Reminder to all: We meet on Tuesday, February 13th at 8 am NYC -time/1200UTC. Same location via Meet.Coop: https://socialcoop.meet.coop/kat-aiw-mpv-6vv

And, as a reference, here are the official definitions of cooperatives, our values, our principles (source: ICA) https://www.ica.coop/en/whats-co-op/co-operative-identity-values-principles

TOPIC: MEETING RULES/COVENANTS AND S.C CODE OF CONDUCT

I'd like us to adopt and recommit to a Meeting Rules or Covenant. This topic may not need to be discussed at our next meeting, but I hope we can adopt one within a few months. My ask for you, my fellow OC members, at this time is to read the Code of Conduct for Social.Coop Members (v3.1): https://wiki.social.coop/wiki/Code_of_conduct

I envision that, in the future, we might share our meeting covenant at every meeting and include it with our meeting minutes. I appreciate everyone's goodwill; yet, specific guidance is helpful too. My thinking is that we might write one for our own meetings based on the Code of Conduct above.

Below is a meeting covenant for one of my groups. I love its simplicity. Maybe someone has another example.

Meeting Covenant Example

1. Move up/Move back. (try to speak up if you normally don’t, or listen more if you normally talk)

2. Assume good intentions.

3. Listen actively. (don’t be quick to rebut or question)

4. We do not need to repeat when we agree, but can do more to show agreement like snaps, ASL signs, vocalizing, etc.

5. We all keep time together as a group.

6. Embrace new people

7. Like an idea if only for a nanosecond

8. We will evolve the covenant as we need to.

Can someone

•  

  create a wiki page for this group and copy our "Meetings for this circle will..." as our first policy decision?

Greetings all! We had a great first meeting of the Organizing Circle. We recognizing that we have a very broad mandate as social.coop is starting to grow into a larger organization. Pressing needs that were identified were: formalizing governance documentation for both social.coop and this circle specifically, increasing visibility of working being done already, ongoing refinement of tech stack to support processes and engagement, and budgeting clarity/priorities.

Meetings for this circle will: create a Loomio thread for each meeting with a proposed agenda and link to the meeting room on meet.coop, take live notes in the meeting room and post those notes to the meeting thread, use wiki to document policy decisions, and post a recap on the meeting thread with major decisions/discussion points. There is a three month term decision (revisit March 2024) Informally (not consented to formally) we will also post an informal recap to Mastodon to increase work visibility, and create an event on the NextCloud calendar for this call.

Our next meeting is in two weeks at 1300 UTC 30 January 2024.

Notes from our first meeting at 2024 January 16 1200UTC

Recording: https://bbb.de.meet.coop/presentation/9977760a2103164c3aae50111805f343809d01aa-1705405842346/meeting.mp4

Who is here:

•     Kathe Todd-Brown (social.coop/@ktoddbrown)

  • Studied climate change, university professor!

  • Interested in collaborative resources.

  • Pandemic hobby was: how to run better meetings.

•  Marie Van Cranenbroeck

• (social.coop/@MarieVC)

• Belgian based in Luxembourg.

  • Background in communications and internet research.

  • Part of citizen assembly in LUX in 2022; reinforced her interests in coop governance

  • Member of a CSA (Terra Coop)

•  John Allsopp (social.coop/amonle)

  • Achitect and coop game builder

•  Eduardo Mercovich (social.coop/edumerco)

  • Born and lives in Buenos Aires

  • Studied Biology; started working in the world of ideas (how to think and work with information and knowledge) with a focus on usability.

  • More interested in cooperation every day.

  • Part of an intentional community called 'confluencia'. Three pillars: NV communication, permaculture, sociocracy. Got their own land only three months ago! Got an internet connection there just yesterday.

• Matt Noyes ([email protected])

  • So great to see everybody!

  • Based in Colorado Springs.

  • Disco.coop (sp?) categories: (livelihood, care, and love work) do lots of love and care work, love them all.

  • geo.coop

  • Active in social.coop operations staff for a few years.

  • Does writing and editing about coops and solidarity economy.

• Caitlin Waddick ([email protected]) 

  • Lives in Vermont, currently in Atlanta.

  • Wear a bunch of hats -- recovering academic. Thought for a while wanted to be affordable housing expert.

  • Became an expert in pollutants, city planning, env planning.

  • Part of a real estate coop, solidarity investing coop.

  • Three kids in college this year!

  • TWIN network (water rights related). Researching river deltas.

Flancian (social.coop/@flancian) (MarieVC: Sorry, I just understood that it was my turn to takes notes, I would be happy to have some help ;) Agenda 

• 1200 UTC [15 min] Introduction

• 1215 [10 min] Agenda review, revision, and consent.

  • Kathe: Understanding and sense-making is a focus today. We'll begin by exploring how we got here; and which practices we could adopt.

  • Do we want to record these meetings?

    • No objections from anyone

    • But we want to be mindful of how 1. it could affect the meeting and 2. it could affect meet.coop resources wise.

    • Any objections to not recording?

      • [flancian] not an objection, but would recommend recording by default and then sharing optionally.

      • [eduardo mercovich] do not object but elsewhere we record by default. Interesting point about the resource usage; we could record a quick recap only.

    • Kathe: proposal is to record this meeting by default. All in favour?

      • Yes.

      • Kathe: hitting recording button.

      • Timestamp: 2024-01-16 12:25 UTC.

• 1220 [20 min] Explore - What is our mandate from social.coop

  • https://www.loomio.com/p/OI8kEjVz/social-coop-organizing-circle-proposal

  • This proposal started a while ago.

  • A year ago there was a significant influx of members, Community WG was doing a lot of strategic lift, added with new moderating load. => needed more bandwidth!

    • Are there other services that we want to provide? Mastodon instance + meet.coop

    • How do we want to deal with other organizations?

    • Possible future issue: if we want to formalize as a cooperative we need to have a structure that could map to legal structures

    • Main point of tention in discussion thread -> informal and decentralized as possible vs centralized model for decision making

      • This group organizing the conversations NOT a traditional board concept.

    • Link to OC Proposal: https://www.loomio.com/p/OI8kEjVz/social-coop-organizing-circle-proposal

    • Kathe: call for questions/comments.

      • Marie: would like to represent people who would like to get more involved but do not currently have a voice/know what to ask.

      • Eduardo Mercovich: to check -- this is very much like the general circle in sociocracy?

        • Kathe: the GC in sociocracy is empowered to make decisions; but Matt is mentioning more a task to organize conversations and connect within social.coop. It seems like a different scope.

        • EM: a GC shouldn't take any operational decision as that should be in scope of (specific?) circles. But it can take decisions like creating a circle in the first place; and it organizes the flow of information. Even if it's not an exact match there seems to be high overlap -- would like to understand the differences so I don't subconsciously bring the whole paradigm in.

        • Matt: it's loosely based on the sociocracy structure, and indeed we have several members here seeded from current working groups ('circles'). Would probably lean more towards organizing votes and conversations (versus making decisions).

        • Caitlin: one of the values of coops is member engagement. When coops are doing well they tend to do this well. Happy to see this here.

        • John: there seems to be quite a lot already in the original proposal for this organizing proposal. Would love to see more exploration of what's already been outlined. Also interested in putting together a simpler (simplistic?) picture of how governance takes place in social.coop and where the organizing circle fits in it.

        • Kathe: currently training in sociocracy, so have a bias :) A worry with direct member governance currently is that it's difficult to get general coop membership to engage in sufficient depth with some topics being voted on. Defining terms here and then surfacing them as proposals seems promising.

        • Eduardo Mercovich: in Argentina all public schools are associated with cooperatives; it is required. Both kids attended schools where the cooperatives were run by very few dedicated people that eventually got burnt out. One positive experience in one of the coops: started by communicating everything that was being done. Many people didn't know all the work that was taking place in the background.

        • Kathe: transparency as a core value.

        • flancian@: on how the tech stack can support these values and innovation in governance. Happy to explore these threads.

        • Matt: one thing that wasn't in the agenda but we could cover -- budgets for working groups/circles. We already have budgets for TWG and CWG; this group would need to decide on stipends, recurring budgets, etc.

        • Eduardo Mercovich: regarding transparency -- is our budget public? Is it all in Open Collective? Can everything be seen/is it public?

          • This is an example of something that probably exists but most people don't know about it.

          • Kathe: e.g. issuing annual reports summarizing budgets.

            • This could be an item for the FWG.

            • FYI, Caitlin: Finance/Budgeting: https://www.loomio.com/d/n1TbwozE/toward-an-annual-budget

• 1240 [30 min] Explore - What tools are we going to use? What do we want a typical meeting to look like? What policies do we need?

  • Kathe: let's move

  • Eduardo (flancian@): on our tech stack and open topics.

    • https://anagora.org/social-coop-tech-group aggregates links we use in the TWG; and our meetings notes.

    • https://anagora.org/twg-2024 contains our current (draft) 2024 roadmap.

    • Open questions of interest that might interact with other WGs/the wider community:

      • Services

        • Which other services we would like to provide?

        • Migration of the main instance to Single Sign On (like wiki.social.coop currently uses)

        • Wiki (in need of updates -- could it be a communication platform?)

      • Governance

        • Fedipact - federating with Threads, community is split

        • Authorized fetch

        • Loomio and the future - how can we condense instances of different tech and make things better integrated

  • Kathe: moving on to Matt and then Caitlin.

    • Matt: (populated tech stack notes below).

    • Matt: different working groups use different tools; over here a bigger fan of Loomio than Flancian :D Consolidating / simplifying sounds like a good idea though, as finding things becomes a large overhead for the community.

      • Maybe for certain things we do want to use something other than Loomio; (or we want to synthesize information for the community?)

    • Caitlin: lots of good things going on; simplification, transparency seems needed for member engagement.

    • John: Tools what folks feel comfortable using, right now there is a huge diversity. How much harmonization do we want? It sort of works now. Loomio is VERY common to goverannce decisions in other coop spaces.

    • Eduardo: Do we have explicit criteria for selecting tech services/tools? May need to be developed and make criteria explicit. Also need clearer member onboarding process. 

    • Marie: Wiki as an entrance tool for social.coop -> could be our map! Need to describe role and document for sustainability of processes

    • Involvement statistics from Caitlin

      • 1500 Mastodon accounts

      • 450 active members on the Mastodon

      • Active on Loomio → 300+ participants 

      • Open collective contributors: 

  • Proposal: "Stream" Loomio for meeting agendas and notes; meet.coop for meetings; "Garden" wiki for policy and recap with cross link to Loomio (https://hapgood.us/2015/10/17/the-garden-and-the-stream-a-technopastoral/); Post recaps to Mastodon (with human touch to connect folks to organization) - revisit this in 3 months

  • Regular posts on Mastodon about the work that is being done, not formal but with more human touch. 

• 1310 [5 min] Backlog create and next meeting

  • Matt: on budget for this circle and others. https://opencollective.com/socialcoop (expenses and income are public)

    • Caitlin: Finance/Budgeting: https://www.loomio.com/d/n1TbwozE/toward-an-annual-budget

    • Social.Coop overall is underbudgeted by thousands of dollars/pounds. Our budget right now is simple because we aren't spending money. 

  • Governance document - both at coop and circle level

  • Tech stack critera and decision (remember tech stack support processes and goverance not the other way around)

  • Calendar via MayFirst/NextCloud, can we come up with a regular meeting time?

  • Increase budget visability and visibulity of work - Look book like report(?) annual or semi-annual but might not be sufficent

  • every other week/1300 UTC revisit aftter 3 months (March)

• 1315 [10 min] How did this go? What worked well and what needs to be improved?

  • Worked well great to have different approaches enriching the dialog.

  • Amazing group of people!

  • Rounds are great! Good to be sure to hear from everyone

  • Feels very warm and welcoming

  • Good pacing, great agenda!

ToDo

• NextCloud calendar post - Caitlin (w/ back up from Eduardo)

• Post shared notes to Loomio thread - Kathe

• Write up recap and post notes for Loomio - Kathe

• Personal recap for Mastodon - Caitlin and everyone boosts 

• Post link to recording to Loomio thread - Kathe

Current Tech Stack, Eduardo (Flancian):

•     Loomio* (decision-making, scheduling)

•     Matrix chat (used mostly by tech working group)

•     Mastodon (dms, announcements, moderation)

•     Git.coop* (registration, code, used by tech and community working groups)

•     Wiki: https://wiki.social.coop/wiki/Platforms (code of conduct, bylaws, basic info about SC)

•     Meet.coop* (all members can have acccounts, used for SC business; we also have access to Jitsi via MayFirst)

•     Nextcloud: calendar, shared files (hosted on MayFirst*) [cwg still has files on google]

•     Open Collective (an open finances platform for communities, used for all expenses/income on SC) 

• Platform 6* has been our fiscal sponsor; they are merging with another cooperative: Innovation.Coop (clean transition expected) 

• MayFirst Movement Technology (linked to above tools, providing email, NextCloud, Jitsi): https://mayfirst.coop/en/

* = cooperatives

@Flancian We'll miss you and be sure to send out a recap at the end!

@Kathe TB hi all! thank you for setting this up, looking forward!

I can only make the first hour as there is a work meeting I can't really skip (it has to do with my participation in the employee representation group).

Great, see you all in https://socialcoop.meet.coop/kat-aiw-mpv-6vv tomorrow. :)

Best...

15 ene. 2024 13:35:14 Kathe TB (via Loomio) :

> 
> > [https://www.loomio.com/rails/active_storage/representations/redirect/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsibWVzc2FnZSI6IkJBaHBBN1ZVRUE9PSIsImV4cCI6bnVsbCwicHVyIjoiYmxvYl9pZCJ9fQ==--f4137bb3fcb63c1fd913185ff5fd7c68a8bc54f1/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsibWVzc2FnZSI6IkJBaDdDRG9MWm05eWJXRjBTU0lKYW5CbFp3WTZCa1ZVT2hSeVpYTnBlbVZmZEc5ZmJHbHRhWFJiQjJrQmdHa0JnRG9LYzJGMlpYSjdCem9NY1hWaGJHbDBlV2xWT2dwemRISnBjRlE9IiwiZXhwIjpudWxsLCJwdXIiOiJ2YXJpYXRpb24ifX0=--e579049eb7f20fc1070cc24f3215f2949d184302/AEdFTp5rc3UlLKVoo7nb_lGbyFASiWKNp4-IBMXIG8Zutg=s96-c][KT][https://www.loomio.com/rails/active_storage/representations/redirect/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsibWVzc2FnZSI6IkJBaHBBN1ZVRUE9PSIsImV4cCI6bnVsbCwicHVyIjoiYmxvYl9pZCJ9fQ==--f4137bb3fcb63c1fd913185ff5fd7c68a8bc54f1/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsibWVzc2FnZSI6IkJBaDdDRG9MWm05eWJXRjBTU0lKYW5CbFp3WTZCa1ZVT2hSeVpYTnBlbVZmZEc5ZmJHbHRhWFJiQjJrQmdHa0JnRG9LYzJGMlpYSjdCem9NY1hWaGJHbDBlV2xWT2dwemRISnBjRlE9IiwiZXhwIjpudWxsLCJwdXIiOiJ2YXJpYXRpb24ifX0=--e579049eb7f20fc1070cc24f3215f2949d184302/AEdFTp5rc3UlLKVoo7nb_lGbyFASiWKNp4-IBMXIG8Zutg=s96-c]
>
> Kathe TB comentó en: OC Meetings Thread (when and how to > meet)[https://www.loomio.com/d/iobhRrMZ/comment/3040644?utm_campaign=new_comment&utm_medium=email]
>
>
>
> I couldn't quite figure out Jisti so I went ahead and set up a room on > meet.coop[http://meet.coop] > https://socialcoop.meet.coop/kat-aiw-mpv-6vv I'll breadcrumb the other > thread but hopefully I'll see everyone there at 1200 UTC 16 January!
>
>
> Enlaces
>
> meet.coop - The Online Meeting Cooperative[http://meet.coop/]
>
> Online meeting and conferencing tools, powered by renewable energy > running on cooperatively owned and managed infrastructure.
>
> —
> Responde a este correo electrónico directamente o velo en > Loomio[https://www.loomio.com/d/iobhRrMZ/comment/3040644?utm_campaign=new_comment&utm_medium=email].
>
> > [https://www.loomio.com/brand/logo_gold_48h.png][Logo][https://www.loomio.com/brand/logo_gold_48h.png]

I couldn't quite figure out Jisti so I went ahead and set up a room on meet.coop https://socialcoop.meet.coop/kat-aiw-mpv-6vv I'll breadcrumb the other thread but hopefully I'll see everyone there at 1200 UTC 16 January!