't spend at the end of the budget? We don't know. If you don't roll it over people will try to spend everything they have been allotted.

'''8. Next [[Meeting]]'''
10/26
Jim Sweeton's house
7:15