Process minutes: 2004-11-10

Minutes:

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Process cmtee meeting
11/10/04
7:15-9pm, CH sitting room
Present: Sarah, Gail, Amy H, Jillian

Agenda
1. Check-ins
2. Agenda review/revisions
3. Monkeys
4. Report from Amy re: data entry for BOA
5. Report on decision re-visiting policy revamp
6. Follow-up on "supporting committees w/out going to meetings" idea
7. Report on Monday's budget review meeting
8. NASCO conference attendees report on experience/ideas
9. Next meeting: Tuesday, Nov. 23, 7:15 p.m. at ?
10. Draft process cmtee job description
11. Draft commitee effectiveness proposal
12. Debrief community training day
13. Open Mike, and Conflict Res and Quilt Stories

1. Checkins
2. Agenda review
3. MONKEYS
DONE: MONKEY: Jim Sw and Susan will check with Tim re if he wants to continue on Conflict Res. Tim would like to stay on.
DONE: MONKEY: Sarah will check in with Melisa about continuing with [[InfoCo]]. Yes she's willing to.
DONE: MONKEY: Sarah is willing to take a shot at process job description and send it out on email
Re-MONKEY: rest of process cmtee needs to comment on Sarah's process job description after she emails it out.
DONE: MONKEY: Susan will talk with Kelly about the ideas about how to support work being done by non committee members.
DONE: MONKEY: Gail will research the expenditures that were for the Archiving for this past year. Gail did not find figures but she sent Patti her estimate of what it was.
Re-MONKEY: Sarah will chat with Willie just to see how things are going.

COOLER: Check in with Conflict Res about how its going.


4. Amy talked with [[Rod]] at dinner about entering data in the Book of Agreements. He would like info on how he could get the documents. Jillian had given Willie a CD.
MONKEY: Amy H will get the CD from Willie
Priority of agreements? Yes, enter the beefier agreements first. He can use his judgement on that.
Seems like Willie and [[Rod]] should meet to make sure [[Rod]] knows the changes Willie has made and knows how the data is to be entered to fully use the new system.
MONKEY: Amy H will work with Willie and [[Rod]] to have them meet asap so [[Rod]] can get started.

5. Report on Decision Revisiting proposal, next steps.
First it needs to be tweaked, and then what. But weren't there some concerns that Melisa raised on email? Did she get an answer?
MONKEY: Sarah will check to see if Melisa got emailed back with answers to her questions.
The time limit perhaps was answered by the fact that the existing agreement stands until a new agreements takes its place.
Seems like a next step would be [[Elph]] and Jim reviewing Melisa's questions and we can talk about it as a group.
So, how do we go about bringing it to the group? We probably need to follow the old policy in order to bring in the new one.
MONKEY: Does the new proposal say that a committee can bring forward a revised proposal, and not just one or more of individuals? It should if it does not.
MONKEY: [[Elph]] and Jim should look at Melisa's concerns and see if the proposal needs to be tweaked and/or engage in dialog with her
MONKEY: Sarah will dig up the current revisiting decisions agreement
MONKEY: [[Elph]] and Jim should email the revised agreement to process and then bring it to the community using the old format.


6. Follow-up on "supporting committees w/out going to meetings" idea
Sarah started talking with Kelly, since they happened to sit near eachother at dinner. Kelly said Susan had talked with her. Idea to make a contact list of people, what's the best way to reach them, and what skills they might have. Kelly said no she would not do that. Kelly suggested maybe George would work on it. We should hear from Susan King about her conversation with Kelly. If it does not go anywhere with that second try with others, I feel like Process can lay it down unless someone else wants to pick it up. Maybe Alicia might be interested? I think she was at that meeting at the training day.

The idea is to have a published list of who folks are and their skills and contact info, so committees can ask them to do specific tasks when they have them.

Before we give it up completely we should send out a note to talk about it and maybe someone else from that "non committee" group will pick it up.

Work cmtee could take the list and post it on the bulletin board so committees would have a resource. Informal experiment.

If no one else will make the list maybe Work ctmee will take it up.

MONKEY: Jillian will ask George and Alicia to see if they might be interested and then will email "talk" if not.

Amy N had a different idea - what if they sign up for one or two extra hours of community work then, if folks can't be on a committee? That's a very interesting idea. Its kind of a can of worms though. If you quantify committee work its quite a lot, this would be more of a token, not in place of committee work, just a gesture toward helping out. Just volunteer - please sign me up for an extra hour or two since I can't be on a committee right now. But that amount of time does not make up for the time of not being on a committee and the premise gets shaky if you make that comparison.

7. Report on Monday's budget review meeting
Good turnout. Was an interesting meeting. Becky, [[Rod]], Ted, [[Elph]], Judith, and Sarah after she was done with dinner clean. Sarah kept asking what the budget process was going to be and there was no answer. Sarah talked with Becky yesterday and [[Elph]] today around some ideas for the process. Trying to save us from a frustrating disaster, from those that can be avoided by a good process. That group is meeting again tonite and work on defining their role and their decision making process. Try to disentangle the budget setting process from affordability concerns.

Just on her own, Sarah made up a budget process yesterday, but its too late for this year obviously. Timeline starts in September, gather info, etc etc. There is no budget process and that's surprising and scary to some GOers. Its fine to spin off a subcommittee but the subcommittee needs a mandate for what to do, how to do it, that mandate should come from finance cmtee ahead of time.

Process cmtee - how do we intervene to support a committee that is not fulfilling its mandate? When GOers express deep concern to Process cmtee about a committee and what it is or is not doing, what do we do. How do we give feedback or direction. [[Committee]] work is hard work and it is volunteer work - we can't be discouraging - how do we offer suggestions in a constructive way?

Finance has been very busy working on CDC stuff - the tap fee, closing the books, etc.

Process could ask that Finance make working on their job description a top priority, so they can look at their priorities, and then bring those priorities and job description to the full group and get feedback. Creating a process for the budget may be put very high on their priority list by the community and finance may be told its ok to let these other areas fall behind a bit while X or Y is done first, might be very helpful for finance.
MONKEY: Sarah will talk with Willie

IDEA: if GO gets $20,000 back from the sale of a unit that was subsidized, maybe the money could be invested and the interest could help current members with association fees?
MONKEY: AmyH will chat with Dale about this idea.


8. NASCO conference attendees report on experience/ideas

Katie came in to the meeting for this. Katie went to a kitchen class on Saturday and a conflict class on Sunday. Kitchen class was good, and the conflict class was excellent. Taught by Laird Schaub. Melisa was there too and they both were really impressed. He showed us that conflict was not bad, it just needs to be worked through. Both Katie and Melisa would like to have him come work with GO. He shared some steps to follow. Melisa provided the handout Laird gave out, to process. Have to address the feelings first because you can't move past the feelings until people feel like their feelings have been expressed and heard.
Exercise they did - each had a partner, had to describe a conflict you had with someone, describe it as best you could. Then you described your feelings about the conflict, and then you had to describe it from the other person's perspective. Then you described it in a way that the person who you had a conflict with would feel was respectful of them and accurately described it for them, and didn't trash you either. Do you think that exercise would be valuable to do in a community meeting? seems like yes. Melisa was talking with Jim Sweeton about this too.
Did Laird have a resource list? I don't think so. He did have a flyer, which Melisa passed on to Process. Another thing he brought up, when there's a conflict where you need to hear the other person's feelings, hear their truth. but what if their truth is different from your truth? You need to get past that. Need to hear their feelings and not dwell on, is what they're saying accurate. Get beyond the differences in what you each see as truth and work toward whatever common goals you can.
Helpful when we think about trainings and how to offer things to the community.

Jillian and Sarah went to one about Leadership, the dynamics of being a leader in a cooperative setting. And what are pitfalls that discourage people from taking on that role and how can you support people who take on that role. He gave specific definitions. Was very helpful. Positive leadership model. We also used the working in pairs and telling a story of when you felt you were a victim of power abuse, and then have to tell the story from the other person's point of view.
MONKEY: Jillian will type up her notes from that.

Amy H - in our household we have the "work it out" couch - each kid sits on the couch. The first one to speak describes what they saw happen. Then the second one has to repeat what the first one said, before they can give their own version of the story. Then, they have to say what would you want her to say to you to make you feel better. The kids find it excruciatingly hard to repeat what the other child had said for their version of the story, but we make them do it, reassuring them that they will then get to say their point of view afterwards. And somehow their saying back what the other child had said really helps bring resolution.

I think it would be great to have Laird here. Maybe we could bring him in to help us work thru a conflict. Training ahead of time would be good too though, before we're in a major train wreck.

Try to do more small trainings a bit at a time at meetings. Do these kinds of exercises. 20 minute icebreaker.

COOLER: Maybe next year we can ask Laird to do a short evening training while he's here for NASCO?


9. Next meeting
Tuesday 11/23. Where? Not sure yet.


10. Discussion/review of Process [[Committee]] job description DRAFT

Sarah emailed out a draft and had handouts at the meeting of the old and new job descriptions.
We went thru it, good job Sarah! She will email out another draft with the strike-thru's eliminated.


11. Review DRAFT of [[Committee]] Effectiveness Proposal from Melisa

We have not had time to read this yet, went out on email today. Sarah is feeling like this is more like an outline for a training than a proposal, perhaps. Its long, with many suggestions. Anyway, we need to read it and send email feedback. Sarah thinks it will need to be trimmed - we need to analyze it and then put forth what we think is the best way to proceed. Take the educational piece out, use that ourselves, and keep the directional piece in?

We'll still need the info - to educate people as to why we are making this proposal, why we've decided X and Y to propose. Maybe as background.

Maybe this is two different pieces in here?

Really a place for a second workshop specifically for committees - how-to kinds of things - that's basically what this piece is.

Maybe in conjunction with this proposal, we'd use some time at the next 3 meetings to talk about various pieces...

MONKEY: Processians please read the proposal and send ideas/feedback about it.


12. De-brief community training day; share perspectives; go over group evaluations; note things to improve, keep or change for next time; follow-up meeting with Sandra - do we need it? Focus? How - phone, in person?

feelings about the day?
- useful but short
- I wasn't sure if she was as well prepared as she might have been?
- she hesitated a bit here and there, wasn't quite as engaging
- she said before she is product oriented rather than training oriented.
- SO, we need to plan ahead in terms of contacting potential presenters. if we want to have a fall training in mid october every year, then we could start looking for people and start talking about it in early spring to line it up for fall. Just so we can have more options about presenters.
- We also need to think in terms of what we want for GO and what is possible to share with other communities? Some kinds of trainings could be shared.
- Both Touchsonte and Sunward are working on nonviolent communication training. we'd like to be in the loop with that.
- feedback for Sandra? I would have liked more discussion - once we did that exercise people had things to share. more specific connections - ok you can take this tool you're learned, and you can do this when X or Y. Maybe this is just a matter of needing more time. She only asked for two hours. We got into it and then it was over. - More focused lecture, it felt a bit scattered.
- maybe we could create something on the wiki - steps for planning a training, things to think about. so it become easier and easier to put them on. Great idea!
- on the day it happened I felt great about it, i felt like we were well organized, nice space. now that some time has elapsed I feel like its so important to bring the committee proposal forward - this was supposed to be the first step, to clarify our committees structure etc. I feel like the community training day would become less and less successful the slower the follow thru is.
- one step is reminding committees to work on their mandate. maybe track which ones have done it already or not.
- we can bring our job description forward to the full group, and see if the group thinks we got it right.
- are there short exercises from the non violent communication model that we could do as icebreakers.
- part of our contract with Sandra was that she said she'd help us with the next steps when we want it.
- was the money spent for the weekend correctly allocated? Yes, Sarah worked with Helen on this. Great.

13. Open Mike and the Quilt Stories
Gail has guidelines - are we shelving it or continuing open mike? Should we lay out some possibilities? These are some things we've tried - open mike, appreciations, etc - would you like to see a mix, or what would you like to nix. I think those are the only two we've tried. The quilt stories sort of fit in with that. The quilt stories needs to keep happening until its clearly done and then something done with the results so it doesn't just dangle. Process needs Jim and Susan to take ownership of it, to please pay attention to it and keep it going otherwise it is going to fizzle.
MONKEY: Jillian will ask Jim and Susan about this - make sure Jim and Susan keep following up on this - create a plan, every meeting? Every other meeting? Can they keep it visible so it doesn't just drop away. And Susan talked about analyzing the stories for the threads about our structure. And they talked about making a physical piece of art with the images? Process cmtee would like to support them but they need to take point on this, request time on agendas, etc. The CRC stuff is such an important contribution. Maybe when process is meeting they could have their own meeting instead of coming to process, make some headway on their issues and plans. We'd miss them but perhaps that is a practical suggestion?

COOLER: how to track cooler items