DRAFT call for nominations -- how does this look?
Matt Noyes
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New At Large Member Needed for Social.Coop Organizing Circle!
Due to the withdrawal of one of the original members we have an opening for a new at large member.
The Organizing Circle coordinates among working groups and ops teams, providing a space for ongoing strategic conversation and coordination and facilitating greater member participation in both operations and governance. Most OC members are representatives from the working groups (currently Community, Finance, Tech). The OC uses a loose sociocracy approach. (https://www.sociocracyforall.org/)
The duties of an OC at large member are to participate in the bi-weekly meetings and perform any tasks the member agrees to take on. The term of service is two years. See the Organizing Circle recaps (https://www.loomio.com/d/QBtcgaOq/organizing-circle-recaps-2024-) for more on how the circle is currently functioning, and the original proposal (https://www.loomio.com/p/OI8kEjVz/social-coop-organizing-circle-proposal) for the initial framing of its role.
The procedure for selecting an OC member is as follows: an open call for nominations, followed by selection by the current OC members.
Eduardo Mercovich Tue 12 Nov 2024 3:34PM
Hi Matt!
芒聴聣 DRAFT call for nominations -- how does this look?
New At Large Member Needed for Social.Coop Organizing Circle!
Great: clear and to the point.
Thanks a lot. :)
Matt Noyes Tue 19 Nov 2024 7:35PM
We referred to this in the selection process for the first OC (from our values). I suggest adding the part in bold.
As a cooperative, social.coop is based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity. Our members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility, and caring for others. We also follow the rest of the ICA co-op principles.
We welcome anyone able to use our services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, regardless of qualities such as gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, age, race, nationality, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, family structure, spirituality, religion (or lack thereof), education, or other personal traits. We particularly celebrate diversity and do not tolerate bigotry or prejudice. Diverse opinions on politics, religion, and other matters are welcome as long as they align with our core values. Let there be no confusion, Social.Coop is anti-racist, anti-fascist, and anti-transphobic.
To promote diversity and inclusion in governance and operations, we are particularly looking for members who are not from dominant social groups. The first priority is for at large members to represent the different users of the coop.
Matt Noyes Tue 19 Nov 2024 7:38PM
Also -- I am now wondering if we might want to just use sortition, instead of a nominations process, with the current OC as the jury (able to apply the criteria)?
Caitlin Waddick, Finance Working Group for Social.Coop and Organizing Circle Thu 21 Nov 2024 2:49PM
So, we discussed this recruitment process today in the OC meeting. But, I forgot what term period we said. The At-large members have a 2-year term, and no term limits, right?
So, when we add the new member in January 2025: will that person complete the rest of an existing 2-year term, which has 1 year left? OR, are we introducing a new 2-year position that will have a staggered ending (as compared to the other At-large positions)?
Thinking out loud about what we want to see. We want a process that is efficient and quick and simple. We want to make sure that we have a process in place so that the OC does not have vacancies. We seek new people to join the OC when we have openings, scheduled (because their term is ending on time and they won't serve again for any reason) or unscheduled (because they need to step back from the OC to focus on other tasks for any reason). ... We probably do want staggered terms, so that OC members have memory and history.
MarieVC (social.coop/@MarieVC) 路 Sun 10 Nov 2024 5:20PM
Thank you @Matt Noyes for taking the time to prepare the draft 馃檹馃徎
That sounds good to me. Three little things I'm thinking about:
when we publish the call on Loomio, perhaps we could include a tentative timeframe?
perhaps emphasise that we're particularly looking for people from minority backgrounds and that even if there are technical (tech, finance, etc) discussions, it's first and foremost to represent the different users of the coop (we learn together)?
include the names of current OC members and our handles (Loomio/Social.coop), inviting potential candidates to contact us for more information?
For the last point, it's based on the experience of the reading group I met thanks to Social.Coop/Loomio, several participants are also members of Social.Coop and I often get questions about how the OC works, so it deserves to be more widely known (generally, people are super motivated and interested).