Loomio

Organizing Circle Meeting: 2025 December 4 (1500 UTC)

CWF Caitlin Waddick, FWG/OC Thu 4 Dec 2025 4:14PM Public Seen by 5

Social.Coop Organizing Circle

4 December 2025

Attendees: Eduardo Mercovich, Dan Phiffer, Melissa Santos, Caitlin Waddick , Flancian

Recap of last time?

  • No recap done.

Kanban view

https://share.mayfirst.org/apps/deck/board/1128

Agenda and Meeting Notes

- Checkins: several of us are exhausted, sleepless, tired, but the mood is good!

- Working Group updates

  • FWG update: Community Contributions/participatory budgeting exercise complete!

    • -- proposed celebration: Let's celebrate by make an announcement that it is done. "We are doing good work in our community." "Thank you for everyone for being part of it."

    • -- Wondering: how many of the contributions have been implemented/paid out and what's pending... ask FWG on Zulip finance channel

    • - Some payments are already posted here: https://opencollective.com/socialcoop/transactions?kind=EXPENSE (Debian, ORG, Mastodon, EFF, Framasoft, Co-Op Cloud, Bonfire, IFTAS)

    • FWG meeting: we have meeting next week, with prospective new members, expected Dec. 10/11th

  • -- CWG updates: is doing fine... not many people are showing up to meetings. Melissa is holding the group together. Onboarding "Silver" who attended Hackathon planning.

  • -- TWG updates: character limit is on their long running agenda ... near term, maintenance task on Dec 5th to increase the disk capacity - up to 2 hour outage tomorrow. New disks will amount to ~20USD/mo extra recurrent.

  • -- TWG would like to have a stipend budget. What is reasonable to pay their members? Answer: TWG already has an annual stipend budget of $1000 GBP that has been unspent for the past few years. The stipend budget is determined by the request of the working groups to FWG/OC. Then, the working groups can determine how to spend it on their own for their own stipends, with the option to not accept a stipend. Reasonable stipends per person to request might be in the range of 200-500 GBP. If Working Groups/OC want to pay a higher stipend to a member, there is goodwill and money available to meet specific asks and requests.  Working groups also determine their budgets for other initiatives. Ideally, according to the bylaws, these line items are approved by the OC at the beginning of the year... for example, the new OC can approve the proposed 2026 Budget.

- OC/FWG: Sense check post to Loomio about Social Coop budget for 2026  https://www.loomio.com/p/EYwd7onD/help-social-coop-make-sense-of-the-proposed-2026-budget-what-can-we-do-together-

[This sense-check is a task item from Oct 23rd OC meeting: https://www.loomio.com/d/4yPdSMjK/organizing-circle-meeting-2025-october-23-1500-utc-]

   -- Caitlin will post an Announcement on S.C directing to the post for participation

   -- agreement from everyone present that the post is good work.

- Hackathon this Saturday, Dec. 6th

  • Eduardo: collaborate and other organizations can benefit.

  • proposal: open-space organization of the time and people to allow self-organizing break-out groups ... Jitsi... some specific and some vague tasks ... how do we get listed on Join Mastadon.org ... co-horts for onboarding so we can guide/mentor new people ... The registration form submission has issues; maybe someone from Tech WG can look at it. Melissa and Dan discussed the "jay-san." json. <giggle>  Remove the Captcha...  Invitations https://luma.com/7cd4ttb7 on Social.Coop server announcements.

  • -- Good plan for Saturday Everyone is welcome.

Onboarding

  • - We have chosen 2 new people who are coming in, chosen through the process. We have an opening for a 3rd person who hasn't been chosen. OC can appoint this position, according to a past OC decision, though it may not be in bylaws.

  • - Decision is not to make a decision about how and when to appoint a 3rd member. In the meanwhile, Eduardo M will serve for a few months longer in 2026.

  • Goodbyes to Kathe, Marie, and, after 3-6 months, Eduardo M.

  • - Kathe to reach out to the 2 new OC members

  • Transition period: proposed overlap month in January ... At least one shared meeting including incoming and outgoing members...

  • -- two-year terms for OC at-large members... to create stability -- each year, somebody enters and somebody leaves ... So the terms should be on different cycles, ending in different years.

  • We are ending our first 2-year period.

  • -- reps from Working Groups also will rotate. Caitlin will like to rotate off the OC, and need for a new FWG  rep to step up. Andrew  might step down from FWG. Kathe might join the FWG. Flan might rotate off the OC as the TWG rep.

-- Proposed: Shared calendar to track when people onboard/off-board. Problem occurs when we don't update the calendar.

-- Proposed: Each new onboarding member will get a mentor from someone staying on the OC. informal agreement.

  • Offboard OC members: how do we say "goodbye and good riddance"? JK. How do we honor their work?  Ideas: Some kind of public post thanking them by mentioning their contributions. A budget to send them a gift. Put in the Kanban: recognizing outgoing members, welcoming new members. And, we trouble-shot permissions on the Kanban.

  • Check-Outs

Excited for Saturday's Hackathon.

Happy to be here.

Thanks everyone for being here.

Good energy to continue the work day.

Onboarding/offboarding will go just fine.