Event:2024/02/15 Delegates

Omni Delegates' Meeting - 15 February 2024 7pm-9pm

Meeting Details

• Talk at https://omnicommons.org/meet or 515-428-1108 (PIN: 465814905)
• Type at https://omnicommons.org/notes
• Send proposals to consensus@lists.omnicommons.org prior to the meeting

Roles

• Facilitator/s: patrik
• Stacktaker:
• Timekeeper:
• Notetaker/s: yar and paige

Delegates

• CCL: patrik
• FNB: toan
• LL: John
• SB: natalie
• SMAC (Media Lab): Pallavi
• SM: juul
• SR: alex
• Quorum (2/3 of active groups):

intros

BRIEF INTROS MAY INCLUDE: name, pronouns, groups you're in, land you're on, if you're a delegate, unmet access needs, meeting roles you'd like to help with, discussion topics or proposals to add to agenda, announcements/updates/report-backs from your groups, safe space issues or updates. PROMPT people to share contact info in the chat, so we can stay in touch

• toan: people's park still blocked by shipping containers. serving at telegraph & dwight instead. painted mural on lotus & haight.
• alex: not a lot going on to share at sudo
• paige they/them. lots of people on tuesday. two working 3d printers. replaced a nozzle. another women who code event in march.
• patrik: ccl mushrooms going strong. dry & repairing roof tarp in entrance hall. rain coming saturday.
• yar
  • who is "irving washington" on the pad?
• violet, legacy sudoroom member
• pallavi: new sewing & screen printing cohorts. loom set up. weaving corner. looking at more grants. fundraising meeting next week.
  • proposes 7-8:30 be delegates only, or representatives of working groups
  • marc: i don't like that idea. facilitator should timekeep. maybe we can ask collectives what they think of that rule.
• natalie, sketchboard, events wg
• marc: sudo mesh public meetings again every tuesday. 1st tuesday every month 7:30pm open to new members. investigating new licensing for 4G.
• silver
• jenny on pad

paying jesse

• confusion about who's responsible to pay for the LLC logistics - sudoroom or omni?
  • LLC is not omni and neither omni or sudo should pay for it. but it's not clear whether jesse billed omni for some of those hours. need to make sure he didn't and split the bill if he did. just need the number.

deb gives

• Dom got keys, moved in monday (as tenant)
• marc: i thought since they moved in last week, we'd take time before deciding
  • patrik: no, we said we'd vote today
  • pallavi: that's what i thought
  • alex: there's been this push to take a vote asap. dunno if that's a good thing.
  • patrik: would delaying it longer help anything? If so, people asking for delay should put in the effort to get to know them.
  • marc: i don't think we should have groups come in without any getting-to-know-them period
  • alex: some sudoroom members felt the same way. but we didn't have quorum, sudo is abstaining
• toan: last week there was a push to get the rooms occupied. FNB haven't made a decision. some felt there's no rush, because they have space here. dom wants to work with us, so maybe we'll get to know them quickly.
• pallavi: if not today, then when? dom was at media lab on monday, already arranging programming with them. excited to partner. definitely a yes from us.
• marc: also some concern that pallavi is on board and member.
  • yar: marc how many collectives are you part of?
  • marc: that's different because i don't go to sudoroom meetings or block anything via CCL. i'm a sudo mesh delegate.
• patrik: i recommended to CCL yesterday that we vote yes, did not hear any pushback. i'm fine voting yes today. really feel like we should work on changes to the process, but AFTER there's an application in the pipeline
  • natalie: yeah, unfair to make changes only after someone tries to join. looks like favoritism. need to change process. some of the reasoning i'm hearing doesn't make sense. i don't get the logic. sketchboard is behind deb gives.
• john: haven't had time to look closely, but no objection to deb gives
• alex: abstention might be the best you get from sudo.
• marc: it's irresponsible to put people on the board who we basically don't know. especially because they can block.
• pallavi: i've met dom's cousin once from deb gives. they're his family. i'm not concerned with them.
• natalie: making sure there is some alignment to join. because basically asking them to become a board member. sometimes we dont see eye to eye and that makes sense. we should have a checklist on how to become member
• yar: collectives less than 6 months old at omni could be removed by majority, takes away risk of taking over by consensus, but less of a probationary period, still just as empowered. if someone abusing consesnsus, then we dont want them to be a part anyway
• alex: separate conversation. i dont know how we got in this conversation with dom, where it was expected that he would get a collective vote in 2 weeks. but since we made that expectation, then we should stick to it
• yar: we've proven that we can remove a group if we have to, even with consensus minus one. the risk is not that great.
• patrik: we have approved groups on recommendation fairly fast before
• sketchboard: i did events and volunteered before. people have chances to reach out and build relationships. not just whoever comes in. you need to put in the effort to get to know the community. theres room to research and have opportunities for that..
• patrik: i mean natalie you are in favor of deb gives but havent had that time
  • pallavi: like toan said, im listening. doesnt sound like we are making a vote today
• alex: has anybody communicated with dom? how does he feel? he said the group wants to be on the board. how do they feel about participating as delegates? is that something they're in a rush to do?
  • pallavi: the main thing was that they're able to have access to the space. an appropriate amount of time would be max two weeks, because he said he wanted to be able to be involved in running the building. he said he has a lot of folks who can come in with repairs and maintenance, put in sweat work, event management. he thinks it's fair to have input in decision making. i understand some of you want to actually see the involvement. i think he'd be amenable to a couple weeks, but not 3 months. we may not even have the building. he's moving with urgency because of OUR urgency. wants to save the space and raise awareness. can't afford to wait too long. i recommend end of february or first week of march.
• yar: i think it'd be reasonable to vote today and just accept the abstentions. i really hate this post-CLP paranoia. makes no sense to treat all new groups like a potential CLP. we removed them. if deb gives turn into a bunch of edgelord trolls we can remove them too if we have to. but it's ridiculous to act like this is a real probability. just accept people at face value here.
• Pallavi: Deb Gives planning open mic Wed nights; also participate in fair on 25th. Black history month
• yar: my count is that if we voted today we'd have three yes, and four abstain?
  • marc: no, i think it's bad to rush this. if dom wants to block something we can decide to honor that. just take some time and do it properly.
• patrik: ok so we wait another 2 weeks? february 29.

new group process

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RzRq1oZbCi-Qx4KxdJ3GIrU2OS5Sp9VW0sz92nNM2A4/edit
• alex: is there something that would work, before being a collective and having full veto
• marc: even if we have been operating by consensus, or -1 as fallback, thats not what is stated in articles of association for all votes.
• alex: changing the bylaws is one thing that requires consensus -1. so we are discussing not having htem in bylaws
• yar: personally i think we should be majority vote for anything. but to implement my other suggestion would just be adding a clause [other suggestion being: idea of a 6 month period where a collective can be removed by majority vote?]
  • alex: isnt that the same thing as not writing the group into the bylaws?
  • patrik: that means they get voting power, but not in bylaws. messy
  • yar: doing that puts the collective into a very different tier. harder to feel like youre equal. with 6 month idea, theres some activation energy before thats triggered. would have to do something really bad to do trigger that
• marc: we have to recognize theres value in the building. someone malicious could convince a few organizations, or have puppet organizations, if it only requires majority, to become a millionaire
  • patrik: this change would go against our history of trusting people
  • yar: we are trying to work with a land trust, and their role is exactly to prevent that sort of thing
• alex: this membership discussion should be in view of that. we are planning to make some change and become a differently managed building. so the way we admit new members should reflect that. i dont know the difference would be
  • yar: difference would be less risk
• alex: what if the delegates didnt correspond one to one to collectives. instead, users of omni elected delegates of omni separately from collectives
  • patrik: an equal question to that, would be to say larger collectives should have more representation. but a totally elected board requires figuring out who can vote. who is "member of omni"? A non profit with voting members is a very different structure than a regular non profit with a board
  • yar: i think the only way direct democracy can be viable, is if there's also a mechanism to prioritize voices of marginalized people like women, bipoc, lgbtq. omni's demographics suck rn and this would probably make those groups less represented than before.
• paige: deb gives just joined, want to be clear the discussion right now is not a conversation about deb gives membership application
• dom: makes sense to come up with formal process for membership
• patrik asks what an acceptable waiting period might be
• pallavi: 6 weeks?
  • sketchboard/natalie & deb gives/dom agree on 6 weeks
• marc: if it's that short, then we need other protections from people abusing majority vote
• yar: why not just put a firewall around the worst case scenarios in the bylaws? like selling the building
  • alex: but you can't always predict the bad things
  • yar: like identify things like selling the building, or shares of building
  • patrik: CLP wasn't trying to sell the building
    • yar: they also didn't need to be a member to cause the harm they did

• alex: what about just having a good fit? do we not want people to fit the culture?
• yar: i am absolutely opposed to requiring new groups to culturally assimilate into a group dominated by white transplants. that's so ass backwards. omni's culture sucks. i want it to change.
• natalie: we have to give expectation to folks of what we are looking for. what does omni want to represent? if we are blocking a vote, or a collective, what is that reason? the recent collectives that have been trying to join do a lot of good for the community, and that is deeply needed right now. want to stress that is reflective of our identity
• what about the different size of groups?
  • natalie: when i joined people asked me how we made decisions. it's appropriate, they were nice, didn't feel probing or suspicion. i appreciated that. as a poc coming into a mostly white space, i'm looking for a welcoming attitude. had some not great experiences, but looked past that and focused on the work and the space.
• yar: this is why land trusts exist. the whole structure is designed to prevent hostile takeovers and fire sales.
• pallavi: cast discussion is very relevant to this, would solve the main problem rather than solve a symptom
• marc: all the very critical things could be handled by a board that almost never meets, and delegate other things to other people.
  • yar: so a security council, superdelegates. that's also very vulnerable. trustees? nah.
• pallavi: even if we figure out the building's future, there will be a lot of learning and processes going into the next phase of stewarding omni. if there's a board outside delegate structure, they decide how often to meet.

cast

• Pallavi's Meeting Notes from CAST: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NhQp0cx87XRxyl_gf1RC84SdkvRqbfopNeaJrbpc6xk/edit?usp=sharing
• pallavi: we met yesterday with ken from CAST. he said we need to resemble a typical nonprofit. they want to be able to engage with established processes. have a single person who can represent omni - maybe not ED but that'd be good. change from consensus minus one. people don't have faith in that. also an improved revenue generating model that accounts for capacity building budget. $1/sqft cost.
  • alex: i don't remember him saying anything about consensus-1, but i do remember him saying there should be one person. is that one person to be responsible to building concerns, or everything? hoping to get more details from shreya of what we would need to specifically empower this person with. because we need to write that all down in order to find that person.
• patrik: ken ikeda will set up another meeting with shreya shankar
• alex: they'd take 1% ownership of building to "taint the deed" so it can't be sold for profit. sounds good to me. not clear to me how the magic works. they're not a lender or bank. they have a network of donors who can produce a loan for us. then they'd partner with us to achieve goals, help write grants. they don't have another org like omni in their portfolio - new territory for them. they have a vision for the right way to do it. we need to make sure we're on the same page. sudoers concerned that outsourcing building management and electrical repairs, would increase costs for collectives. we've operated on a shoe string because we've been willing to do a lot of work ourselves.
• patrik: we could explicitly/intentionally subsidize groups who can't meet the increased costs
• marc: how would that effect FNB?
  • toan: we pay $500/mo. in may we paid a year in advance.
  • patrik: need to account for regular sparse usage
• toan: ken asked if we're open to changing governance structure. we said yes but didn't include any details.
  • patrik: we haven't heard any concrete proposals
  • alex: we need to propose things. collectives need to say what's essential to them. can we do without building management?
• patrik: they provide property management optionally if that's required. they definitely wanna do asset management. idk the different. make sure repairs are being done. not necessarily day to day, but...
  • natalie: caring for property is part of management. let's be real, it's better to have it nice than not have it be done
• pallavi: they said they could help us get things up to code, which is needed for activities and many grants. and accessibility
• patrik discusses omni person who now works for cast
• yar: very promising to hear that it's not a forever contract, it's opt out at any time if we feel it's not working. but the biggest concern is what alex raised - the debt will not go away, and there's concern that they'd require us to go into debt to meet their standards of niceness and legality.

Governance / bylaw changes

• Governance change ideas: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u9jjgsiDBxpC9Tzv1pTxwooigBRPC2a_32nq1CartuI/edit
• discussion of retreats
• patrik: i'm nervous about retreats, it's a big chunk of time
  • alex: what other ways to collaborate do you propose?
  • natalie: it's an investment in our future, and something cast asked for. but also i know patrik did share out two documents on this
• patrik: some changes are just to reflect how we already do things. that's easy. the harder stuff is brainstorming on larger process changes. that's what we're not ready for. i'd love to have a new draft for next week.
  • simpler changes: reflect how we actually do delegate meetings. any delegate can table a vote for 1 week. speeds up decision making.
  • natalie: that's the same problem we have now but in a shorter amount of time
  • patrik: it's not even written into our bylaws
  • alex: you can block for now
  • patrik: but now it says regular decisions are made by majority
• yar: having a full retreat is best way to work together. otherwise then we create divergent expectations
• patrik: i was looking back in meeting notes, in 2014, voted that delegates can become active again at the 3rd meeting. at the same vote we change quorum to 80%
  • yar: i think things changed when laura was doing this, during sale of the building
• patrik: i still think we can put together a draft bylaw for next week and get people to vote on that. its too difficult to vote on every change
  • yar: if youre confident they are not controversial, then yea
  • patrik: i think we can isolate the ones that are not controversial
  • alex: shouldnt we focus on the big picture? why do the smaller ones matter?
  • patrik: because we can get them out of the way
  • yar: and can use time more efficiently during retreat
  • patrik: can bring to cast, i.e. moved from consensus
    • alex: i dont think they care about that
    • patrik: its a slow process
    • alex: i think they care that there is one person to make decisions on things they care about. so the thing we need to figure out is what they care about
    • pallavi: one person to speak on behalf of omni
    • yar: they require the board to empower a person. how the board makes the decision not necessarily matter to them
    • alex: i think we are saying same thing. they dont want to have to deal with 8 people on a single scope of things. theres some guesses of what they would want that person empowered to do, like decisions on building, maybe certain expenditures, probably things that are day to day management. what else is on the list?
    • patrik: pallavis ed contract had some concrete things
    • pallavi: i changed a couple things, more robust in terms of actual steps i would be taking
• patrik: in bylaws, we should include "certain people should be able to force a vote". such as president, ED, and chair of the board.
  • alex: is that a standard thing nonprofits do?
  • patrik: yea. and if we are taking a vote on something that has options, we can assign certain people who can be tie-breakers.
• alex: reason i was bringing up list of things for ED, would be nice if we could literally put this piece of paper in front of shreya. getting that conversation going would be great, not sure that she would care so much about bylaws
  • patrik: some of this would have to go in bylaws. something like hired help, like ED, doesnt go in there
• alex: would it help to get the bylaws from other orgs who work with CAST?
  • yar: theres no one like us. berkeley free clinic is the closest
  • patrik: should be a group who works with CAST
• we should reach out to CAST soon
• pallavi: i can send that email
• patrik: other things i had, how to discourage turnover in nonprofits. legally in california, cant vote by proxy so no alternate delegates allowed. person on paper
  • marc: i dont think thats how we envisioned it
  • patrik: i doubled check california code
  • marc: the organizations themselves are the legal persons on the boards
  • patriks: no there are designators, and they designate a director on the board
  • yar: that seems really fragile, why do they do that
  • patrik: it was the closest thing to a standard board that worked for us
• patrik: other things on list, how to increase participation? how to have a broader cross section of who gets to vote? i would need to see some suggestions. if there's a delegate representing volunteers or of the broader community, how would they get elected and who gets to vote on that?
• patrik: is there anyone else willing to work on writing a draft set of bylaws incorporating the easier items? i can do on my own but rather not
  • pallavi: can john help? given experience. maybe if draft he can look over on his own time
  • dom and john willing to look over
• alex: this key in talking to land trusts
  • patrik: yes we can show them we have already made changes, show we can work without delays
• patrik: when should we do retreat?
  • alex: soon
  • yar: next weekend
  • alex: how about we plan instead to put together some questions to send to shreya and ken. say we are thinking about working on bylaws, and ED role. they may be willing to help with that
  • natalie: i think we should schedule the meeting
  • patrik: we can sh
  • alex: show willingness to put foot forward
  • patrik: can you give an example
  • yar: i think they will want to see us making that proactive first step
  • alex: i can put together a draft

grants / fundraising

• pallavi: SF Foundation can give us $20k, hellman probably another 50k. want another fundraising meeting. will draft proposal, want help/eyes. rolling grant, so no deadline. good to make 70k capacity budget. tuesday meeting from 7-8pm. we need one sheet for all the different omni things we want people aware of. I would love it if everyone here could attend that meeting or at least could provide input on a google doc for that grant.
• patrik: ccl has a monthly fundraising event on every third wednesday of the month
  • pallavi: ill bring some action items that you can bring to your meeting the next day. one of those might be trying to get more comprehensive insurance so we can get different types of programming. in order to engage with groups and CAST
  • patrik: i think our insurance policy is reasonable good, except if working with kids
  • pallavi: thats what I was thinking of
• fundraising meeting next Tuesday 7-8pm

End of Meeting

• please archive these meeting notes by copying the entire pad contents onto the omni wiki at https://omnicommons.org/wiki
• then please erase the contents of this pad
• then please cut & paste a blank template from here: https://omnicommons.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Delegates_Meeting_Notes_Template&action=edit
• previous notes are archived here: https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Meetings