Dear All,

I won't be able to be here on Thursday. Wishing you a fruitful meeting facilitated by @Eduardo Mercovich!

See you at the next meeting!

@Eduardo Mercovich I am definitely going to be on a plane at our next meeting. Do you went me to prep a full agenda or do you have this covered?

Agenda

1500 [5 min] ADMIN:

• Who is here?

• Does anyone need to leave early?

• Confirm our next call on 27 March (Thursday) 1500 UTC

• Who is note taking?

• Who is facilitating? Kathe

1505 [10 min] Check in:

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

• What are you tending right now that you hope to harvest in the future?

1515 [5 min] Inform and Decide Review recap from last call

https://www.loomio.com/d/NQ3BIMqf/organizing-circle-meeting-2025-27-february-thursday-1500-utc/7 and consent to the agenda

1520 [15 min] Review - Documenting OC proposals
https://wiki.social.coop/wiki/Organizing_Circle_policy#Documenting_a_proposal

• Solo: Take 3 minutes are review the policy above.

• Round: What are your clarifying questions?

• Round: What worked well with this policy?

• Round: What needs to change with this policy?

1535 [10 min] Decision - Financial Operational Baseline

Context and Scope: We need to define a coop financial strategy to guide operations of the Finance Working Group to guide management of our financial resources to support social.coop activities, the broader fediverse, and promote inter-cooperation among coops. We are in the unique position to have more money then we are spending. Social.coop had our first annual budget last year and has not conducted an end of year report historically. We want to steward the resources of the group in a way that supports the broader fediverse community as well as our own co-op. Success here is ongoing abilities to pay direct costs incurred in operations and providing financial support to aligned organizations. We have an immediate need to plan for operational 2025 spending and a long term need of identifying broader financial strategies with the larger social.coop community. Both needs require an assessment of our past spending to identify operational costs and our capacity to support aligned organizations. (More here: https://www.loomio.com/d/ZIEx8Dt2/organizing-circle-meeting-2025-13-february-thursday-1500-utc and https://www.loomio.com/d/NQ3BIMqf/organizing-circle-meeting-2025-27-february-thursday-1500-utc )

Policy Proposal: We ask the Financial Working Group to develop a report of our annual expenditures including defining appropriate income and spending categories by the end of April 2025 and beginning of January there after. Based on this report and any anticipated changes to the budget, we ask the Financial Working Group to develop a base operations budget to support core social.coop activities for the next calendar year and identify reserve levels to support these operations (ie our current reserves will support X years of baseline operational budget). This report will also inform broader long term financial strategies.

Metrics: The current reserves/balance from past reports should match https://opencollective.com/socialcoop and budgeted categories for upcoming calendar year approximate the end of year report spending for that year.

• Round: What are your clarifying questions on this proposal?

• Round: Does Finance Working Group need more capacity to generate this report?

• Round: Do we consent?

1545 [5 min] Decision - Financial Strategic Development in Big Conversation

Decision Proposal: We will add a "Big Conversation" (see https://share.mayfirst.org/s/WyKxiJ8C4gLbFxf) on financial strategy with the larger community of social.coop to the topics list. We ask that Financial circle define what kind of guidance they are looking for from the community. We note that the following has surfaced in our discussions on this topic:

• need clarity on criteria for consideration, how does this spending support the values, mission, and aims of social.coop

• ongoing support of an organization has a higher impact then a one-off donation

• how can the process effectively leverage and build off of past discussions and decisions

(Since this is not ment to be referred to on an ongoing basis, we do not need a recorded policy here.)

• Round: What are your clarifying questions on this proposal?

• Round: Do we consent?

1550 [10 min] Decision - Onboarding and capacity building

Context and scope: We need to enable ongoing member participation in social.coop discussions, operations and governance. We suggest sequencing: awareness, engage, educate, and evaluate. Here we define membership as contributions to social.coop in the following ways: microblogging, financial, strategic, operational, and social (see https://wiki.social.coop/wiki/Organizing_Circle_policy). This may include: onboarding new members, filling skills gaps, recruitment for working groups, and broader conversations about the nature of cooperatives and commons in the context of social.coop. (More here: https://www.loomio.com/d/ZIEx8Dt2/organizing-circle-meeting-2025-13-february-thursday-1500-utc and https://www.loomio.com/d/NQ3BIMqf/organizing-circle-meeting-2025-27-february-thursday-1500-utc).

Decision Proposal: We will

• develop a policy on onboarding new members. This will include communication drafts, storyboarding new member journeys, metrics of success, and evaluation terms. This will go on our 2024 OC priorities calendar.

• develop a policy on working group recruitment. This should build in greater support for a sortition process as well as sequence awareness-engage-education and include an evaluation. This will go on our 2024 OC priorities calendar.

• add a broader conversation on the nature of cooperatives and commons in the context of social.coop to "Big Conversations"

(Since this is not ment to be referred to on an ongoing basis, we do not need a recorded policy here.)

• Round: What are your clarifying questions on this proposal?

• Round: What are your reactions to this proposal?

• Round: Do we consent?

1600 [5 min] Scoping - Big Conversations

Context and scope: We need to have clearer lines of communication between the working groups and general membership of social.coop both (Loomio and Mastodon users). We want this to facilitate feedback on current operations and spark new directions for the coop. Specifically we would like to center discussions on how to

1. improve general decision/voting process, and

2. strategize how to interact with Fediverse (both corporate instances like Threads and other cooperative instances like cosocial.ca). Recent work in this space, like the publication of the Fediversalist Papers study in which Social.coop participated, must be taken into account.

3. Co-responsability and participation, it doesn’t have to be money, but since we are a coop, do we require something to give back? Do we want everyone to –for example- have a bit of time per year on moderation? (so as to better know and understand what needs to be done behind the curtains for everyone to have a good experniece)?

4. [pending decision above Financial and onboarding topics added here]

Round: Is this context clear?

Round: Is there additional scope that needs to be considered?

1605 [5 min] Updates from working circles

• Finance

• Tech

• Community

• Legal - defunct

1610 [5 min] Updates: What is the status of your to-do items? Can someone help you?

• Call a round to check in with people

1615 [5 min] Tasks: What are you taking out of this call as a task or todo item?

1620 [10 min] Feedback: What worked well with this call and what could be improved? Explain why.

Last night, I was thinking about the reminder and checking for the next meeting. I wake up and everything has been updated, completed, it's wonderful, thank you @Kathe TB ❤️

Hey y’all. I might not join this meeting. Thursday is my last night in Bangkok. I won’t be having a night on the town because I will have had a day on the delta, the river delta, which is where the entire conference will tour. I might can join yall for the beginning of the meeting, though I am pretty tired tonight. 1500 UTC is 10 pm in Thailand. I’ll be home this weekend.

@Caitlin Waddick, FWG/OC Can you speak a little here to the ask to Finance Circle for a budget report? Is this within the circle capasity?

Notes

1500 [5 min] ADMIN:

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

• Does anyone need to leave early?

  • Dan has another meeting 30min in

  • Matt: CWG mtg in one hour

• Confirm our next call on 27 March (Thursday) 1500 UTC

• Who is note taking? Matt

• Who is facilitating? Kathe

1505 [10 min] Check in:

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

• What are you tending right now that you hope to harvest in the future?

1515 [5 min] Inform and Decide Review recap from last call
https://www.loomio.com/d/NQ3BIMqf/organizing-circle-meeting-2025-27-february-thursday-1500-utc/7 and consent to the agenda

1520 [15 min] Review - Documenting OC proposals
https://wiki.social.coop/wiki/Organizing_Circle_policy#Documenting_a_proposal

• Solo: Take 3 minutes are review the policy above.

• Round: What are your clarifying questions?

  • Q. what did we do before this policy? A. nothing, we used to wing it

  • Q: metrics? A: if we have kept to review dates

• Round: What worked well with this policy?

  • we in OC are trying to apply it in other ways

  • Documentation is clear

  • good framework -- revisiting policies is a good practice, related to "good enough for now, sae enough to try"

  • Kathe looked at the policy, so we were able to actually revisit it

  • Two policies: 

    • formalizing documentation, storage and 

    • adding a metric

• Round: What needs to change with this policy?

  • assure that SC members are aware of documents (PSAs?)

  • review of docs is important for onboarding of new members of working groups

  • Need a way to ensure that we revisit policies 

    • maybe automate reminders of impending deadlines

      • but these can be ignored, better to have someone put them on the agendas?

    • add to backlog and regular meeting agenda (Loomio has this feature if we put proposals on Loomio, can Wiki do this?)

  • Add reviews to strategic conversation calendar.

  • Formalize agenda roles to include this, as well as other points.

Proposal modification
Context: We need to clearly record decisions made for future reference. A policy decision is a group agreement that is expected to guide repeated future actions. It is particualrlly challenging to schedule a revisit of policies on agendas and this policy does not cover HOW to do this just that it needs to be done. How this is done is at the discression of whomever is creating agendas for the group meetings.
Proposal:

• The wiki (this page) will be updated when a policy decision is made inside Organizing Circle. 

• The policies will be listed by review date chronologically on this page.

Metrics: There are no stale policy decisions that have not been reviewed in a timely manner within one month of review date
Status: Revisit March 2026 (1 year term)

• March 2025 (1 year term)

  • Extended context and removed 'how' the revisiting should be done

  • original accepted August 2004 (6 month term)

Eduardo:
    - information fragmentation, finding a way to approach/solve it; could a kanban help? 
    - how to work between the meetings? 
Kathe:
    - too much process?
    
Unstructred discussion on how circle does this work.
https://share.mayfirst.org/s/WyKxiJ8C4gLbFxf

KTB will modify the headers to reflect scoping-formulation-decision stages

>>>>>>Punt this to next week since we only have Eduardo, Marie, and Kathe >>>>>>>>>>>>>
TABLE UNTIL CAITLIN IS PRESENT --> 1535 [10 min] Decision - Financial Operational Baseline
Context and Scope: We need to define a coop financial strategy to guide operations of the Finance Working Group to guide management of our financial resources to support social.coop activities, the broader fediverse, and promote inter-cooperation among coops. We are in the unique position to have more money then we are spending. Social.coop had our first annual budget last year and has not conducted an end of year report historically. We want to steward the resources of the group in a way that supports the broader fediverse community as well as our own co-op. Success here is ongoing abilities to pay direct costs incurred in operations and providing financial support to aligned organizations. We have an immediate need to plan for operational 2025 spending and a long term need of identifying broader financial strategies with the larger social.coop community. Both needs require an assessment of our past spending to identify operational costs and our capacity to support aligned organizations. (More here: https://www.loomio.com/d/ZIEx8Dt2/organizing-circle-meeting-2025-13-february-thursday-1500-utc and https://www.loomio.com/d/NQ3BIMqf/organizing-circle-meeting-2025-27-february-thursday-1500-utc )
Policy Proposal: We ask the Financial Working Group to develop a report of our annual expenditures including defining appropriate income and spending categories by the end of April 2025 and beginning of January there after. Based on this report and any anticipated changes to the budget, we ask the Financial Working Group to develop a base operations budget to support core social.coop activities for the next calendar year and identify reserve levels to support these operations (ie our current reserves will support X years of baseline operational budget). This report will also inform broader long term financial strategies.
Metrics: The current reserves/balance from past reports should match https://opencollective.com/socialcoop and budgeted categories for upcoming calendar year approximate the end of year report spending for that year.

• Round: What are your clarifying questions on this proposal?

• Round: Does Finance Working Group need more capacity to generate this report?

• Round: Do we consent?

i1545 [5 min] Decision - Financial Strategic Development in Big Conversation
Decision Proposal: We will add a "Big Conversation" (see https://share.mayfirst.org/s/WyKxiJ8C4gLbFxf) on financial strategy with the larger community of social.coop to the topics list. We ask that Financial circle define what kind of guidance they are looking for from the community. We note that the following has surfaced in our discussions on this topic:

• need clarity on criteria for consideration, how does this spending support the values, mission, and aims of social.coop

• ongoing support of an organization has a higher impact then a one-off donation

• how can the process effectively leverage and build off of past discussions and decisions

(Since this is not ment to be referred to on an ongoing basis, we do not need a recorded policy here.)

• Round: What are your clarifying questions on this proposal?

• Round: Do we consent?

1550 [10 min] Decision - Onboarding and capacity building
Context and scope: We need to enable ongoing member participation in social.coop discussions, operations and governance. We suggest sequencing: awareness, engage, educate, and evaluate. Here we define membership as contributions to social.coop in the following ways: microblogging, financial, strategic, operational, and social (see https://wiki.social.coop/wiki/Organizing_Circle_policy). This may include: onboarding new members, filling skills gaps, recruitment for working groups, and broader conversations about the nature of cooperatives and commons in the context of social.coop. (More here: https://www.loomio.com/d/ZIEx8Dt2/organizing-circle-meeting-2025-13-february-thursday-1500-utc and https://www.loomio.com/d/NQ3BIMqf/organizing-circle-meeting-2025-27-february-thursday-1500-utc).
Decision Proposal: We will

• develop a policy on onboarding new members. This will include communication drafts, storyboarding new member journeys, metrics of success, and evaluation terms. This will go on our 2024 OC priorities calendar.

• develop a policy on working group recruitment. This should build in greater support for a sortition process as well as sequence awareness-engage-education and include an evaluation. This will go on our 2024 OC priorities calendar.

• add a broader conversation on the nature of cooperatives and commons in the context of social.coop to "Big Conversations"

(Since this is not ment to be referred to on an ongoing basis, we do not need a recorded policy here.)

• Round: What are your clarifying questions on this proposal?

• Round: What are your reactions to this proposal?

• Round: Do we consent?

1600 [5 min] Scoping - Big Conversations
Context and scope: We need to have clearer lines of communication between the working groups and general membership of social.coop both (Loomio and Mastodon users). We want this to facilitate feedback on current operations and spark new directions for the coop. Specifically we would like to center discussions on how to

1. improve general decision/voting process, and

2. strategize how to interact with Fediverse (both corporate instances like Threads and other cooperative instances like cosocial.ca). Recent work in this space, like the publication of the Fediversalist Papers study in which Social.coop participated, must be taken into account.

3. Co-responsability and participation, it doesn’t have to be money, but since we are a coop, do we require something to give back? Do we want everyone to –for example- have a bit of time per year on moderation? (so as to better know and understand what needs to be done behind the curtains for everyone to have a good experniece)?

1. [pending decision above Financial and onboarding topics added here]

Round: Is this context clear?
Round: Is there additional scope that needs to be considered?

• Eduardo: Want to learn to do facilitation in a nuanced way.

1605 [5 min] Updates from working circles

• Finance

• Tech Dan: 

  • TWG had two online meetings to work through conflict between members prompted by de-federation of Threads and the way that was done; used  by Soul Fire Farms model (Courageous Conversations https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14rX3Dzab8-d3jSG_wQ8zovYy6vpyo23C0or0eWoETY8/edit#slide=id.p => rooted in NVC model)  

  • We didn't know about the Conflct Resolution page in Wiki, but looked at it. (How to make this better know to members? Maybe regular PSAs about resources like the conflict resolution page. Add Courageous Conversations to Wiki?) Chat format as an accelerant in conflicts.

  • New staging server hosted by io.coop. Principle 6 at work! Character limit was held up by lack of staging server, so now we can do it.

• Community

• Legal - defunct

1610 [5 min] Updates: What is the status of your to-do items? Can someone help you?

• Call a round to check in with people

1615 [5 min] Tasks: What are you taking out of this call as a task or todo item?


1620 [10 min] Feedback: What worked well with this call and what could be improved? Explain why.
----------------------
About facilitation, w Kathe and Edu
Meeting prep:

• - review the prior meeting recap

• - proposing the agenda items

Structure during the meeting:
- Checkins
- ADMIN (Attendence, duration, minutes,...)
- Agenda revision
  - listing items with description, ideal outcome, time
  - add, substract, change order? 
  - consent
- Main Agenda items developing
- Closing
  - review tasks
  - pending items for next meeting
- Checkout

• - evaluate meeting

• - personal connection

After the meeting
- Copy the notes (really scope of, note or record keeper or notary, or something similar).
- Review tasks
- Recap

Recap

We reviewed and revised the documentation policy for Organizing Circle here https://wiki.social.coop/wiki/Organizing_Circle_policy#Documenting_a_proposal. Folks were dropping off due to timezone changes and other scheduling issues so we decided that we would move the rest of the agenda to the next call.

We had an update from Tech WG that surfaced a conflict resolution framing from Courageous Conversations https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14rX3Dzab8-d3jSG_wQ8zovYy6vpyo23C0or0eWoETY8/edit#slide=id.p

Our next call will be March 27th!