To-Do List

• [Kathe] Write recap, post recap to main forum, start topic driven loomio threads including: compensation, annual patterns, increasing WG representation in OC, wiki page

• [Marie] Agenda (+ deadlines for future discussions at the end/backlog), todo list, reminder

• [Matt/Eduardo] Matt start a discussion thread on Loomio to set up a convo with MayFirst on member engagement

Dear All,

This is the agenda and to-do list for our next meeting. In yellow are the non-recurring items, to be consented to at the start of the meeting.

@Kathe TB opened separate Loomio threads to explore specific discussion topics asynchronously.

I'll send a reminder about the meeting on Tuesday 4 June.

Have a good new week!

Notes

1200 [5 min] ADMIN

• Who is here? Marie, Matt, Kathe, Eduardo

• Does anyone need to leave early? Marie - Need to leave at 1315

• Confirm our next call on 19 June (Wednesday) 1200 UTC

• Review recap from last call

• https://www.loomio.com/d/NxT5QSKh/organizing-circle-meeting-2024-21-may-tuesday-1200-utc

• Who is note taking? Matt

• Who is facilitating? Kathe

1205 [10 min] Check in:

• How are you showing up today? What are you bringing into the space? [https://www.nycnvc.org/feelings]

• Icebreaker question: Who's your favourite superhero (fictional or not) and why?

1215 [10 min] Agenda construction (potential items, topics discussed at previous meetings, work in progress):

• See the different Loomio threads (Organizing Circle Group):

• https://www.loomio.com/socialcoop-organizing-circle/

• Backlog items: 

  • Recruiting a new member 

  • Wiki updates

  • Side item: Matt/Eduardo mini Loomio tutuorial

1225 [5 min] Updates:

What is the status of your to-do items (https://www.loomio.com/d/NxT5QSKh/organizing-circle-meeting-2024-21-may-tuesday-1200-utc)? Can someone help you?

• Kathe - started discussion topics on Loomio

• Marie - wrote agenda and reminders (will continue!)

• Caitlin - 

• Matt/Eduardo Matt start a discussion thread on Loomio to set up a convo with MayFirst on member engagement - Eduardo contacted M1st. Eduardo and Matt follow up with Jaime and Jamie.

• Call a round to check in with people

  • How are loomio discussion threads working? clear?

    • if nothing specific to contribute

    • MN finding it hard to get to loomio threads... all good, just feeling overwhelmed

    • read them and just left them, perhaps not substantive enough? 

    • haven't grokked Loomo yet; we all have lots of projects; this helps but still experiencing limitation

    • Proposal -Consented! -- KTB will add notes/decisions from our discussion today to respective Loomio threads and ask for consent via a Loomio poll for any decision.

    • Eduardo will add thoughts to Wiki thread

1230 [5 min] Updates from working circles

• Finance - No update

• Tech - Met twice, aiming to add more members who can do basic maintenance; added Evan. Setting up alpha instance for testing alpha.social.coop. Running on hometown... issue of hometown vs standard mastodon keeps coming up

  • can we tag/mention circles in a thread

  • guppe.groups being experimented with on mastodon instance...

• Community - rebuilding coordination with new people

• Legal - defunct

1235 [5 min] Update:

What was said by the group in active Loomio threads. Do we need to respond to anything or integrate something into our discussion?

1240 [15 min] Wiki structure https://www.loomio.com/d/kuVrqiLv/wiki-page-for-organizing-circle
 
Rounds: Reasons for Wiki. What needs to go on there? Who is taking next steps?

• Referrable, permanent, less time sensitive; documentation of policy; org. archive; new user documentation (add a "read these three things first" blurb to front page?) onboarding; track changes in policy; introduction to Social.Coop for people curious about joining; makes group more legible/real/transparent... 

  • documentation of policy development and certification

    • Need to keep in mind 'rythm' of updates... wiki tend to be updated infrequency in some experience

    • Integrate into workflow, possibly backlog tracking?

    • Try integrating Wiki into our workflow - Eduardo M will take first stab at this -- using Loomio thread https://www.loomio.com/d/kuVrqiLv/wiki-page-for-organizing-circle

    • add users notes from OC recap to thread on Loomio and on Wiki

    • need feedback mechanism, point people to loomio thread

  • onboarding/intro/how to

• Garden approach :)

1255 [15 min] New member
https://www.loomio.com/d/TqwLjKsc/expanding-organizing-circle

• previous juried sortition process

  • nominees not chosen in first round:

    • black flag medical

    • giacomo sansoni

    • luke opperman

    • eamon cadigan

    • tod robbins

• On the proposal to have two members of each WG in the OC

  • Caitlin: Andrew Escobar from finance is also interested in joining.

  • too many people? 

  • at large members can help keep working groups accountable to whole group

  • balance of WG perspective and at large perspective

  • good for tech to have an additional person involved

  • sharing a WG position vs adding a WG position?

  • sociocracy double link too burdensome?

  • Do we have people from each WG?

  • hot swapping WG people, concern for continuity/commitment

Rounds: Confirm addition of next sortition member to replace Jon. Consider asking for second working group member.

Matt on the sortition process. First, we called for candidates (people who were interested in serving). Then made a jury of people (to decide on the candidates). We still have the spreadsheet with names and answers; ~13 people in there.

-> Link to spreadsheet?

Proposal: Wait on replacing the At-Large open seat and prioritize 1-2 reps from each working group. Revisit this in 3 months.
- put this on Loomio thread to continue have discussion
- concern about "hot swaps" for reps from our teams that alternative reps have the background and history of attendance and participation
1310 [10 min] Tasks: What are you taking out of this call as a task or todo item?
- Marie: Agenda, to-do list (at the start of the agenda), reminder
- Eduardo: proposing (in the corresponding loomio thread in https://www.loomio.com/d/kuVrqiLv/wiki-page-for-organizing-circle) a wiki info structure, starting from the O. 
- Matt: meet with Eduardo to move May 1st discussion
- Matt: meet with Eduardo for Loomio how-to
- 
- Kathe: Recaps to the Social.coop thread and topical loomio threads discussed today
- Flancian: start/continue loomio thread on Hometown vs remaining on mainline. Try to find a 'hot swap' within Tech to come to meetings?
- Caitlin: my task from the meeting of 23 April 2024, is to invite a second member from the Finance Team, which I did: https://www.loomio.com/d/U7Trdp3o/organizing-circle-meeting-2024-23-april-tuesday-1200-utc 

1320 [10 min] Feedback: What worked well with this call and what could be improved? Explain why.


Backlog items
The items below are not on the active agenda but should be addressed at some point in the future

• Strategically, how do we provide a framework for the Finance WG to budget overall and help manage surplus?

• Communications: should there be a SC newsletter?? (like GEO newsletter)

• Long term strategy

  • How do we deal with liability as an organization? Do we need to consider some kind of incorporation or legal entity? If so where?

  • Strategically, how do we provide a framework for the Finance WG to budget overall and help manage surplus?

  • "Maintenance care", how to support TWG and its members (cf. xy crisis driven by single mantainer)

  • Compensation log

  • Offering bounties $ to support open source projects or coop efforts

• Short term proposal dev

  • Develop information flow and organizatoin

    • Triad of conversations (Garden/Stream, https://hapgood.us/2015/10/17/the-garden-and-the-stream-a-technopastoral/)

      • stream: Mastodon

      • in between: Loomio

      • permanent: Wiki documentation

  • How many people engage in what category/dimension?

  • Ask working groups for TWO reps instead of one.

  • Check in on group condition, engagement level, look at moving forward with (a)synchronous engagement

  • Loomio OC Group private/public https://www.loomio.com/d/Vt7LCaPM/using-loomio-for-our-group

  • Ask for training on 'what it means to be an admin' to orientate new admins

  • Annual patterns https://www.loomio.com/d/BtVCdq01/annual-rhythms-of-organizing-circle-

  • Contact Finance, and Community for joint meetings topic: How can we help?

• Decisions to be reviewed in the future: governance definitions published on our Wiki (September 2024), character limit (6 months after the start of the experiment)

Recap

Organizing circle mostly discussed the possibility of onboarding new members into the organizing circle. We didn't come to a decision and instead identified trade-offs between just filling the empty At-Large seat and asking for working circles to consider sending 2 members. We had already asked for a second member from Finance WC in previous meetings and hopefully they will join us next call. Trade-offs identified include double linked working circles redundant reporting, larger groups leading to slower decisions, and asking more time from members already volunteering.

We also discussed wiki. We want the wiki to provide both onboarding information as well as document decisions and policy made by the circle. @Eduardo Mercovich very kindly took over setting up wiki pages for us. We need to work this into our pattern of work to keep updated and still need to integrate how we are going to revisit items at the end of the term.

We ask that folks try to remember to check the Loomio threads for asynchronous discussion.

Updates from working circles were brief. Tech is onboarding new members and running an alpha test instance. Finance has no update. Community is focused on boarding new members.

@Kathe TB Thanks for the recap and for disseminating the information in the various useful sections for the OC and Social.Coop.