Following this morning’s discussion, there is a note here sketching nine actions we might take to get community development on the move. Great to be at this stage after just half a year These ideas are culled from today’s discussion and from this thread. They are proposed as a pathway to creating a Community circle in meet.coop.
thanks, @mikemh for this wonderful proposal! I look forward to work with you and others on this. Depending on how many we are and how much joy we put into this, we can go slower or quicker, but I think it’s very valuable for all of us and the collective as a whole. Hopefully other members agree and we can do it better and be more successful.
A great message, @mikemh! Brought up a lot of the ideas in the past 2 days meetings. I would especially like to highlight:
A programme of events: Yes, maybe a BBB room that is an ongoing ‘channel’ with regular events of interest to the community, such as those you list.
Members presenting themselves: Yes. I would like to see if we can find groups of our members who have some clear connection/need for mutual support, and see if they would meet on a fairly regular basis. (And a members directory to help support this.)
A space together: Offering a combination of tools, like BBB and Discourse that work together as community support. So, the events room above would have a Discourse topic or even a category to announce events, carry on discussions between events, etc. I would especially like to try out using Discourse for Synergy (offers and wants). The key marketing point is that we are offering much more than an inferior alternative to Zoom. We are offering a richer online enviroment, plus peer support from like minded groups. You aren’t buying a tool from an SaaS company, you are joining a community.
I’ve just been in an Art o Hosting workshop convened by @osb, an interesting learning experience, giving some more structure and tools for hosting conversations. Here’s an illustration of the “8 breaths”
In the breakout sessions I presented our intention to set up a series of periodic events. A companion suggested to have a look at this mutual aid network. Below I’ll try to write down a concrete first version of how it could look, let’s see!
the call What’d be the purpose of this cycle of events? As Mickey brings up:
Clarify Maybe we could frame this as a general purpose for the series of gatherings/meetups? The Community.circle would take responsibility for curating the programme of events, which can be each session with a different host(s) + member presenter + key topic. E.g. FoEI might want to discuss the challenges of simultaneous translations, with their specific cases to which other members may want to add.
And define Before, some minimum ingredients for each meetup to have settled and communicated in advance? like:
date: every X weeks on this or that day and time
host: at least one member should take responsibility for hosting the session, it could also be co-hosted. This could be very formal or we just see how it emerges? How can we make sure our different member bases join the process?
presenter: one member that will highlight their usecase and a key discussion topic
prior to the session it will be announced at least in the forum in its category, and member organisations may feel inclined to sent it through their channels as well, at least for those topics/sessions that they might feel more connected with?
During:
default room, with recording option on, every one moderator by default,…
basic respectful code of conduct, at the start the host gives a welcome and check whether everyone is comfortable, maybe a brief intro to the online space is useful?
evolve a shared practice, of checking in who’s in the meeting and what they want to contribute to the topic, highlighted member presentation, feedback from all participants, discussion, if the group is bigger, a breakout session might be beneficial, suggestions for next host/presenter/topic
shared notes are stored before closing of the meeting
Afterwards
we harvest the results and connections between people, make the recording public (this will result in a long list of recordings at the Greenlight entrance to the specific room
people follow up actions, the community circle keeps an eye to facilitate where necessary
we’ll want to reflect upon and improve the event cycle and generate a positive feedback loop
How does this look? Just a few thoughts to go concreting our community gatherings
It looks amazing Wouter! I believe a lot of connections, knowledge and side-projects could arise from this kind of non-formal calls.
I would like to participate by sharing my ideas on (digital) participation inside big and complex orgs/structures and how Meet.coop can connect with other tools like Vocdoni to improve the governance of such orgs (+100 members orgs with different levels of participations), and debate on this (experiences, sharing other tools, ways to make these tools interoperable, and more).
Maybe we can build a Call-for-requests tag with a simple template so people can propose topics opening a thread?
There’s many good ideas and reflections already in this thread. Maybe it’d be good if we start setting a date for the next meeting to draw some conclusions and get ourselves started?
Community pre-circle meeting
12/01 10 GMT
12/01 14 GMT
12/01 16 GMT
13/01 10 GMT
13/01 14 GMT
13/01 16 GMT
14/01 10 GMT
15/01 10 GMT
15/01 14 GMT
15/01 16 GMT
0voters
Hopefully this works! Think of people we need to invite for this session.
The notes I assembled a month ago are a bit complex as the basis of a meeting. So here is a proposed agenda of 5 items for Tuesday’s meeting, extracted from those notes Community circle @ meet.coop - HedgeDoc
Just re-reading this prior to our meeting this afternoon. I think it is very good, and clear. My preliminary thoughts are:
The purpose of this Circle is to help the Meet.coop community to see themselves as a mutual support community. This could be an option beyond just buying a service (BBB)
To help with this, we are running a series of regular events, thought out so they will attract people, who will enjoy themselves.
We start each event with a brief period of connection, a check-in with people introducing themselves, either in plenary, or in breakout rooms if the numbers are sufficient.
Then comes the main offering, a talk, discussion, whatever, as Wouter says.
Then a brief synergy/offers/wants session.
Finally a checkout and feedback, using the shared whiteboard.
Looking forward to this afternoon.
Gary
@wouter will you please create a read-only version of the Nextcloud draft for All-hands, from yesterday’s Circle preparation meeting, and publish it here? I don’t seem to have privileges to create that version.
Here’s a thought about digital infrastructure, solidarity economy and global-South organisations, prompted by this emerging conversation about a Community Circle. This is a bit ahead of the game, as regards our coop’s financial base and network extent - there are real revenue and tech issues to be addressed right now. But I think we need to start figuring this out, bcos it’s a hard one, that won’t fall into place easily?
Notes from the above gathering will be posted in a new threadCommunity programme. That is where future notifications of meetings will appear. This thread here continues, for broader discussion of working as a community. Also, a Community category has been created.
Following the 2nd prep meeting - with a dozen participants - a programme team has been formed, to develop a Community programme and create a pilot session. Some draft initial principles and protocols for the programme have been posted for discussion. A working list of topics for sessions will be posted shortly.
Thinking forward, to a time when a formal Community circle is established, here’s something to think about, on governance, the meet.coop community, sociocracy and platform coops. Seems to me, the Community programme is tacitly approaching this puzzle. “Separate the operations and the member community.” Create places where each can assemble. And create explicit places where they engage one another.
These ideas are culled from today’s discussion and from this thread. They are proposed as a pathway to creating a Community circle in meet.coop.
