Mark: thinks we should skip the 2 weeks and go straight to one month
Ron: what age are we talking about? The idea of Emmett at 17 not being able to play ping pong with mark inside while others are outside playing volleyball
Sadie: feels like a lot of parents have come in here with their teenage children recently, and got to thinking about Raven
Mark: the state gives people the ability to drive at 16, so seems like under normal OCP circumstances, someone at 16 could be at ocp with an adult
Philip: might we just follow the idea that 18 is what the state says is an adult
Ron: someone who is young making bad decisions, maybe 18 is good;
Hunter: it is about the law – if someone is a sex offender, they will get locked up for being around a child;
Ron: can anyone not get behind a child in this rule being someone under 18; seems like we should change the rule to say “minor” instead of “child” to be more specific
Alex: would like something about resolution or staff follow-up – not just wait three times and then the person gets in trouble
Ron: seems like it could be 99 times out of 100 the child and adult alone could just be a pure accident or circumstances and the group doesn’t maybe want to be to punitive
Philip: the sentence about staff following up with child, adult, and parent: maybe we can add that we will remind people about the rule AND why it is important; we should change the word child to “minor” in the enforcement
Alex: with the example of phoebe and kris, maybe a follow-up isn’t necessary, but sometimes since there isn’t any enforcement until the third time
Philip: there is a check-in each time leading up to the third time; the enforcement piece sounds like we would talk to the groups separately
Ron: could we add the word “separately”
Jonathan: proposes: “When such a situation comes to a staff member’s attention, then the staff will follow up with the adult separately from the minor and minor’s parents or guardians in order to remind all parties about the rule and its importance. If any of these parties is involved in three separate incidents, then that person(s) will be banned for one month. If a person would like to continue to be part of the OCP community after the one month ban, then he/she will have to appear before membership to make such a request, and the membership will decide the next steps.”
Philip: seconds
Ron: anyone over 13 who has been told not to be alone with an adult and has been told twice, should listen and if someone is under 13 and continues to be alone with an adult, the parents need the enforcement piece to think about it
Vote: 9 vote for, 1 vote against – against does not want to block
Ron: next rule that needs some enforcement: No sexually explicit images, language, dress, or behavior
Peter: agree that this rule should be left to the discretion of the staff – gives the opportunity for a community member to let a staff person know if they see something that seems inappropriate
Matthew: don’t think we have too much of a problem with people wearing inappropriate clothing – except for some college students;
David: summer will be here soon, and people will want to walk around with no shirt on
Ron: at the farm they was an issue with Greigh; emily set up what she couldn’t wear and then wore the same outfit; cultural standards are pretty low;
Michael: everyone has different personalities and differences; don’t think that any exposed or see through material; what about spandex; we aren’t a night club or a bar
Ron: maybe it is impossible to fully nail this down, so maybe we just know it when we see it and leave it to the staff’s discretion; we will tell people at orientation to consider to appropriate dress
Peter: for adopting the same enforcement as we did for the children alone with an adult
Alex: should be some sort of warning; more of a gradual process
Philip: reading a manual from another community center – it says to try not to wear fancy or revealing clothing
Ron: might not be less serious – depends on the situation; what if someone pulls up some serious pornography on the computer – would they get banned from the computer; someone says sexually explicit things to someone – 3 chances in this case?; seems like the enforcement should be left completely up to the staff
Michael: if you tell someone they need to dress “appropriately” seems subjective;
Matthew: didn’t agree with this not being very serious; gets uncomfortable when some college girls wear certain things in here;
Bri: the rule should be general and flexible for staff – something should be said to volunteers at orientation; some places, there is a giant t-shirt that someone is “forced” to wear or the person can leave;
Sadie: if something happens where a female has to be corrected on dress and anna or Sadie is not here, how would that be dealt with; when Matt was talking about JMU girls coming in here, sometimes Christina dresses just like the jmu girls;
Peter: giving staff full discretion on enforcement, we are going back on what we have said – these are all very important issues, and we need to understand that staff has overriding authority to deal with each of these no matter happens
Philip: for this one, maybe we should have a positive statement – “this rule is important because….” Maybe we want to respect people’s bodies and Christianity;
Michael: people hitting on each other: what if it isn’t graphic – if someone isn’t interested they should be left alone
Ron: lets stick with the rule right now that talks about explicit things: to Philips desire to have a positive here, it is hard to get at a moral ideal – seems like we are getting to a bottom line that cannot be crossed; something peter said: something like “in general, the staff may choose to follow the following guidelines: 2 warnings and then a month off, however, they may choose to go with something else as it seems appropriate”; also, seems like an over-arching statement at the beginning to clearly give the staff overarching
Ron: when the line is crossed, it is sometimes serious and sometimes not;
Michael: week, month
Ron: keep wanting to add guidelines but the situations could be so varied
Philip: one action we could state is if you have an issue with something, you bring that to staff – so if anyone has an issue with something being “explicit”, the rule states that a person would come to the staff and let the staff know; if a community member has a concern or complaint, s/he will bring it to a staff member and the staff with have the discretion to make an appropriate decision
Michael: have a small group of people – things that are general like pornography – let this small group
Peter: this reminds me of the gun conversation – we need to set down a basic layout of what will be done and the staff will have discretion afterwards
Ron: rule being broken is a lot harder to define, and the spectrum of broken rule is large, so the enforcement; seems like having some sort of guideline about this; it could be helpful to have something specific so that someone could read it in a handbook
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