OCP Workshop 12/12/2012

• Daniel:  could get behind having six teams but that means we need 6 leaders and do we feel like we can get 6 leader types
• Ron:  There could be an argument for imagining what we want and then getting there – if we want to have six teams, maybe we need to work on the leadership;  maybe we already have the people who can lead these teams
• Heather:  we need a cockroach team
• Mike:  There is overlap between teams, so this will need coordination;  sanitation always comes up – can it fit under some other team for now;  we need these teams to work from the start;  
• Ron:  tried to break out volunteers and services;  seems very different – some people coming in to volunteer and some people coming in because they need help with something – some kind of service
• Mike:  on the topic of volunteers/services, seems like the whole effort relates to volunteers;  kind of looks like an individual responsibility to coordinate volunteers – what would a team do with
• Ron:  persuaded by Mike’s speech – one thing that we want teams for is so that people can plug in – so maybe the volunteer person is simply funneling people to teams;  finding people’s gifts and putting them to use could be a useful thing for the volunteer team;  
• Daniel:  swayed by Mike’s thoughts on the whole system being created for volunteers;  maintenance includes sanitation, so it seems like we have a space for sanitation already;
• Ron:  there has been a time where we consider not having volunteers – we want community members – but it seems like we really want to welcome anyone and then be clear about the differences about various people – some people just are short-term volunteers;  there does seem to be a difference;  name tags might help us differentiate between visitor, volunteer, community member, staff
• Mike:  there do seem to be differences between types of volunteers;  one of our key priorities is serving the community – this is broad enough that anyone who comes through who isn’t tapped for some other team, services seems like a very broad way to get someone involved;  the whole system is set up to capture volunteer energy;  when the membership meets, they will be working with all the aspects of volunteers at OCP
• Teig:  thinks that sanitation needs to be a separate thing – different from maintenance;
• Matt:  agrees with Mike;  feels like in order to get more people interested in OCP, by having some people be part of things but not part of other things, might turn people off;  to make a separate category seems wrong
• Ron:  we are separating things in one way by creating a membership;  almost every organization – nonprofit – has volunteer coordination;  is it one person or a team?;  we currently don’t have the money to pay someone to do this full-time;  agrees that the differences between maintenance and sanitation does exist, and we probably do need more focus on sanitation;  maintenance is more like fixing things and not really regular cleaning;  
• Mike:  maybe the first maintenance/grounds meeting would be to consider a breakout of sanitation;  lets kill the roaches and have the smell of bleach in the air at all times;  maybe right now is just not the time to break out all the teams that we might want;  doesn’t feel like people on a volunteer team would really be doing actual work
• Ron:  would like to see us move towards some resolution, and an absolute maybe isn’t that important right now;  we may not have to get it perfect right now;  can we move towards some vote?;  we wanted to have some sort of list of teams in order to help our other discussions move forward;  maybe we have gotten a little to deep and philosophical
• Mike:  to move things along, propose to adopt this list of six teams:  maintenance & grounds, kitchen, programming, services, recovery/spiritual, sanitation; seconded by jonathan
• Vote:  all in favor – 10, opposed – 0, stand asides – 3 – this proposal does not carry
• Anna:  there are very legitimate reasons to abstain – no one should have to explain their vote one way or another
• Mike:  an abstention is a time honored tradition – people have a right to abstain;  people might not have known that the vote may not pass because
• Philip:  doesn’t think Daniel was trying to call anyone here stupid;  
• Mark:  doesn’t think an abstention should not
• Mike:  we need to decide that 80% is of what – all voting members, everyone present, or people who voted yes or no;  
• Teig:  thinks that it should be 80% of the voting members present;  
• Ron:  we need to figure out what an abstention means before we can determine whether or not the vote passes
• Daniel:  if abstaining, would like to not stop something from moving forward but still be able to be part of the discussion;  if someone doesn’t want to
• Greigh:  do abstentions count towards the majority;  feels like we should revote on the list of teams after we understand what abstain means
• Mark:  agrees with Greigh – if abstain doesn’t count, then he will vote no;  
• Ron:  agrees with Daniel
• Matt:  not sure why there is an option to abstain – wouldn’t this just be people who didn’t come to three meetings
• Anna:  wanted to speak to why someone would abstain:  someone might have a sort of conflict of interest, maybe you just don’t know enough,
• Mike:  maybe we can look into reasons why people abstain;  if we talk through some of these topics, we can get through this pretty quickly
• Greigh:  propose we take a vote on how to vote
• Heather:  proposes:  in order for a proposal to pass, 80% of those voting yes or no are needed for something to pass;  seconded;
• Matt:  if someone doesn’t want to be a part of the vote, they should just not raise their hand;  
• Greigh:  normally, someone abstaining would be counted just to make sure that we got a vote from everyone present
• Daniel:  what someone is doing when abstaining is the same as not raising their hand
• Mike:  wishes to have the option to abstain on this vote so will vote no
• Heather:  people are abstaining because they don’t care
• Philip:  thinks people should say they are going to vote no and why during the discussion;  if you abstain it doesn’t count
• Daniel:  thinks that speaking to why I want this to pass:  if he was really busy and hadn’t been here for three weeks and finally came just before a vote – wants an option to be here but not be counted in a way that would end up stopping something from passing;  
• Matt:  thinks people should speak for reasons for not voting – people can pick reasons why they abstain and should have a right not to say
• Anna:  wants to repeat that there are legitimate reasons for abstaining;  not caring might be a legitimate reason to abstain
• Ron:  really feels passionately about this topic – daniel’s reason is a great one – what about members who may be in the room but not voting because they aren’t paying attention
• Greigh:  has it been called into question about why someone might abstain;  if this was 30 people voting, it wouldn’t matter so much if the abstainers are counted
• Mike:  need to move smartly to a vote after Daniel’s plea and Ron added a very practical comment;  we need to make it clear that people abstaining are not counted in the majority
• Vote:  14 in favor, 0 opposed

OCP Workshop 12/05/2012

•    Ron:  we are currently in the middle of a discussion about membership and what it looks like
• Teams Discussion
•           Mike:  sensing that we ought to put some names to some teams – hoping we can get to that – do think we need to be careful how we name them
•           Mike:  the rationale behind creating some teams is that if we are making it a central part of OCP, we should have a couple named;  maybe we can take some suggestions – read our old list;  probably in 10 or 15 minutes, we could come up with a couple of teams with adequate names
•           Daniel:  has an idea for three core teams that have worked at other community center type places:  1. Maintenance/Grounds, 2. Clerical/Administration/Program Development, 3. Kitchen
•           Mike:  this seems like a good start, but it seems like programming might be in its own world
•           Ron:  wants to add that programming is a lot for day to day stuff, but then the execution of programming is more like promotions – does promotions overlap events?  Or is there an event team
•           Daniel:  ok with the list and wonders if we could have an events/promotions team – this team will probably have impact on all of the other teams;  maybe events/promotions could be a fourth team
•           Zach:  feel like we should develop a set number of teams so we have somewhere to grow to;  then we can decide what core groups we have
•           Ron:  at OCP, it seems like clerical/administration is almost completely taken care of by the staff;  what does this team do in other places
•           Daniel:  answer phones, get mail organized;  maybe there isn’t that much in this category at OCP;
•           Mike:  years ago, staff could be a part of the clerical team but others could also be part of this group as volunteers – not sure if we need a core number of teams, but what if we come up with 3-5 right now, and then we have a team that just captures all the other needs, that might cover us
•           Ron:  worried that we are forgetting a major issue
•           Philip:  thinks we should leave out clerical/admin for now and have maint/grounds, kitchen, programming;  what is volunteers?
•           Ron:  likes those main three, and we have a lot of volunteers, and if a team could help with this, that could be great;  sanitation and spiritual and recovery seem like big ones too
•           Daniel:  feeling like clerical/admin would also include programming;  does think clerical/admin is important – what is this if we don’t call it that;  maybe some of this work could fall under volunteers;  clerical/admin would come out of programming – getting at the implementation;  technology could fall under maintenance and grounds;  spiritual/recovery – this is sort of included in everything;  seems like we are splitting this up in to too many teams;  seems like 5 or less teams otherwise there will only be one person on each team;  we should have sub-categories for each of the main categories;  governance is a tricky one; 
•           Mike:  on boiling down – if we take the ones that are irreducible, spiritual/recovery can’t really fit under another category but does seem like a big part;  sanitation is very key but could go under maintenance;  services is huge – could be the volunteer catch-all category – it is always expanding;  not seeing outreach as a separate thing – maybe this comes under spiritual because it sounds churchy; 
•           Philip:  likes combining services with hospitality;  was thinking about putting spiritual/recovery under programming since all programming should include that – maybe even if programming wasn’t happening, there could be spiritual/recovery
•           Ron:  teams are not made of members only and this group is not the membership – but some people hate meetings and don’t come but do a lot around OCP – would probably be thrilled to be on a team;  between volunteers from the outside world and people who don’t like meetings, there could be a lot of people on these teams;  volunteer coordination is a big topic – we plug people into teams, we find out people’s gifts, and get them involved;  volunteers are a huge resource and there are always a lot;  seems like we have to always be focused on spiritual/recovery
•           Daniel:  still doesn’t seem like we have that many people to be on teams;  really feels like clerical/admin is very important if others can get behind it;  spiritual/recovery should be a part of everything – what would this team actually do that doesn’t fall under the other categories?;  seems like there should be a team dedicated to leg-work of programming and helping with staff tasks;
•           Mike:  sounds like we are getting close on some kind of consensus;  seems like there is a lot for spiritual/recovery;  seems like spiritual/recovery could be something;  seems like we could call volunteer/community services; 
•           Philip:  more than seven people involved in this meeting right now than seven; 
•           Ron:  the big three:  maintenance/grounds, kitchen, and programming seem like survival teams and maybe we could start with these;  we could seemingly have good leadership for these initial three
•           Mike:  seems like Philip was trying to counterbalance the thought that there are only a few of us sitting around now;  would be optimistic about the number of people regularly volunteering now;  could get behind the spiritual/recovery work that is already being done;  some people might not fit into the big three;  “services” could meet some real key needs and could be a place to have other volunteers plug in à we need people to come up with the services that our community needs
•           Ron:  if we had leadership and creativity, we could have 30 people here right now;  seems like we need a good infrastructure – three seems nice;  volunteers and donations are a huge piece of OCP that doesn’t have a good infrastructure right now
•           Daniel:  how many people are there that really have a sense of where things are and where to go to get things – there are not that many of people in that group;  these people will be the foundation of these teams;  there is always stuff that doesn’t fit somewhere else – the idea that we have a fourth team that is kind of a catch-all – like a trash drawer; 
•           Seems like we are settling in around:  1. Maintenance/Grounds, 2. Kitchen, 3. Programming, 4. Volunteers/Services
•           Philip:  seems like having a fourth category is helpful
•           Ron:  one of our purposes – to be a resource for other services in the community – this could fit under;  wants to make a small speech for comeback of spiritual/recovery – there are a few people who ron can think of that could be interested in such a group that ron could give leadership to – the team would think about what people’s needs are in this category – to make this a small category is like what we do in life with making our spiritual life small – we need to make it the center – instead of making the programming of bands, events, etc as being the main thing; 
•           Daniel BK:  what are we trying to do and wanting to do – do these teams fit into our purposes – would separate volunteers and services – services are something we are trying to do and having a bunch of people who want to help is different
•           Mike:  not going to be a lack of leadership with spiritual/recovery;  could we call the fourth a “community service team” – shelter, food, clothing could fall under this; 
•           Daniel:  spiritual/recovery is a part of daniel’s whole life, so how can we make it separate on our list;  it is a part of everything we do; 
•           Sadie:  agrees with Daniel BK, we shouldn’t call something a community service team – someone coming from the courts should not be allowed to count their work as volunteer hours
•           Philip:  doesn’t like the name of community service for a team
•           Daniel:  volunteer team is thinking about volunteers and services team is thinking about helping someone find a place to live; 
•           Ron:  thinks volunteers and service are very different and maybe both should be teams;  spirituality and recovery are not on Ron’s mind all the time, so having a team to focus on this and keep it one of our focuses seems very important; 
•           Alex:  agrees with the idea that the spiritual/recovery team is important – just because it has influence on all the other teams doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have its own team;
•           Mike:  thinks we should wait on a vote in order to think some more – save it until next week
•           Ron:  we aren’t starting this tomorrow – we are developing this for the membership;  the membership might not actually start for months;  we should have a vision and maybe have 5-6 teams so we are looking forward to what we want ocp to look like;
•           Daniel:  maybe spiritual/recovery could fall under programming and we could have only four major groupings to keep things orderly