Event:2014/07/22 Governance Meeting

=Details=
 * 7pm at Omni (ballroom)

=Notes= Facilitator: Sarah

Notes: Jenny/you?

Attendees: Sarah, Ahnon, Jenny, Elizabeth, Olive, Brie, Mara, Matt, Niki, Matt

Agenda

 * Use policy/schedule for common shared space
 * Revisit revised bylaws
 * Working groups: What is their function, scope, etc?
 * Decision making model: Consensus? Modified consensus?
 * Safe space and conflict resolution policies
 * Membership: What are the requirements for groups in the Omni?

Working Groups

 * Existing Groups: Communications, Governance, Challenging Dominant Culture, Finances (not really), Building Maintenance (tomake), Common Space (tomake)
 * Problems we've observed:
 * Bottom Liners not bottom-lining
 * Niki: Maybe remove bottom-liners and just schedule the meetup times?
 * Person can delegate new point person if they aren’t going to be around
 * Check-ins at main meeting
 * Each group should have someone checkin
 * The same people are in all the working groups.
 * Sarah: Maybe this is worked out in defining what is required of Member Groups
 * Olive: Channels that are available for communication are not super productive for harnessing energy that's here for the project
 * Matt: Maybe instead of focusing on meetings and email list, have white boards, etc that make it really clear what is needed as an appeal to the community.
 * small bite-sized chunks of work that has been agreed on and is clear
 * Part of the issue w/non-participation is that there's not been an opportunity for new people to step up into leadership roles. We should be more explicit about who should be bottom-liners / requesting volunteers to bottom-line working groups.
 * Patrick: do we have a place where sensitive information can be stored?
 * DK: Suggested setting up a separate wiki
 * Elizabeth: Maybe it would be good for people currently bottom lining working groups to relinquish their roles as request new bottom liners
 * Sarah: Concern with there being too many meetings, maybe members of working groups can determine how they meet.
 * Solutions!
 * More work parties and fewer meetings!
 * Whiteboards throughout the Omni
 * Contact info to point people in prominent locations
 * Prominent ToDo list / kiosk
 * Tiered by accessibility (how much is needed to know to complete the task)
 * Project management tools available at terminals (with printing stations)
 * Alternatives to incumbent working group meeting schedule (eg; working totally online, meeting monthly rather than weekly)
 * Fold Building Maintenance into Space Ops
 * More authority to the working groups!
 * Maybe more small groups should meet during the meeting
 * Matt: "If you chop up a potato in small pieces you can cook it faster" * Start with a breakout session of all of the working groups
 * Is there a requirement for member-group participation in working groups?
 * How much autonomy do working groups have?
 * Assume all happens in working groups
 * What happens in the general meeting?
 * If a working group is unsure whether or not something should be brought to the general meeting, then they should bring it!
 * Small working group budget?

Proposal

 * What things cannot be done in working groups?
 * Eg; Talking with city officials?
 * Meeting format
 * Start with a breakout session of all the working groups from 7-8
 * More informal, checkin and update the group with what you've been working on / concerned with and set agenda this way, then breakout to smaller groups/pairs to complete tasks
 * Delegate meeting from 8-9

Safe Space

 * Omni has provisionally adopted sudo's conflict resolution policy
 * https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Articles_of_Association#Section_3.2_Conflict_Resolution
 * Safe Space policy is largely adopted by the Geek Feminism community and lives here: http://wiki.omni-oakland.org/w/Safe_Space_Policy
 * Tacit agreement that groups would respect other groups bans
 * Can adopt 'template' policies from the Omni
 * What about conflict _between_ different groups? Policy should be Omni-wide
 * Patrik suggests an 'Opt Out' possibility
 * Matt thinks this is problematic
 * Individual collectives should make such choices themselves as much as possible - "Assume good faith"
 * Ahnon: This gets back to the problem of member-groups that are only say, 2 or 3 people (who could pass bans based on personal grudges rather than process)
 * Tiers of 1) access to the individual space and 2) access to the building
 * Post Code of Conduct prominently in the space
 * Who can people turn to in an emergency situation?
 * Knowing how to de-escalate a conflict is important, we should have a skillshare
 * Problem: What about conflict between people in two different groups attempting to ban each other?
 * Can group A ban a member of group B, with no reason given and no appeal possible?!
 * Trust in the process
 * Need to have conflict resolution process that involved *both* groups in that case
 * Perhaps an added tier: between conflicting parties & mediators --> to the member-group involved -> to the omni at large
 * Some folks who can volunteer as Conflict Stewards (maybe who've gone through mediation / facilitation training) would

Proposal

 * Safe Space Policy / Code of Conduct to be adopted by all groups
 * Ban reciprocity: Bans made by one group are respected by all other groups unless the ban pertains only to the member-group in question, though any banee can be
 * Groups can ban their own members, and that should be respected by the other groups (not Omni-wide necessarily)
 * Conflict Resolution process defined by each group independently, though those who don't want to do this work can adopt the omni conflict resolution template
 * Tiers of conflict resolution: 1) between Steward / Mediator / Involved parties, 2) Within the member-group in question, 3)
 * In the case of conflicts between groups or those unaffiliated, those conflicts follow the Omni's conflict resolution policy

=Action Items=
 * Post call for working group bottom-liners and protocol from the wiki to the mailing list: http://wiki.omni-oakland.org/w/Working_Groups#Working_Group_Protocols (Jenny)
 * Set up kiosk w/ some project management thingy (eg Asana; do.omni; github; jira; slack)
 * Find out who's bottom-lining all of these working groups and checkins! (Niki)
 * Propose new meeting format on Thursday (Jenny)
 * Safe Space / Conflict Resolution proposal for delegates consensus

=Thursday=
 * New meeting format proposal
 * Consense on safe space / conflict resolution policy
 * What sort of decisions should go through the Big Omni?