November 14, 2019 Community Village Meeting notes
Growers Market
Facilitator: Susan Barnhart | Time keeper – Loreina
Council present: Tim, Karla, David, Russell
Villagers: Nathan, Margaret, Anita, Arthur, Joe, Jain, Cordi, John F, Drake, Bob, maybe more, guest Lindsay.
Agenda
Intros
Agenda Review
Fair Announcements
Construction
Decon
Council Recruitment
Budget
DRUM guidelines
Village Resource Group
Unfair Announcements
Intros – everybody was there….
Agenda Review
Activist Report process was added
Fair Announcements
– Tim mentioned that he would be out of town Jan – March and hoped someone would take notes. Tim could still prepare the Theater of Change, if notes were sent to him and other desired content by 10 days before a meeting, and if someone else can get the PDF printed. Nathan volunteered to take notes in Tim’s absence. Woohoo Nathan!
– Monday night Board Work Session at Northwest Youth Corp. happened already….
Construction
Russell listed potential booth repair locations: 4A, Spirit, Youth, and Arts and Stage/IC (working on separate ladders and loft redesign). Capital budget requests for any booth project are due to Fair by January Village meeting, with consultation with Big John and/or Rick needed before that!
Wild Edibles is hoping next year will include construction of new benches across from W.E., which should be done with our Village budget and materials from Wood World.
Decon
All our stuff is now deconned into a container in Doug’s Green. Thanks to all who made it happen.
Council Recruitment
It was signaled that the Village “Needs more functional Council members.” Those present were canvassed, and Nathan from Wild Edibles let us know he plans on standing. Woohoo again, Nathan! In addition, Sarah Sweatt from Doors is shadowing. David said the best number is between 8-12 members.
We had a discussion of the benefits of serving…to counteract the trouble that can fall on Council members:
- Nice roomy camp
- SO almost guaranteed
- Food vouchers
- Free pass
- Almost guaranteed vehicle pass
- T-shirt
- Main Camp access (the best food)
- The chance to really be helpful
Now, if you have been a booth coord and/or been around long enough to know what’s going on, and you want to be on the Council, call any Council person and talk about it. We need you! Stand for Council is still this January.
Budget
Karla tells us the OCF has yet to send the final budget statement for 2019. Our “Pass Proposal”, consented to last spring, has been submitted to the Fair. A Dec 4 meeting is scheduled with the Budget Committee. Karla and Arthur are expected to attend. Report in January. Karla will bring up Bob’s request to up the Entertainment budget to $400. Karla said we may be able to pay more for entertainment with our regular Village budget.
It was also mentioned again how much we all liked the Friday night event we had last summer…do it again!
DRUM guidelines
Loriena led this discussion, hoping to find ways to avoid the kind of unpleasant turn of conversation and really long emails that we experienced during Council confirmation last winter. One said there is a fine line between guidelines that limit and “censorship.” But we should not allow curse words or personal attacks, name calling or bullying. Another said, “What!? I can’t say shit’?” Defining things is difficult. There is no way to stop bad behavior. Better way: no talk about people…evaluative or accusatory. The OCF Guidelines are good ones. They are copied below…
Let’s make DRUM guidelines and post them regularly so people know clearly what not to do. Drake mentioned that as a culture we are still learning to adapt to the new online communications, with its fewer inhibitions and greater chance for misunderstanding, but also with opportunities to be more articulate and to make age differences disappear. A book titled The Art of Positive Connection was mentioned.
So no official moderator should be used. Anyone can be a moderator and step into a conversation urging calm and following guidelines. Every effort to improve our community as a whole will help with this. Model good behavior. One mentioned that we are a community that is built on love for each other, that we understand everyone is doing the best they can, that support and love is better than criticism and judgement. It’s on our website! We reprint it every January newsletter (see below) so we start the year right. Do our best to have clear expectations resulting in gentle reminders. It was suggested that those ‘gentle reminders’ be offered in a personal message rather than be part of a big thread.
Lareina offered a Proposal that “we have a moderator and publish guidelines monthly on the DRUM.” Such a job could be a lotta work… It takes a Village – so let’s all be moderators. One other option is to publish a recipe…yes, something to distract, to cool the mood, calm things down. Or cat pictures…
Tim thinks he can auto schedule posts, but will be sure. Nope, no auto messages in Google Groups. We resolved to talk more about this in January, and maybe tweak the OCF guidelines…
Village Resource Group
This group was consented to at our October meeting:
“ARBITRATION
If issues are not resolved within 7 weeks, arbitration is requested from the Village Resource Group. The Village Resource Group will be made up of people who have been in the village for at least 3 years; and at least 3 of whom must be present for the arbitration. (Village Resource Group will be further defined and developed.) Village Resource Group members will recuse themselves if they have a conflict of interest. They will seek appropriate training. (The Fair offers trainings in conflict resolution and arbitration each October). The arbitrators will listen to both parties and decide the outcome. OUTCOME IS BINDING. This will happen before the second meeting following the stand for Council.
This discussion is about ‘further defining and developing’.
Jain agreed to lead this effort and communicate with possible members to get started. They will need to be respected folks for this to work as hoped. Repairing the worn out Spirit of the Village is part of their job. The group should not be small so that it can be diverse and available when needed, though only 3 would be chosen to attend an arbitration. A pool of 10-20, could be as many as 50. All would need to take the needed training before serving, training as by Cat(?) that Sue and Jain have already taken. It’s a good model and should give everyone confidence both doing the job and honoring the decisions.
These names were mentioned, along with others I didn’t write down… Jain, John F, Karla, Dea, Skeeter, Kim, River, Sam, Nel, Paula, Sharon, Karen, Oblio…
Jain will work on this and the group will report in January.
Activist Report Process
Discussion began with the hope that folks doing the activist report also provide a written piece that we could send to the FFN for publication, showcasing what our Village organizations actually do. Arthur suggested we could video their presentation and post that for the Fair. Some wondered if, for accessibility, the transcript would be any good…who could do that? YouTube transcripts are frequently garbled. If someone wants to video their presentation, we will not stop them. Someone suggested we pick a booth per year and get reports from all the groups in that booth. Tim mentioned that he asks for links to their org’s info to include in our minutes. Some thought asking folks to do a written report would be too much.
As this depends on cooperation from those presenting, all we can do is encourage them…unless someone wants to reach out a write something for them. But it would be great to have it in the FFN…
Activist reports coming next year: “Extinction Rebellion” in January, and OCAN in February.
Unfair Announcements
– Nov 22 5:15 Park Block tree lighting
– Nov 29 Valley River Mall 11am Flash Mob Protest, moving around Mall singing Solstice carols w/songbook
– Whiteacker Thanksgiving Dinner help needed Sunday before for food sorting and Wed night for set up.
– Nov 30 6-8pm Sam Bonds features Whiteacker Tales performance
– Dec 14 4-6pm Mac’s at the Vet’s Club, Autism Rocks Ugly Sweater Contests and Dance Party with DJ Frankie Sharp. Yes!
– Saturday Dec 14 7pm, WOW Hall membership party with Capt. Trips doing Bob Dylan
– Dec 21 E Blair Housing has a Solstice Party with Party Booby Trap and a parade. 6:00 start
– Friday 1pm – EMU lie-in for immigration… forgot which Friday
– Holiday Market’s Musician’s Collective has moved to the right side of the stage. Come get your music there and support local musicians.
Evaluation: Good. Nice conversations. These Fall meetings are the best, thank you, Loreina!
Tim Mueller 541 521 7208
Community Village Coordinating Council
Yes, Yes, Yes
OCF Code of Conduct:
“Each and every member of our community is entitled to respectful and equitable treatment by all other participants. The Guidelines apply whenever and wherever we gather for OCF activities or discussion, in person or online. The OCF is committed to the principles of non–violence. Mental, verbal, physical, or sexual abuse will not be tolerated.”
WE AGREE
We agree to not engage in hear-say and to encourage others to not participate in hear-say.
We agree to speak with honor, integrity and respect about each other;
In the event we have constructive criticism to share, we will talk to each other directly,
Though using another as a sounding board is OK.
We agree to try to operate from a place of trust that we do not mean each other harm.
Community Village 