This is a discussion around how open we want to be with this forum. These decisions can change and evolve over time.

Currently, Paul and I are admin which means that only we can invite people to join the group. This is how we have set it up initially just while people are getting their heads around what loomio is.

I quite like the idea of full transparency. Perhaps we could have a system where people become admin once they are fully engaged with and using the tool?

I think that being admin should come with the responsibility for introducing people that you bring onto the loomio team in a thorough way so that they know how to engage with the tool.

I think at the very least eventually all co-ordinators nationally should be admins.

I'm definitely for transparency but timebanks are high trust networks where people are exchanging personal information in exchanges. We have to be careful that the security of community weaver is reflected in loomio so people can feel safe coming on board.

Believe strongly in bottom up and full transparency, think its really important that all TBs are engaged, feel valued and have ownership of the "national journey."
Definately no techo (but will get better with time), with all rights should come responsibility so all good with the mentoring.

This touches on the issue of what is "all" Timebanks. Is it just TB's on CW2 or does it include any group who says they are for Timebanking who has their own principles and different software? So I am in favour of some level of monitoring and moderation. Becoming admin after a person is fully engaged and using the tool and restricting to just coordinators of TB on CW2 would be comfortable for me. Observing what has happened on our TBANZ forum where anyone with any vague interest or beliefs about what timebanking is or isn't can have input is a good example. Maintaining the feeling that its safe to say whatever I think and feel and knowing that will stay within this group is important to me. Also that changing my mind based on what others say is also encouraged. I think also its a good way to see and hear all sides of the argument before accepting proposal.

The what is "all" Timebanks is really a tough one, I don't want to limit it to just CW2 because community weaver is just a tool and Timebanks are (in my opinion) the philosophy in practice.

I am actually quite interested in the alternative approaches to timebanking and I want to engage in those conversations but that might need it's own space within loomio

One thing is we do have "subgroups" in Loomio, so each local timebank could be a subgroup within the TBANZ loomio group.

From there the answer is simpler because... each timebank can nominate their own admins and a decision can be made from there? Flips the problem into a bottom-up instead of top-down approach.

@Paul
Let's keep in mind that Tbs are primarily F2F networks, where the active people will see each other through time trading, social events, committee meetings etc. I think a Loom.io sub-group for each local TB might be overkill.

It's country level at which decision-making has been a challenge, not so much the local, and I think what would be more useful is Loom.io sub-groups on things like; tech, funding, Tbing guidelines, hui etc

I agree that loomio shouldn't take away from the F2F aspect of timebanking. That is essential.

However, I have been thinking about governance structures for the Wellington Timebank recently and loomio is potentially a great tool for more collective decision making within a broader network of members. At the moment we have a steering committee that meets monthly (8 of us) but I feel like we would more adequately represent the TB membership if they were more engaged in the decision making processes at the governance level. Loomio provides a forum where they can participate in decision making without having to commit to being part of a steering committee.

Yeah I don't think loomio even could replace the F2F side of timebanking.

The idea behind wanting Taranaki Timebank on loomio specifically is we want the timebank itself to be owned and run by the members, not just a subset of co-ordinators. This would shift ownership to the community, give co-ordinators more time to do the things they signed up for and help our timebank become self sufficient.

It might mean that Taranaki Timebank on Loomio is best as a main group on it's own but I like the idea of it being a part of the wider national group.

Having said that we could still have subgroups for tech, funding, guidelines at the national level as well?

Returning to the starting topic of this thread...

I think we need to invite as many people involved in TB around the country as we can, otherwise there's a risk we are seen as setting up an undemocratic secret government for TBANZ.

I think that being admin should come with the responsibility for introducing people that you bring onto the loomio team in a thorough way so that they know how to engage with the tool. <<

That assumes that we all know how to engage with the tool ;) So far, this group is using Loom.io like a forum, with rambling discussions on very broad topics. That's useful, but what Loomio iss really intended for IMHO is to hold discussion on very specific topics, with the goal of coming up with a proposal, and making a decision. To illustrate that, I'm going to make a proposal on this thread.

What usually happens next in Loomio dev discussions is that a friendly debate ensues about the pros and cons of the proposal, and people take positions using the pie chart tool. As the debate goes on, positions change, and either
a) the proposal is accepted, or
b) the proposal is closed, and a modified proposal is put up to reflect the issues which have come up during discussion

I agree with the proposal and think that people invited to be an admin would have to accept training (via skype etc) before being made an admin.

I agree but I think we need to be careful about growth rates.

I think it's a good time to start bringing more people, one representative from each timebank would be a good start but making everyone admins has the potential to explode member numbers.

There's only 2 reasons for limiting growth:

First is that Hannah and I have agreed to handle all Timebank Loomio support and feedback.

As the people we bring on get more confident the support and feedback can be spread across more people, I think one representative from each timebank would be excellent for that.

The second is that the loomio organisation has asked us to keep the group small for now, development is progressing rapidly so this won't be a constraint for long.

If the consensus is that we need an admin from every group we can just talk to the loomio guys and explain that the group reached a consensus that we need more members.

Could people agree to this proposal with the following addition:

Short term, I propose that every active TB group be invited to nominate a delegate, who will be added as a member of this Loomio group. This person will be responsible for reporting on the discussions and proposals here to their local membership, and bringing back feedback from them into the discussions and proposals here.

@Strypey that really sounds ideal to me, I think it's a great next step in integrating timebanks with Loomio.

No brainer for me, let's do it!

Fantatic, love this, could someone with admin access please amend my email to read b.mchugo@gmail.com as I have to log in with bmchugo@gmail.com and I think that is the reason that I am not getting email notifications?

I agree with the proposal that each TB be "invited" to nominate a person to be a member. Bearing in mind many TB will be too busy building their TB and may have no interest in joining yet another group with yet another log on. My understanding from the discussion below is they would not all be made admins until Paul & Hannah advise that Loomio can handle that. Could Paul or Hannah detail what would be needed for "a thorough process for inducting people into loomio"? Could a little simple instruction list be created as a guide on how the best, the tool could be used. Strypey suggests we are using this as rambling discussions and gives examples of a better way to use it. Could those of you who know how to use the tool agree on a guidline list and post it on the main page to keep all the newbies like me on track and so its visible for each new person that logs on?

Thanks Ben, your e-mail should now be changed and I've added "changing e-mails" to the TODO list.

Instructions is a great idea. Paul - perhaps you and I could start a google doc and make this together?

There was a feature put out recently that actually bundled instructions into each page for a new user. They should have come up as blue boxes up the top.

I think an instructions/cheat sheet google doc would be excellent. It might be worth running it through the other loominions too as if we can put it together using screenshots and the notes they've added in it could be a valuable resource for the whole team.

Sorry, ignore that last proposal. I was trialing something!

i think the real question is whether we allow any given timebank to have more than one member on the loomio .. which I think is essential.. sure invite at least one member from each timebank but I feel we are mature enough to allow those who are interested to be on here..

I'm not sure that the argument that we are still learning is enough of a case for limiting membership of this loomio IMHO. If we just let everyone who joins know that its still in process, and dont advertise too aggresively I dont think you'll be overwhlemed with too many people on here.

I was trying to comment on Strypeys proposal "At least one person from each TB in Aotearoa is made a member.." but it seems to be redirecting here. Confusion

For me the need for it to grow slowly comes down to time, I personally can handle support for maybe 20 people at a time because I want to do it well so that the process is all smooth haha.

I ammm however finding myself swayed by the need to bring in more people short term especially those interested in Loomio.

What is an appropriate next step? Is everyone keen to help out with the support side of things in bringing people in?

I'd put up a proposal but I'm really not sure what it would be.

I think having one person from each TB minimum would be good to make the discussions and proposals at least somewhat representative. However, If we using this tool to find consensus, rather than make majority-vote decisions, it doesn't matter how many extra people from each TB come on board.

I agree that it would be good to create some tips on how to get the best out of the tool, both for TBers on Loomio, and for other Loomio users, and as feedback for the development team. I would not support obliging people to earn some kind of qualification which none of us had to earn, just to participate.

I don't think anyone needs any kind of qualification to help bring users on board, it's pretty easy but it does take about 5 minutes per person.

So whoever has time to help out in order to grow the group is going to increase the number of people we can bring on.

The one person per group was just an idea Strypey put forward that the group agreed on... So we took it to the Skype call to bring in one person per group for now.

I feel like I'm over complicating this, maybe the easiest thing to do would be to open a google doc and start listing names/timebanks/numbers etc. Then make an informed decision as to how many people we can bring in right now?

Hi! I have written to a few folk involved in the Lyttelton Timebank and also Margaret Jefferies who started this whole thing to see if they want to be part of this. When I hear from them, I will add their details to the Google Doc. Thanks Paul for doing this, you are making the world a better place!

Good initiative Paul, thanks for that.

Might need to post this doc in the skype IM group so we can get people in from the timebanks who currently don't have any access.

Just noting that it felt to me that this particularly proposal went to 'closed' a bit abruptly, specifically before I had had a a chance to vote.

I wouldn't make this comment other than because I believe we're all hoping to learn from this and refine the experience of using loom.io as more people come on board.

Do we want to have an agreement or (maybe even) a rule enforced by the software as to how many people must have voted before a proposal becomes 'closed'.

Also is there a way to distinguish 'closed' because of lack of interest or no longer relevant from 'closed' in the sense of 'decision made, done, and dusted, time to move on to the next thing' ?

Not to mention, that because of the google doc this proposal isn't really 'closed'. I don't even know what people voting 'yes' on this one really means, btw.

Ah the proposals have a time limit when you put them up, I'd set it to 3 days I think because following on from the last proposal it seemed getting people in was time sensitive.

Definitely refining the process as we go, the thing is anyone can open or create a proposal so I think best practice here would be to repost if there's a feeling that it wasn't open long enough or needed changes.

Maybe for this group specifically it would be better practice to agree on a percent engagement or a better time frame? There's a certain amount of us having to figure out what works for us and I'm just trying to get the ball rolling. This seems like an excellent topic for discussion on it's own.

The distinguishing between closed due to time vs closed due to decision made is in the works, along with a context panel (editable by whole group) up the top of the page to summarise where the discussion is at overall.

As for the topic at hand, what's missing if we agree to use that google document to collect data on who's interested? Or what's some alternate ideas/solutions/etc?

Is it possible to re-open or extend a proposal? That would be a good button to have, at least for the proposer, and maybe even for the whole group.

Miles, If things close due to lack of interest, you can see that from how many people took a position. The comment thread is a good indication of how much interest there is too, and whether there is actually consensus. I can see how this could be too vague for an group with formal decision-making powers in an organisation though. In that case I would suggest having a rule that a closed proposal with fewer than x positions taken is not a 'decision made'.

I'm thinking my proposal probably wasn't the best use of the proposal space anyway, that whole thing could have probably just been a discussion and it would have been more effective.

I'm really liking the idea of requiring x% engagement for a consensus here.

So far there's been 8 people who've put their names in the document:

Robyn Mourie Otaki
Rosemarie Smith Hokonui
Michelle Jones Whangarei (not up yet)
Jen Kenix Lytelton (jenkenix@gmail.com) Lisa can induct
Sarah Rogers Hutt South

Next step
Roger Henderson Hutt South
Norman Wilkins Hutt South
Claire Chateau Whangarei

I'm leaning towards just inviting them all as it's still a small group really. Thoughts?

in reply to Paul's comment below (some time ago) I say yeah invite them all still not that many

I think we should invite more people ASAP, and another person to add if his name is not already on the list, is Richard Brown from http://www.time-exchange.org.nz/

I don't think it's compulsory to achieve our goal of a rep from each TB until there is a formal consensus at the Raglan hui to adopt Loomio as a formal decision-making forum for TBANZ (if indeed that happens). Let's keep trying though. It's good to be inclusive :)

@Paul
Ae, just making super sure, and modelling good clear proposal authoring ;)

Have the people on the list now been invited? Is there anything we need to do to help them get to grips with the tool?