Community Village Remote Meeting notes March 14, 2020

Community Village Remote Meeting notes March 14, 2020

Notes: Tim Mueller | Facilitation/Tech: Jay Patton

Attending: (I may have misspelled some names…)
Matt, Patrick, Amy, Eric, Sue, Jain, Elise, Jair, Tim (Council), Sara (Shadow), Rachel, Isabell, Jason, Drake, Ashley, Kelsey, a few more I did not catch…total about 20.

Attempted to connect, not successful:
Karla, Jeannette, Ayisha, maybe more…

Fair Announcements
–      All Fair in person meetings are cancelled, also Elder Retreat, Fair office, Fair site, Council retreat, Alice’s.

• Eligibility forms are now live and ready for use, as well as the 2020 Workshop & Demo Form. HERE.
• Some Fair Announcements that would have been made at the in town meeting are posted HERE.

Consensus Discussion
A few different perspectives on consensus were offered: Each person approaches consensus in their own way, from their own point of view. Consensus is about listening to all those different points of view and making space in your head for them. Understanding each other creates the way forward that all can consent to.

Pass Cost Sharing

Tim summarized the new situation – that we have 8 more worker passes than previous years: 5 of the no-cost “Service” (as we call them) passes and 3 $40 worker passes. (Details in the Feb Theater of Change) A choice between 2 options was presented. The first was to do nothing and all the 65 holders of no-cost passes would pay nothing for those passes, just like other Fair Service Booth passes.

The second was to allow each individual allocated a no-cost pass to be given a choice to pay an averaged amount for their pass or not. To determine the average cost per pass, the number of cost shared passes would be added to the number of paid worker passes, and the sum would be divided into the total pass funds due to the Fair. Depending on the number of averaged cost shared passes, the averaged cost would be between $28.00 and $40.00 per worker pass.

After a brief discussion, everyone agreed option two was a good idea and…

Consented to allow no-cost pass holders the option of sharing the averaged cost.

One-year only diversity passes

The idea of allocating 4 of the new no-cost passes to “one year only passes for new activist organizations” was discussed. The purpose of this idea is to increase diversity in our Village and Fair by reaching out to underrepresented groups in our community that share our Village goals. Options of who would reach out to new groups, and who would decide the allocations, were discussed. Having the Diversity Committee and booths reach out to their communities and “nominate” groups, and leave the final recommendation to the Diversity Committee to give to the Council for pass allocation was suggested, recommended.

There was discussion about “what is diversity?” Mentioned were skin color, sexual orientation, Native Americans, ideas, Baptists (welcome if their Gospel Singers really rock)…

The Village is sort of a family – a stable group with just a few new members every year. How would we react to diversity? Will we open our hearts or hold back? Those we reach out to may be folks we already know, friends and family… They do need to be “dedicated to education, information access, and networking for progressive social change.”
In the end all…

Consented to set aside 4 no-cost passes this year (2020) for 2, 1-year only groups to be identified by Booth and Diversity Committee Outreach and recommended to the Council for allocation by the Diversity Committee.

Remote Meeting Process Discussion

From Jason:

We also discussed using a different platform to do these in the future.

before the meeting, tim and i had discussed different options. the southern satellite had chosen skype in the past, so that was our initial selection. we reviewed other alternatives and, for free, skype had the largest number of people who could participate (50).

however, with a little $ investment (e.g. $20 a month for the option that could suit our needs of over 100 people, but less than 300 people https://zoom.us/pricing) zoom is a fantastic choice. we did not do this yesterday as there is a limit of 40 minutes for the free version.

another benefit of zoom is that groups (e.g. booths) can break out into separate teleconference groups within the main teleconference (and then return to the main group afterwards).

the council may want to consider if we have a budget for this. (e.g. $240 a year, which is less than $1 per villager)

there will be concerns about doing this, but we are the village and we can address those concerns! (at least, that is my optimistic belief).

for example, having a teleconference with over 100 participants will be challenging to facilitate (so we will want to get some sort of process developed). we may also want to have training sessions prior to these meetings to help prevent technical challenges during the meeting (kind of like how new village members attend a training session).

there were a few glitches, but we are forging new ground, so there will be surmountable challenges for sure. the key word is surmountable.

i am glad we were able to run a test run and look forward to more virtual meetings (as long as we get to see each other in “real-face” on site this summer). i cannot fathom trying to run around in joyously bare feet at the fair virtually.

peaches,

jay (or jason)

Non-Fair Announcements

• Everything is cancelled.
• Thinking Tree Spirits at 88 Jackson St is offering to fill your container with free alcohol based hand sanitizer.
• Laughing Planet is offering to provide free meals to your kids while school is closed. Though I expect you gotta buy your own lunch…
• Bagel Sphere will deliver bagels free to people over 65.
• If you can do babysitting, let the Village know.

We ended with an OMmmmmmm at 8pm.

 

Tim Mueller, Community Village Coordinating Council