Council 2008 06

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When: 18 June 2008
Place: FG Meeting room
Facilitator: Dave/Oso
Scribe: Laurel
Minutes Checker:
Attendance: rfs, Jeff, MK, Kathey, Jon, laurel, Cliff, Luiz, Dave, Vagrant
Last meeting: Council 2008 05

COMMITMENTS

  • martin and matteo - finish setting up a secure wiki for the building group - CARRYOVER
    • matteo finished it & sent out an email to the building group to let them know they can sign up.
    • Vagrant has shut down the server; need to figure out what happened with that.
    • Jeff will pester matteo about getting that back to life.
  • Dave and Marie and Oso - write up something about the (financial) value of our work in the community - CARRYOVER, but Dave estimates that we save the community $7-800k in donated materials (roughly equal to our annual budget).
    • Dave has the numbers that he came up with, would like someone to look them over. Oso and Marie have not contacted him about them. If anyone wants to look over them, he'll send them.
  • Seamus will talk to BAN and try to get process rolling - CARRYOVER
    • Seamus is working on contacting vendors to figure out stuff. Ali is available to help out.
  • Oso will fill out conflict of interest form and share with the group - CARRYOVER.
  • Laurel will edit the Doing stuff before meetings page - CARRYOVER
  • laurel will work on the Council Orientation document - DONE
  • Vagrant will share feelings about the marketing/communication/outreach position with the hiring committee - CARRYOVER
  • Staff will communicate budgetary requirements for Marketing Coordinator to Board - DONE

CONSENSUS TRAINING

The dangers of direct responses

(Vagrant)

What is a direct response?
a request to jump the process in order to get your information heard right away.
  • While going through the phases of consensus, sticking with the process can make things go more smoothly. For example, it's a good idea to get all clarifying questions on the table before starting to address those questions, so they can be grouped.
  • Could be helpful to write down what you were going to say so you don't forget while you wait to speak.
  • Direct responses can lead to more confrontational interactions, focusing on the participants rather than the group.
Can direct responses be useful?
maybe, but you should be careful with it. The facilitator can decide to make exceptions based on the situation.

REPORTS

State of the Onion

(Richard) Darryl Kan is hired; tool retention is way up. The warehouse is almost finished; stuff has shifted around. All the external locks have been changed. Currently hiring for hardware donations internship. 3 reviews coming up soonish; employee manual has been updated. The store is awesome. Technocrats have been shuffling meetings, may soon have volunteers helping out. ALSO: The Portland City Council unanimously passed a resolution to give their computers to us.

What kind of tracking will we have to do with the city computers?
It may be that we have to give all these computers away, and make sure they don't end up in the thrift store. This could be a big logistical challenge. The administrative rules have yet to be written, so there's some negotiation still to be done. In the interest of consistency, trying to make the process as similar as possible to our existing process will still be our best bet & a good priority in negotiations.

http://wiki.freegeek.org/index.php/State_of_the_Onion

Toronto

(Kathey) Good subway, and it was raining. The city was indeed clean.
FG Toronto is promising. There are great volunteers with good connections, but the organization needs more of a commitment to good communications. They arranged to have a training in nonviolent communication, but it hasn't worked out yet.

General Priorities

Group met last night, will meet every first Tuesday from now on. Space Cadets meetings are moved to the third Tuesday. They did some housecleaning; sent a message to the uninvolved on the email list. Got into the big picture discussion again; expect to have a set of suggestions to present for the next council meeting.
One upcoming priority is getting more staff time on the store floor.
Priorities group meetings are open to anyone who wants to participate.
http://wiki.freegeek.org/index.php/General_Priorities

BUSINESS

Council eligibility (NEW)

Community members are welcome to attend and participate in council
meetings, except as limited by our conflict of interest policy.
However, full council membership is required to block a proposal. Full
council membership is attained at a member's third consecutive
meeting, and can be lost if three consecutive meetings are missed.

Unexplained blocks are unacceptable; repeated blocks may be overruled
if the remainder of Council determines the member is merely being
obstructive.
    • Richard interested in limiting council participation to active volunteers (as determined by store discount policy). Requires a definition of participation.
    • Can we make a disclaimer that makes it clear to people that the facilitator will cut you off if you've demonstrated you're not informed? Kathey has seen some wording that may be useful to us.
    • Why would we want to have a rule about hours? If we're not confident our facilitator will be able to rein in discussions when they're derailed by people who are not prepared. A rule could be a good tool for an inexperienced facilitator.
    • We need a definition of who runs the organization such that the people who are making the decisions are the people effected by the decisions.
    • Kathey will look for wording on limiting participation, block limitations, etcetera to help us with defining what we want and discuss with laurel to bring a refined proposal to the council next month.
    • The "obstructive" terminology is worrying, lays us open to the tyranny of the majority.
    • Proposed change: change "community members" to "Free Geek volunteers, paid workers, and board members"

REMAINING COMMITMENTS

  • matteo - finish setting up a secure wiki for the building group - CARRYOVER
    • Jeff will pester matteo about getting that back to life.
  • Marie and Oso - talk to Dave about the numbers he made up about our value to the community - CARRYOVER
  • Seamus will talk to BAN and try to get process rolling - CARRYOVER
    • Ali is available to help out.
  • Oso will fill out conflict of interest form and share with the group - CARRYOVER.
  • Laurel will edit the stuff-to-do-before-meetings page - CARRYOVER
  • Vagrant will share feelings about the marketing/communication/outreach position with the hiring committee - CARRYOVER
  • Kathey will look for wording on limiting participation, block limitations, etcetera to help us with defining what we want and discuss with laurel to bring a refined proposal to the council next month.
  • Laurel will help Mary Kate with putting together a consensus training

Next Meeting

  • Facilitator: Oso
  • Scribe: Richard
  • Consensus training: Mary Kate
  • Date and time: 16 June 2008
  • Place: FG Meeting room
  • List of unfinished business for the next meeting:
    • Council eligibility/meeting participation
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