I propose to add, before going forward with the deep issues on governance, to make a quick check on the backlog advancements. :)

We should also check in about the Toward an Annual Budget thread started by Nathan S.: https://www.loomio.com/d/xqw7FtUT/toward-an-annual-budget

Meeting Notes

• 1300 [5 min] ADMIN

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

  • Does anyone need to leave early? hard stop at end

  • Confirm our next call on 27 Feb.

  • Review recap from last call; anything critical that needs to be added to the recap? https://www.loomio.com/d/zI1q0w95/organizing-circle-meeting-2024-january-30-tuesday-1300utc

  • Who is notetaking? Matt,Caitlin

  • Who is facilitating? Kathe

• 1305 [15 min] Check in: (no notes)

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

  • What would your 10-year-old self say about you now? Why? How do you feel about that?

• 1320 [10 min] Updates: What is the status of your to-do items? Can someone help you?

  • Kathe: did re-cap, 

  • Caitlin: we can create a shared calendar on May First/Social.Coop 

  • Matt: 

    • Meet.Coop can use a shared room -- e.g. https://socialcoop.meet.coop/mat-htg-nge-nbe so we have a dedicated space to meet; 

    • all of us now have admin privileges on the Mastodon instance 

  • Eduardo: 

    • MayFirst contact @[email protected]; concerns about open access to wiki editing

  • Marie: 

    • wiki info - need to create accounts in order to write on wiki, asked Flancian about Social.Coop wiki background... (Matrix)

  • RECORDING STARTED HERE

• 1330 [10 min] Review/recap: What was said by the group in: https://www.loomio.com/d/7fdFsRj2/social-coop-governance-scoping

  • Tension between direct decision-making and circle decision-making/ informed decision-making... 

  • Use of Loomio by members at larger

  • Idea: Community Management Playbook https://www.cscce.org/resources/cpm/ 

  • Differentiating governance... The Agreement Circle doesn't take positions but prepares proposals for the broader group. 

  • "Organizing Circle (OC) a group of members consistently committed to coordinating 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.The OC will have limited powers, with most operational decisions made by the Working Groups (WG) and decisions related to Social.Coop as a whole subject to member approval."

  • pick this disc up again under formulation below...

• 1340 [10 min] Review: check in about the Toward an Annual Budget thread started by Nathan S.: https://www.loomio.com/d/xqw7FtUT/toward-an-annual-budget 

  • FWG ask: table this to next meeting - 

    • decision-making process of OC... all spending/income goes through Open Collective... 

    • have a surplus so our question is not how to save but how to spend? 

    • Equity of financial contributions by members; rough budget... 

    • FWG looking for governance suggestions from OC: what are the dreams, goals, hopes, needs, desires of social.coop to use this resource? What are the relationships with each other, with networks/ecosystem, tools/platforms we use? Financial relationships = social relationships. 

    • FWG is in charge of migration of domain names: Move from Platform6 to Innovation.coop (fiscal host). Andrew E. is leading this effort. 

    • FWG process integration of members is informal

    • Nathan S still plays central role, very reliable, but overburdened, Caitlin and Andres are building up

    • Simple proposal, underlying complexity: organization of FWG, strategy of SC and objectives for budgets...

    • John: this kind of informality and uneven burden is typical of orgs at this stage or level of org. Looks well organized from outside, but we need to get governance sorted out

    • Eduardo: previous talks about criteria in spending, supporting projects we use, stipends to help sustain it

    • Marie: need ways to relieve burden on NS others, legal questions about copyright on Mastodon... what if these questions come up? Financial liability question (put this in bike rack)

    • Matt: we should consult history of this discussion; there was a Legal Working Group... were those discussions documented? Policies adopted? 

    • Kathe: decision-making distribution, assembly/circles... 

    • John: formalization of cooperative status is a huge question... jump to an edge condition, have to address this question... question of cooperative form in digital age? Cross-border? Legal entity? 

    • Matt: ask Mance about Solidarius.net legal status

    • Kathe: academic societies are incorporated in specific countries... Domain registration...

    • Caitlin: lucky to have an existing process that was handled so well by people like NC and Matt Cropp...

    • Eduardo: need clear points of participation, ways for people to get involved... 

    • Community Playbook: onboarding people, on-ramps to participatory activities, 

• 1350 [15 min] Formulation: Based on the above discussion, how are we going to draft a governance policy? What needs to be our dimensions? Are there templates we want to work off of and who do we want to task with developing a first draft? What was the orginal proposal? https://www.loomio.com/p/OI8kEjVz/social-coop-organizing-circle-proposal

  • Decision matrix: where and by whom are decisions made?

    • in sociocracy parlance, governance and operations. And scopes/domains. 

  • How to draw on knowledge bases needed, two ways: start with knowledge needed or start with people and what they bring? Highlighting need for specialist input in the circle. 

  • How to design team, what does it need to be?

  • use matrix to specify: WGs (circles) and scope: range of tasks/responsibilities; what we are asking of each circle and coordinating that?

  • OC responsibility: be sure that nothing gets lost

  • How do we coordinate the integration of the circles? 

  • what will be the global vision? 

  • new member: need to know how it works, how to join, where they can participate, speak out, contribute... general vision of governance; knowing where to find answers...

  • how to navigate scale of involvement

  • We created the OC using Sortition. It was a method that encouraged participation, effectively. We should use it again.

  • Tool:  a Miro board, decison-making matrix plus circle diagram, would this be helpful?

  • ^ great idea 

  • Would like to see a standard Sociocracy diagram 

  • Would like to see the matrix described ... a Miro board as a visual representation of how decisions are made  

  • Decision "levels" -- Transitions among member involvements... 

• 1405 [5 min] Decision: We are going to ...

  • proposal: Eduardo and Caitlin set up a Sage3 https://sage3.sagecommons.org/?page_id=921 )

    • good enough for now!

  • Eduardo follow up on Wiki hardening question...

    • good enough for now!

• 1410 [5 min] Tasks: What are you taking out of this call as a task or todo item?

  • kathe: will make a recap on line for everyone to read

  • Eduardo contact @edsu about calendar

• 1420 [10 min] Feedback: What worked well with this call and what could be improved? OR What gave you a sense that it mattered you were in this meeting? or was there somethign that diminished your sense of mattering?

  • good meeting, still feels a bit basic - scoping and not yet strategy

  • able to contribute knowledge of history and people

  • rounds absolutely fundamental

  • lesson from game desing, 20% in start playtesting, useful to practising governance, too

  • first steps are boring, started to get into core things: scope, matrix... doiing things now so we can foget about them; energizing

  • meetings are good for me because I learn, matter in this group bc I don't know things... enables me to ask questions...

  • we are able to ask questions

  • Our process is effective. 

  • Original OC Proposal was controversal. We want to represent the criticisms and concerns of people who voiced them. 

Recap

We had an excellent discussion around governance that were touched on at a several angles. You can find the recording here: https://bbb.de.meet.coop/presentation/9977760a2103164c3aae50111805f343809d01aa-1707828917420/meeting.mp4 Overall we identified a few main themes from the agenda items:

• What are the levels of social.coop member involvement and how do members move between?

  • The sortition process to select organizing circle was really interesting. What are the roles and responsibilities of different kinds of members in the group? How do new members know how to get involved? How do we ensure knowledge from experienced members is not lost?

• Who makes what decisions?

  • When is a decision common vote (direct decision) and when is it made by a subset of people (circle decision) or single person? Is the line strategic vs operational: where is this split if that's there? How do we make sure the 'right' people are informing/making the decision (ie expertise, equity, etc)?

• How is decision making communicated and integrated across multiple groups/individuals?

  • If a decision touches multiple circles, how do these circles collaborate/communicate? How do we make sure a topic doesn't get 'lost' between circles?

• How are decisions and processes recorded and reviewed?

  • There are several members filling critical roles for social.coop, how do we make sure they don't burn out and how do we build in redundancies? How do we integrate results from past discussions into current decisions? How do we review/revisit decisions to make sure they are updated?

Ongoing ToDo:

•  

  @Eduardo Mercovich has an identified contact to get a shared calendar on MayFirst and will get that sorted.

•  

  @Eduardo Mercovich and @Caitlin Waddick, CaitlinWaddickSocial.Coop will look at setting up a Sage3 board (https://sage3.sagecommons.org/) for brainstorming the answers to the above question.

•  

  @Eduardo Mercovich will look at 'hardening' wiki by setting up edit permissions for various groups; there are some prior experiences with spammed wiki pages that we are looking to avoid.

•  

  @Kathe TB will write up a recap and create the next agenda.

Backlog items:

• 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 circle to help manage surplus?

Next steps:

Expect to see a Sage3 link passed around for asynchronous brainstorming. Organizing circle will meet again on 27 February 2024.

As always please comment below if you have anything that was missed on this recap!