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?