Village Meeting April 8, 2021
Present: Tim, Sue & Michael, Karrie, Sara, Flannery, Diane, Nathan, Diane, Brooks, Lareina, Cat, Scott, Jain, Marlene? Ernie, Flannery, Wendy, Laura, Adrian, Sam, Krene, Richard, Margaret, Kim, Horst, Chrissy, Cindy Vail, Tave, Plaedo,
Council not present: Karla, David,
Hello – in breakout rooms (15 everyone – Host)
Set Intention (5 Minutes, Facilitator)
Agenda Review (3 Minutes, Facilitator)
Onsite soon Meeting?
Fair Announcements (5 Minutes)
Site Report (5 Minutes)
One Fun Thing – (5 Minutes, Facilitator)
Activist report – River returns to talk about Transponder (15 Minutes)
Village Theme decision – see options below (15 Minutes, Kim)
Mission Statement Committee Report – (15 minutes, Kim)
Village Cloud FairEz committee report [consent to allow online donations?] (Tim et al, 15 Minutes)
Unfair Announcements (5 minutes, All)
Strokes and pokes (5 minutes, All)
Hello in Breakout Rooms (all)
Set Intention (Lareina)
Agenda Review (3 Minutes, Facilitator)
On Site Meeting? (Diane)
Fair Announcements (5 Minutes)
Winery Working Assembly on 4/18 at 4pm
Please complete the Diversity Survey
On Site Meeting
Tim says, Could we go out there sometime when it’s not really busy and have a meeting on site? Could we meet in the village and be safe, or use parking lots? It would be great!
Sam says For more than a handful of people, probably best to talk to Site Manager.
Jain says They’re scheduling people to do work because we have rules about how many people can be on the site at once. Monthly Operations Open Houses have information. Information will go on .net site soon to volunteer for work parties by pre sign up.
Diane says she is happy to talk to Shane about the parameters regarding how many people and in what space can go to the site at a time. Operations staff are working part time right now.
Horst wants to know about the gate – which one is open?
Brooks says May seems too soon, June might be better due to vaccines and things.
Tim wonders if we should try to get evening permission rather than daytime.
Diane says to make a list of ideas and email them to her of what we want to know about – size, location, time.
Tim: Do we want to shoot for the second Thursday of June to try to meet out there? Would we rather do a weekend during the day?
Sue: Don’t we usually have a meeting on a Saturday in June? That may be easier for people who are working.
Kelsey: Usually half of our booth misses that meeting,
Sue: That meeting often conflicts with SSHR at Breitenbush.
Lareina” Weekend sounds better for me.
Site Report (5 Minutes)
Tim: David isn’t here, he has a tech helper working on his computer. Tim and Nel went to the site last weekend. Walked into the Village, saw so many trilliums *(even different colors!) Saw yellow violets all over. A lot more flowering stuff happening and no mosquitoes yet. The shady grove tree, just a trunk on the ground almost to the 6 pack, that will take some work. It was really nice out. Saw JenLin out there with Danya and the family (they hid easter eggs!) A VegEManic was pulling invasive plants. There weren’t that many people.
Kelsey: Are we allowed to stay overnight?
Tim: No.
Keree: I talked to Jes Lambright, who is in a Masters in Forestry program, who thinks the Shady Grove tree, while it looks dead, is likely to come back. Trees like that often come back after losing a lot of canopy. Don’t hurt it.
One Fun Thing – (5 Minutes, Facilitator)
Keree: This is fun – let’s get people moving, doing a mini scavenger hunt. In the next two minutes, try to find as many things as you can in four categories. Something that starts with the first letter of your first name, your favorite book, your favorite tye dye, something unique and fun. (I wasn’t able to capture everything before the meeting ended, lots of people shared cool stuff that didn’t make it into the minutes)
Krene: Keys, Peacock feather, Village Tie dye
Sara Sweatt: in at little Washington Cookbook, Merle, Corgi puppy, Tie Dye skirt,
Lareina: Clan of the Cave Bear, village tie dye, ladle, picture of amma
Keree: cv t-shirt, water, chicken eggs and favorite book: “Dragon Riders of Pern”
Kim’s favorite book is The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
Sue: kombucha mother,tshirts,Bill Sullivan Atlas of Oregon Wilderness
Jain: Braiding Sweetgrass
Activist report – Sue presents on two groups, Planet Vs. Pentagon and Oregon Community Asylum Network
Sue: Planet Vs. Pentagon, last year we did a video for the Country Fair Virtual Fair, which was shown at the meeting. What a beautiful planet we have, and it’s being destroyed because of the US military and other big corporations. The military is the biggest polluter, and more than 50% of our taxes go there instead of life affirming causes. On April 15th the group will be in front of the old Federal Building where the IRS is socially distanced at 4:30 with signs and a big banner showing how much of our tax money goes to the military rather than the good causes we prefer. Consider, if you owe money this year, resisting (even $10) and gave it to a good local cause instead. Consider writing letters to the President and Congress asking them to bring the war dollars home to fight climate change and not war.
Briefly, a group of asylum seekers are being supported by Oregon Community Asylum Network, and a big online fundraising auction is coming up. It will start on May 8, and then it will be open for two weeks until May 23. Beautiful art, gift certificates to local business, there will be a beautiful Turkish rug in the auction. Information will be in the CV Drum and chat.
Mission Statement Committee Report – (15 minutes, Kim)
I was thinking back to the stuff that happened with the transphobia conversation a few years ago. It had to do with council, maybe there was going to be a block. It could have happened with any sort of thing. The facilitators have to decide whether a block is “legitimate.” We don’t do a lot of training on Consensus, so my mind was thinking about that stuff. We went back to look at the mission statement at that time – because the conversation of the legitimacy of a block came back to our mission statement. Also, it would be nice to have a conversation about the difference between mission and vision and values and purpose and strategy. If the vision is different from the values and we don’t know how to get there, it’s challenging. Kimberly and her daughter made a google survey about this, no huge rush, we’ll send it out and see if anyone responds and see if it resonates a conversation.
Keree: to summarize, it’s common and helpful for organizations to look at missions and values. A subcommittee has been working on this, and there will be a survey.
Kim: I asked last meeting if it was okay if I started the ball rolling to start a committee, but I haven’t done much.
Kerree: now you’re asking if anyone has input on the survey or next steps?
Kim: Or comments. Anything.
Larena: I would recommend that you copy and paste the current mission statement at the top
Kim: it’s in there.
Brooks: Thanks, Kim, for starting this conversation. That time was hard, and has not been resolved. As OCF starts to have these conversations, there has been talk about what our values are. Are we anti-racist? What does justice mean? Who are we versus what are we saying? I’m hearing that you need help. A committee has been approved by the village. The more the merrier. The pandemic has made us more vulnerable, and we are all in a more honest place. My first experience with fair was coming out at fair and getting kicked out because of it. Now that everyone knows what it’s like to miss a fair, you can feel what that’s like to an extent. Encourage everyone to be part of this.
Adrian : I for one would appreciate the opportunity to learn more, beyond my assumptions, of how consensus works in Community Village, learn about struggles and successes that consensus has provided in the Village. If we’re looking at ways to develop that, great. As a recent participant in some of these conversations, I have a bit of a naive eye looking at that, and can ask some good questions from that perspective.
Kimberly: Direct response. I think that what you were saying about consensus – hearing some struggles and successes – something that came up for me is that if we had a vision, part of that could be training people on how we orient people on consensus and how it’s different in small versus large groups. I can see where that might fit in with this kind of conversation.
Kerriee: Actions come right out of mission statements and values. Adrian, I heard that consensus is part of our values, and maybe you’d like some training early on and wondering about sme more sooner consensus training.
Adrian: I’ve been part of village for close to 10 years, long enough that I should have been exposed more to how the decision-making process works in the village. I’ve sought some out on my own, but still a little gap for me. That mattered a little for a time, and has mattered a lot more recently. Adrian is participating deeply with the creation of virtual fair and virtual village. That involves a lot of decision making, and want to make sure I’m respecting values and decision-making process – some decisions need to be made quickly, and others are more philosophical.
Tim: When I was new to the Village, a group of people were looking at the Village Guidelines. Participating in the committee was a great way to get some of the heart and soul and nuance. I encourage you to participate with Kimberly in working on these statements. I found it really helpful to get involved in a small group of people talking to help understand what was going on. For a couple of years we had difficulty finding consensus on difficult issues. We started having a consensus discussion at every meeting. I’m going to look in old minutes and try to pull out some of those conversations. We stopped doing that – it seemed like it was working, we didn’t have a lot of issues and we stopped doing that in the Zoom environment.
Lareina: If you go to our website, there’s a tab that says guidelines. Under that, #2 and #3 talk about the basics of the consensus format that we use. Also, in Lareina’s booth is Tree Bressen, who teaches consensus facilitation and workshops. Her website has a lot of resources as well.
Kim: When the facilitators have their meetings, like if there’s something more contentious or a proposal and we’re not sure what to do when we call the question, it came up with the facilitators that this isn’t our place to make this call unless we’re transparent and empowered to do that. There are some things that could come out of this – places where we can spell things out, add things to guidelines – it could branch off in different places. Next step is to look at the survey, and that survey will have a question as to if you want to participate in the committee.
Village Theme decision – see options below (15 Minutes, Kim)
Village Theme – Last month we brainstormed on themes, and ended up with two ideas. A mosquito with the “mosquito famine” and a sad mosquito wearing a “we miss you” tee shirt. The other idea is “we are all apart, we are all together.”
Initial straw poll shoes evenly split
Jain: The mosquito is hilarious, but I have been convinced by the emails to our group that mosquitoes are not funny for folks internationally; people die all over the world from mosquito borne illnesses. For a lot of people, their family are dying because of malaria and other mosquito borne illnesses.
Tim: I had a talk with David on the phone today. He said the same thing about international perspective and a conversation with Crystalyn at the FairEZ meeting that we don’t want to tell everyone about mosquitoes. The shirts it might be on would be internal, we don’t sell them to the public, it’s just us. If we put a picture on the website, people might become aware. I like the mosquito, but I’m close to persuaded. We can adopt one of the other ones as a theme, but ask Rich to make some mosquito shirts just for us.
Keree: Are there other comments before we talk about Tim’s proposed compromise.
Adrian: echoing a lot, and a little extra: I think the mosquito joke is funny. I understand the sensitivities surrounding mosquitoes. The public doesn’t react with mosquitoes as we do. Having it be a feature in some aspect, it doesn’t feel like a good theme if it’s something we’re doing publicly and privately. There’s a place for the joke, but for a theme it doesn’t’ feel right.
Kim: I just want to say this is like perfect example of consensus to me, working. Not to nitpick on words, it’s not even a compromise: it’s thinking of a whole new way to meet everyone’s needs. Like the idea of a tee shirt that says I Miss You – nothing official, not the theme. As a theme it doesn’t match our values.
Margaret: What if we altered the mosquito with a circle with a strike through it to make sure we are clear that we are not for mosquitoes.
Keree: it seems like people are moving away from mosquitoes as the theme, but allowing for the mosquito joke to exist in some way. Follow up poll (mostly people wanting heart theme)
Horst: I had in mind a Eugene Weekly cover that was sort of an inside joke. The mosquito theme was my preference, but not a big deal. A bit of sarcasm is appropriate because we’re all doing the kumbaya thing, but we are not together and we are trying to figure out how to get together, and being a little sarcastic hits a point for me.
Keree: is there a way to adjust the main theme to have a little sarcasm in there?
Larena: Can you post the other language for the heart? We’re shifting back to the heart theme, and shift to the mosquitoes at a different time.
Tim: Read suggestions from the last meeting and a couple from the drum – Minute taker’s note; this list was what I could type in real time, but I’m sure I missed some. A more comprehensive list exists elsewhere, since Tim was reading from a list.
At the Fair, together everywhere.”
Whence (When) it’s the Fair, all together everywhere.”
Together Apart
together in heart
together in our hearts (even though we are apart)
together in our hearts
Weathered Apart 🌫Together in Heart
Distanced – not Apart
We’re Together in Heart
Our hearts remain a p-a-r-t of Community Village
2021, physically apart, connected in spirit, mind, and heart
Clouds were part of the idea last time: could we do something with a psychedelic cloud? Could we take the theme and make something unique, sarcastic, or fun about it?
The word play may not be clear enough, and might be adding confusion?
Creative discussion ensued, lots of wordsmithing hard to capture in notes. The discussion ended with “We weathered it apart, together in the cloud”
Village Cloud FairEz committee report [consent to allow online donations?] (Tim et al, 15 Minutes)
We have 38 entertainment applications. We have some hosts, we need a few more for hour or so shifts. Wild edibles, Arts, and Rainbow Village have completed the Activist Booth Add Your Info Form. Nathan is working with that to submit information to post on booth web pages, to learn about booths during virtual fair. We may use those spaces to send people to the non profits in the booth. No one has filled out a booth hangout form. We need – really hoping booths can get together and do something as a booth – we can create a zoom hangout space where you’ll be there for a while from noon to 1:30 with non-profit representatives on hand. The fair is focusing greater attention on Fundraising – do we want to have focus on this in our Village? Do we want hosts to send people to websites to donate to nonprofits? We don’t have transactions in the village, but should we develop this?
Jain: the fair meant raising funds for the fair. Would we get pushpack from the fair if we were trying to raise money from our nonprofits? We sure did the last time, the General Manager came to our meetings to tell us not to work for money. This was a long time ago.
Adrian: Oregon Country Fair this year is being run as a fundraiser. Community Village has a different relationship with money than OCF, one consideration has been that the CV is free to participate anywhere from not at all to however it wants with the Fair’s fundraising efforts consistent with village values. This is an area where we’re curious about what consensus means. We are granted a fair bit of latitude on how we approach fundraising or don’t.
Tim: It would be nice to have a decision. It depends on whether there are people who want to set up a portal. We don’t have to decide tonight, short on time. We can have donation jars at our booths. We can’t have greeting cards and bumper stickers for donation. That – we can have donation jars in our booth. People can walk by, we don’t say anything or give anything in return.
Adrian: Would it be appropriate to suggest that this be a larger item of conversation next meeting. We can get clarification from Ops Mgr about parameters and have significant convo at the next meeting.
Unfair Announcements (5 minutes, All)
350.org – tomorrow a massive international event, climate change and climate justice and ecofeminism, worldwide. It’s an open thing that starts tomorrow and goes through the 11th. It’s going to be really cool.
KindTree – Autism Rocks had an art program that gathered and framed dozens of artworks by people on the autism spectrum. A number have been in storage for some time. This April is Autism Acceptance month an auction at Kindtree.org will have pieces up – on May 1st the 12 highest bidders get auctioned off live. Some of the pieces are fantastic. 50% of each sale goes to the artist. TODAY!!! www.kindtree.org
Magazine that is an online and print publication called Mirador magazine, giving out complimentary copies – online and in print – for those experiencing brain trauma, dementia, and other cognitive impairments. If you would like one, send an email to miradormaga@gmail.com. Have until tomorrow at 10:30am to submit list of addresses.
Strokes and pokes (5 minutes, All)
Notes by Sam Rutledge
Community Village 