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.

I'm sending a reminder on Social.Coop after posting this message.

If you have time, check out the Loomio threads in our OC group with the asynchronous discussions to prepare for tomorrow's meeting, see for example:

https://www.loomio.com/d/kuVrqiLv/wiki-page-for-organizing-circle

See you tomorrow!

Dear Marie and all.

In case tomorrow I cannot attend...

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.
Done. :)

Matt: meet with Eduardo to move May 1st discussion

MF is quite busy in these days with some travels and physical presence
in events. I doubt we will be able to get some real time attention from
any of them... :(

Matt: meet with Eduardo for Loomio how-to

Matt pointed me to the right resources, it is done. Thanks Matt! :)

I am not a Loomio guru, but now I can manage. :)

Warmest regards...

Notes

1200 [5 min] ADMIN

* Who is here? Marie, Kathe, Matt, Flancian

* Does anyone need to leave early?

* Confirm our next call on 3 July (Wednesday) 1200 UTC

* Review recap from last call https://www.loomio.com/d/PgrKXuM0/organizing-circle-meeting-2024-5-june-wednesday-1200-utc

* Who is note taking? Matt, (Flan, too)

* Who is facilitating? Kathe

1210 [5 min] Recap of our last meeting

1210 [10 min] Check in:

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

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meadowlands_(poetry_collection)

* OK to mention? yes

1220 [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/

* Expanding OC +1

* Compensation +1

* MayFirst convo

* Annual rhythms +1

* Liability

* Wiki page +3

* Visit circles and see what they want +2

* Outcome:

* let's cover wiki (short term) and a plan to visit the circles (long term)

* 15 minutes each

* wiki thread -> https://www.loomio.com/d/kuVrqiLv/wiki-page-for-organizing-circle

* we're looking to make a decision

* Backlog items below

* [nice facilitation choice: two minutes to gather our thoughts!]

1225 [5 min] Updates: What is the status of your to-do items? Can someone help you?

* 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.

* TO DO: Matt reach out to Eduardo and Jaime/Jamie to move May 1st discussion https://www.loomio.com/d/Yxz1ZqPR/conversation-with-mayfirst -- pending, some contact with M1 people.

* Context: we want to learn from their processes and common practices.

* Matt: meet with Eduardo for Loomio how-to - done, introduced Loomio tutorials

* 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?

* Sent a message for a hot swap but there were no takers so far. The TWG is a bit quiescent currently, which is not unusual for summer months, but also could become slightly worrying if it persists.

* we can get instance and loomio use data from admin

* goal for summer is to get people (re)involved

* Hometown thread not reactivated upon seeing that Hometown does not seem to have been updated in the last six months :(

* https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown

* TO DO: Flancian will talk to Darius Kazemi about long term sustainability before opening it up to the community

* Caitlin: is to invite a second member from the Finance Team, Andres

1230 [5 min] Updates from working circles

* Finance - not here

* Tech

* Hometown is still being evaluated

* Added new members to basic access

* Community

* shadowing coordinator role

* elections pending

* clarified 'at large' members role, which unlocked Melissa to join -- and paid off immediately, she's amazing!;

* token expiration issue for sign-up form (Tech WG) -- ask CWG to notify if no registrations received...

* TO DO: Flan: see if open collective link is being truncated in form...?

* 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?

* TO DO: Flan get TWG to put new character limit in place.

* We have identified how to make this change, but would like to test it before making the change in the prod instance.

1240 [15 min] Decision: Wiki page development

https://www.loomio.com/d/kuVrqiLv/wiki-page-for-organizing-circle

* Matt:

* still have a question between the relationship between wiki documentation and other documentation. Some of the more organizational/time dependent details look like they might not belong in wiki, but rather would be better if they remain in Loomio and are just linked out.

* 'are you new in social.coop' - move this and keep it prominent

* MarieVC:

* agree with no need for "are you new" here but need it somewhere on the page -- needs to be findable everywhere on the wiki.

* better not to list names of current OC members, instead refer people to Loomio for list of current members

* add links to loomio minutes to wiki... one by one?

* can we put minutes in a separate subgroup, rather than as threads scattered in the OC subgroup... (CWG does this, in a way)?

* can we use labels to accomplish this?

* https://www.loomio.com/d/QBtcgaOq/organizing-circle-recaps-2024- link in to represent the current topics of disucsison

* Flancian: I like the sections, maybe would follow a different order though. "Are you new in Social.coop" should probably just link out to a (hopefully already existing) page with this context.

* Put "Are you new in Social.coop" in the wiki sidebar?

* I don't quite get the 'current agreements' section

* linking out vs inlining (prefer not to have to add links to minutes after every meeting)

* use verbose links to guide people to content that is elsewhere (e.g. on Loomio)

* menu structure, navigation of wiki pages

* Kathe

* make "are you new to SC" a separate page,

* put it in wiki sidebar

* Two wiki pages +1

* agreements and policies of the circle

* basic OC info, how it works

* keep list of members

* current topics -> link to recaps

* origin story/history of the group

* loomio group is closed -- can we see who is a member?

* TO DO: Matt ask Josh to check what can be seen by non-OC member

* should these pages be linked in https://wiki.social.coop/wiki/Operations

* OC should be listed here

* semantic wiki - helps navigation

* if we categorize ourselves as 'working group', we'll be in all the right lists like this one

* DECISION:

* second page for current agreements/policies

* drop new to social.coop from OC page (but put in sidebar)

* link to recap thread instead of current topics, same for minutes

* revisit membership

* write up:

* ops guide

* origin story

* incorporate review/update of Wiki content into annual rhythm

1255 [15 min] Formulation: Visiting working groups planning

1310 [10 min] Tasks: What are you taking out of this call as a task or todo item?

* Kathe:

* Recaps to the minutes page, wiki thread, and social 2024 thread

* Draft operations guide for OC wiki page

* Draft operations circle intro OC wiki page

* Draft decisions and agreements page

* Create the wiki page for OC and Policy

* Matt:

* Matt reach out to Eduardo and Jaime/Jamie to move May 1st discussion https://www.loomio.com/d/Yxz1ZqPR/conversation-with-mayfirst

* write up OC origin story (from original proposal and sortition docs)

* ask Loomio people about best way to link to multiple threads (for OC minutes)

* check with Josh to see what non-OC people can see/access

* Flancian:

* [TWG] Determine+drive next steps towards increasing the character limit in the instance.

* [TWG] Talk to Darius Kazemi about sustainability of Hometown in particular w.r.t. security updates

* Marie:

* Agenda, reminder, to-do list

* Message Loomio with list of OC members > pinned message at the start of the (open to all) Loomio recap thread?

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

* worked well as usual...

* two minutes to think, working on wiki page in meeting

* facilitation, leaving with clear tasks, and good to get work done in the meeting,

* time management could be improved, wiki convo was good/deep

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

Our main topic of discussion today was centered on the wiki development. We also heard updates from Community and Tech working groups, as well as ongoing circle projects.

Referring to the proposal outlined here https://www.loomio.com/d/kuVrqiLv/wiki-page-for-organizing-circle/2, we went through and reviewed the structure that @Eduardo Mercovich pulled together (gratitude for your work here!). We decided to draft two wiki pages incorporating the below feedback into this original proposed structure.

• Good introduction to the page with a kick-off paragraph of what to expect/purpose on the page.

• Overall a 'new to Social Coop' section is fantastic but probably deserves it's own page, we recommend cross linking this page in a side-bar or header/footer sections.

• Current agreements/policy section should get pealed off to it's own page. Note to integrate the review of these pages into the annual rhythms moving forward.

• Current working topics as well as the minutes/notes will require a lot of maintenance to keep up with. We decided to link in the general 2024 recaps loomio thread here instead https://www.loomio.com/d/QBtcgaOq/organizing-circle-recaps-2024-

• We were torn on including a members list. There were some concerns that this might be burdensome to keep up to date. We pinned this for future discussion

• We lined the operations section here as well as the origin/creation story for the group.

We had updates from Tech and Community working groups today. Community working group is instituting a coordinator role shadow to help folks decide what they would like to take on. The 'At-large' advisory position is working out particularly well for broadening input and feedback into the group. Tech working group is currently at a bit of a lull with no major issues to drive activity. Hometown is looking somewhat inactive with no new updates in the last 6 months (contacting devs to see if it is appropriate for larger instances like ours). The dev instance is up and running; work on expanding the character limit is paused pending dev bandwidth and interest. We touched on some minor truncation and token issues with registration forms.

We hope to have the wiki up for feedback next time and start planning visits to the working groups to formulate annual rhythms and better serve operations of social coop.