OCP Workshop 09/19/2012

• Ron:  reminds people of some of the rules of the game – try not to repeat, you can twinkle to agree, raise your hand to talk and we use a stack, we would like to have a time keeper and a vibe keeper
• Thursday night:  no decisions were made on Thursday night
• Last weeks discussion we touched on membership – one person made a point that we are maybe talking about two different topics – one the term, and two the concept – these could be two different discussions
• The topic is not “how do we want membership to look” but instead the topic is more like “should we have something called membership or something like a membership”;  currently we do have some pieces of something that might be a membership
• Someone else talked about setting up their house – would ask the person who lived at the house, not strangers on the street – maybe there is a reason to create some sort of group on the inside that cares about ocp
• The phrase – “Friends of OCP” – came out of the discussion as a possible name for this group
• We will continue  discussion on membership
• Membership discussion continued:
• Jonathan:  Two people at the last meeting talked about not wanting a membership
• Sigi:  would like to see today’s discussion be put out to the public – we do put it on the blog
• Matt:  would this place lose something that is what OCP is really about if we had a membership – not that he didn’t want it
• Daniel:  are members people who are allowed to vote?
• Jonathan:  wants to see a membership but always hold onto the OCP anyone is welcome idea
• Ron:  expectations and benefits for members – if it is all expectations then what is the benefit of membership – maybe it is enough that we have a community center – teams is an idea that comes up a lot for ron – members would be on some team;  teams might be:  entertainment, kitchen, maintenance, tidy/décor, etc;  Ron visited Sisters of the Road – they had a large number of staff – the community wasn’t really involved – Ron will talked to the group of the Sisters of the Road – staff gets paid a lot and is not really a part of the community;  years ago it was staffed by people from the community – people in the community came up with this idea;  would like to see what we can do about running a community center WITH the community – we probably always need staff, but can we have a community run community center with a skeleton of the staff
• Heather:  wants Philip to add things to the conversation
• Daniel:  if membership is only something that means people in these meetings can vote then we already have a membership and we debating the term
• Daneen:  loves the community here, doesn’t want the community to be upset – we have rules and things to follow in the building – related to housekeeping – people seem to be smoking wherever they want right now
• Matt:  agrees with Daniel – what this place is about – has really been thinking about the idea of membership – likes the term “Friends  of OCP” better than the term membership
• Sigi:  the benefits that people have include responsibility –
• Ron:  having a say in meetings and having a say in structure might be enough of a benefit;  since we do have these meetings, someone could make a proposal at any time – like members need to be on teams – then we have discussion and it passes or doesn’t pass;  at the beginning, we decided not to have people do a certain number of hours – because we couldn’t keep track of that;  
• Philip:  very interested in this conversation – not bored – twinkles a lot;  really wants to hear what the community thinks about the next steps of membership – if we do mandatory work hours;  
• Teig:  likes the idea of teams;  would like to brainstorm a list of teams – some of the necessary things;  would like to say that membership has its privileges – if you are working here more often then you should have some privileges
• Mike:  would like to see someone update us with philip’s twinkling, etc
• Ron:  seems like each piece of membership might be a big discussion so maybe the first deliverable should be to decide on a membership or not;  privileges is an important question – maybe lockers, laundry, computers, and showers could be part of the privileges – we could keep the threshold low enough so that anyone could be a member
• Jonathan:  proposes that we call this group:  “Friends of OCP”;  Kris seconds this proposal
• Daniel:  thinks the next step for this group might be to set the threshold a little higher; maybe there are various steps of membership; come to three meetings and you can vote; come to six meetings and you might get some other privilege
• Kris:  a benefit of being a member is being a part of this group that can help this community;  everyone who is a friend of ocp would help make this a safe place to be;
• Mike:  wonders if the name gets us to the question of do we want a membership or not;  is wondering about a minor adjustment to the proposal about whether or not we want a membership – was going to propose to have a membership system that encourages, coordinates, and benefits from the volunteer energy that makes OCP and the community at large a better place, that we now call it friends of ocp, the naming might change later, that we start with this group and this group can evolve over the process
• Matt:  thinks people are behind “Friends of OCP” and then talk about the concern of do we want a membership;  
• Mark:  we are talking about two separate things – we have a voting members and what we will call that group – the other topic is membership – Mark is thinking something completely different when we talk about membership;  we are spinning our wheels right now
• Ron:  we have a democratic process in this thing – which indicates we do have something like membership – we invented it and we come – then proposals can be made to alter the idea;  this is an organic group that can change over time;  intrigued by Mike’s idea of “WHY” we might want a membership – should this be part of the discussion in one of our deliverables;  would be in favor of amending the proposal but maybe we should just vote on this current proposal – then maybe talk about there reasons for this idea
• Sigi:  feels like 3 meetings might not be such a low threshold – would like to see us try things from today for 60 days
• Daniel:  would like us to solve one problem before moving onto another
• Philip:  likes Mike’s proposal and how specific it is;  no one is speaking against such an idea;  if people really don’t like the idea, Philip hasn’t heard that yet;
• Khaleel:  wonders about the difference between ocp workshops and the farm workshop;  
• Some talk about if you haven’t been to three meetings you can’t vote but you can be at the meetings
• 16 yes, 1 no, 1 abstain
• Teig:  voted no but is willing to block the decision – prefers the term membership – “Friends of OCP” is a bit wishy-washy;
• Anna:  started as staff recently – wants to congratulate the room for hearing people’s voices and that’s why it takes time sometimes;  this is the kind of community that Anna wants to be a part of;  really happy to be a staff person
• Sadie:  likes the idea of Friends of OCP because it sounds a lot more welcoming
• Ron:  would like us to talk about the purpose of the idea of “Friends of OCP” – Mike mentioned Mike’s comments about this group making ocp a better place that then makes the community a better place;  Mike is trying to clarify that we have not yet decided whether or not we actually want a membership or not;  
• Ron:  disagrees – we have something called “Friends of OCP” with a democratic process and working with the board to come up with non-negotiables;  
• Kris:  talks that there could be a group called “Friends of OCP” that vote on things but that maybe there is a different group that does things like teams, etc;
• Christina:  likes the name “Friends of OCP” – can we move on
• Mike:  none of the proposal addresses whether or not we want a membership – not sure where we stand on this;  we need to decide whether or not we want a membership
• Sigi:  since there is no membership – who decides when someone is removed from membership
• Ron:  maybe hears what Mike is saying – this is just some group that we came up with to decide various things – this group could give birth to a membership but maybe this isn’t actually the membership;  ron is for Mike’s idea or proposal, but the idea of the word membership can be dropped, but it seems clear that we have the mechanisms in place to decide things -  all of the things like teams, etc can come after this;  seems like too much right now to completely flush out the requirements of how to become a member that might come up over time;  
• Daniel:  once you come to three meetings you are a voting member – then this group is now called “Friends of OCP” –  agrees that we should let the idea of membership happen naturally and let that be the “Friends of OCP”;  
• Heather:  asks Mike not to talk so loud into the mic;  now that we are the “Friends of OCP” lets find different levels
• Mike:  jonathan’s proposal did not include the details of Mike’s comments about a sort of proposal – doesn’t want to take a leap for the sake of historians – with a slight modification, Mike’s idea could become a proposal;  proposes that we develop or originate a system of membership which encourages, coordinates, and benefits from the volunteer energy that makes OCP and the community at large a better place, that we now call it friends of ocp, the naming might change later, that we start with this group and this group can evolve over the process of these workshops; teig:  seconds
• Philip:  wonders if the group or the individuals are the “Friends of OCP”
• Ron:  concern about the proposal is that we don’t get nailed down on the purpose of this group – maybe we are developing a system of membership without the addition of what we will be doing – the volunteering bit
• Sadie:  can voting members block a proposal – thinks that it needs some more definition before we vote so we all know what we are voting on
• Mike:  concerns with Ron’s modification would confuse the proposal:  we originate a membership system, beginnings are OCP workshop called “Friends of OCP”, purposes and definition of membership system would be allowed to evolve over the course of the OCP workshops
• Daniel:  feels like Mike just wants clarification that we would be allowed to evolve into something more – this Friends of OCP;
• Ron:  thinks we can strip the proposal down or we could spend some time with the meat of the proposal to delve more into the purpose of this thing
• Ron:  there is a proposal on the floor and we will continue to talk about it next week and we will work on tweaking it a bit in order to make it more clear – then we could have a vote on it next week after we have more time to talk about purposes;  Ron would like to see us discuss more the part of the proposal about purpose
• Melissa:  there are good people here that help out everyday