Event:2015/1/22 Welcoming Committee Meeting

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Welcoming Committee Mtg 1/22

Attendees

  • Jenny, yar, Ugo, Kevin, Rachel, Niki, Nico, Bill, Steve B, David K

Agenda

Open to the Public Proposal

  • David: Extremely difficult to pass given the scope, but does address real needs. What are the main things: Staffing, Bathrooms, Safety, Public vs Open vs Closed. Maybe not to say 'public,' but 'shared'

Hours and Staffing

  • Bill: Classes happen in the evenings, shutting the doors at 6 shuts a lot of people out.
  • Kevin: People would be permitted to come and go for particular things
  • Niki: Set down of the day for being 'generally open'
  • David: This is one of the vague parts, we're not open
  • ugo- saying what the intention is for open hours, what does that really mean, if you're setting a time for that, that's very specific, definition for that
  • Steve: The Welcoming Committee is already implementing a schedule for front door staffing
  • La Commune hours are 12-6 but closed on Monday
  • Nico: This proposal rides on the assumption of La Commune as the center of the building. As it stands, that's not currently the case. Most activity is elsewhere in the building
  • Jenny: 'Manning the front desk' involves merely being present in La Commune to greet people who ring the bell or are handed off by La Commune
  • Nico: Been doing a lot of informal welcoming, introducing self to people, etc. Putting this in a system of policies, not sure if this really makes sense.
  • Ugo: Seems imperative to have clear protocol and take the lead on defining that culture moving forward. That the culture is given form and direction. Perspective having attended the past few sudo meetings. Growing population of folks coming through, need to have these things clearly written down and referenced somewhere.
  • Nico: People came in last week inquiring about the cultural norms and expectations of the space.
  • What are we already doing?
    • We're filling shifts from 10-2, 2-6 and 6-10: https://ethercalc.com/omni-front-desk
    • We're making signage, should make an 'Omni Hours' sign for 10am-10pm *once we are actually open to the public and have filled the shifts*
    • Nico: Bad idea to put our open hours on a sign - it's a legal obligation - until we can actually say we're open to the public and have filled shifts
    • Steve: How can La Commune even state that they're open? Can we legally even have the 'Omni open' sign out there?
    • Ugo: Re: signage, we need maps
    • Steve: It's happening, we need to get into the practice of writing the day's schedule on the mobile whiteboard, and move forward on mounting the map of the building above it.
    • Ugo: Maybe we could ask every collective to have a member on a shift. Especially if they have events at specific time.
    • Jenny:
    • sudoroom's discussion: https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Meeting_Notes_2015-01-21#Open_to_the_Public_Proposal_.2815_mins.29
    • Yar: Hoping that the policy we can have is that event organizers are responsible for the people at the event. they can give tours based on their judgement. but they're just responsible.
    • Ugo: Could be distracting for the event organizer to have the responsibility of welcoming other people outside of having another Omni staff person. A way to redirect people to a scheduled welcoming event
    • Nico: Would be cool if we had the people and the energy, for larger events, to have someone from the Welcoming Committee give a group tour after the event to logistically redirect people
    • Ugo: Omni could commission sudo to build a web app to give people a virtual tour and times they can come back to fully engage the building, a virtual concierge - each collective could have a short video intro'ing their space
    • Steve: Sudo and CCL already do this a lot informally. when new people come to an event that's the moment you want to give them exposure.
    • Yar: We're talking about the specific problem of things event organizers are responsible to do. Other problem is event attendees losing the opportunity to learn about Omni.
    • Ugo: Talking about Omni facilitating events, and seeing it as opportunistic for pulling in new members
    • Steve: It's both, some stuff Welcoming Committee will do and other things we ask event organizers to do. Stan is working on a proposal for event organizers signing deposits (with Ebb and Flow). If they don't provide a staffing person, we keep the deposit. We should continue to work on the things we're already working on, will ask if there's something we think we need to approve
    • Cere: I want the option, for myself, to say no on a lot of these things. If there's a public event, I want an easier way to choose not to give a tour, for whatever reason. Something like a tiered system we can choose. Keypad system's gonna be great.
    • Rachel: The ability to get here is a privilege for many people. Deposits also exclusionary to the underprivileged. Making the policy piecemeal, one by one, break it down.
    • Ugo: Distill what the issues are: Staffing, Hours, Events, etc; last night Sudo didn't come to a consensus about event organizers paying a deposit.
    • Steve: When La Commune isn't open we only have one individual at the front door. If someone comes in an weirds you out, there needs to be a non-obligatory option. Has to be a judgment thing ultimately.
    • Cere: If we have a closed door policy you can always make exceptions. What's already happening anyway. I want rules that I can feel okay about breaking but I know they're there for my protection
    • Kevin: Uncomfortable about the idea of people weirding you out. Judging books by their coversa can be useful but also a bad idea.
    • Cere: Creating a policy that pretends we don't have good instincts... it's not like we're a bunch of republicans here, we know who gives a bad vibe. Creating a system that doesn't leverage basic human instinct.
    • Rachel: Sometimes our instincts are wrong, which is why we need this kind of thing.
    • Cere: There are still hours when someone ...
    • Ugo: Important to have clarity about whether, outside of Omni staffed hours, whether members are obligated to be welcoming, show people around etc; or whether, outside of staffed hours, it's okay to say 'I'm busy right now, here's more information and a better time to come by'. It can be taxing to
    • Jenny: Quotes sudo's Empowerment of Members to ask non-members to leave: [link]
    • Steve: Question of what members feel individually with other individuals. We can't encode ' being welcoming' as an obligation for anybody. But maybe if you're a member of the Welcoming Committee you have a more general obligation to those things - especially when you're staffing. If you've taken on that responsibility, it comes with certain obligations.
    • Nico: Perhaps the Welcoming Committee might be willing to sponsor a conflict engagement workshop
    • Jenny: We just had one on Sunday.. but we should have more
    • Nico: Gatekeeping as part of Welcoming and what that means. To clearly understand that role. Part of the security is always relational. Secondly, when conflict happens I notice people react without social protocols if they haven't been trained in conflict engagement. Seeing the patterns and what's triggering to us, and being open to seeing that we have different patterns and triggers.
    • Rachel: Distinction between how members can utilize that power of membership during open and closed hours. During public hours, really important to solve conflict/disagreement, to seek resolution during public hours before closed hours. Hard dealing with some members of the public, dealing with ....
    • Steve: This discussion can move into things that aren't part of Welcoming, keep the distinction clear
    • Nico: Not about the new people coming into the space, that momentum is already being developed. This group is a prime vector for the active enculturation of the space. Boundaries and limits that people are and aren't okay with
    • Ugo: Interest in coming here was about not policing but enculturating the boundary, to take leadership with figuring out and articulating how Omni does thigns and where the culture needs a little bit of a tweak.
    • jenny's checkout: she'll go through notes and consolidate onto wiki page. this is a lot. let's keep talking.
    • yar: omni changing and making policy excites me and that's why i'm here
    • ugo: nice being here, look forward to next week. next time let's go piece by piece on the proposal.
    • steve: we didn't talk tonight about the concrete things welcoming needs to talk about. this is a gigantic task, do we want to do another 2-hour session next week?
      • Let's start at 5 next week
    • Rachel: I came because of the people who are the semi-permanent public who are here already, like myself. people have different relationships, how to deal

Proposals

  • For large events (over 50? people) in the ballroom, the Welcoming Committee will try to be available to give tours, but either way folks should be told to return Sunday from 5-7 for a proper introduction and tour of the space. Given pamphlets about the Omni 'welcome package'

Action Items

  • For communications committee: NO DRUGS; NO SLEEPING; NO STORAGE; NO VIOLENCE; NO HARASSMENT; NO THREATS; NO SHOUTING; NO SOLICITATION; NO UNLEASHED DOGS; NO MATERIAL DONATIONS WITHOUT PRIOR APPROVAL
  • Jenny (or David?) will add relevant notes to the wiki proposal.
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