Ron: one of the basic requirements for membership is that members would have to attend meetings
Charles: would like to affirm membership meetings
Larry: not sure we can talk about this until we know more about our needs; would like to talk about new member orientation
Michelle: we did nothing but have meetings in the beginning; a lot of the things on the list right now used to be discussed at meetings;
Ron: a reason to talk about membership meetings might be that people might be assuming membership meetings might be at this time; maybe there would be a reason to say that membership meetings wouldn’t be at a time like this – working on finding a time that would be the most accessible and how frequent; picture the membership being made up people from all walks of life; healthy community is a variety of people from various walks of life – retired, full-time working folk – owned by people in the community;
Mark: systematically taking one thing at a time, we are going to have to talk about it sometime
Larry: conceptually that this is open to people from all walks of life is a really important part of OCP; however we talk about membership meetings should be a part of this;
Ron: we tried to have an evening meeting of this “Friends of OCP” that people weren’t very interested in coming to; are people just happy doing what they are doing now with participation?; there a quite a few people who plug into ocp but don’t want to participate in this kind of
Michelle: is there some way to coordinate with what we want and with people at the farm or people at early church; Sunday night is game night at the farm
Ron: hear michelle saying that we should watch out for other significant events in the community; considering people who are already plugging in but don’t want to come to a meeting seems important; wondering if monthly is even enough in the beginning; quarterly would probably not be often enough; teams would probably meet more regularly; another question is that this implies that members need to attend membership meetings
Mark: we haven’t defined what membership meetings are; maybe what we mean by meeting attendance is that people should attend any meetings that are happening – if someone comes to an event planning meeting that is great; people attending meetings that aren’t just membership seems important;
Ron: if you are on the board of something, you are definitely expected to come to meetings; there will be lots of decisions being made that people need to be involved in; judiciary where decisions are being made about people be involved or not; at a church, 300 members in a church but only a few people come to annual budget meeting;
Jonathan: what if tasks that the membership would address would be completed by a “team”
Larry: is the membership advisory or decision making; maybe this group would have to meet more often in the beginning;
Philip: seems like the membership would be a decision making group
Ron: seems like the idea of meeting attendance definitely applies to membership; the membership makes decisions about running the place; the membership might be a filter for something – like if we had an enterprise or housing – one would have to be a member to apply; seems like it gets wishy washy if people aren’t required to be at membership meetings; if the membership gets too large,
Michelle: agrees that we need to think about what ron just said; how many volunteers do we have that care if they are members or not; think it would have a lot to do with priorities – if you really want to see this happen, wouldn’t you make it to a membership meeting;
Larry: priorities makes me nervous – can’t be here a lot much next week because I have things going on; we need to be careful to not assume that just because someone doesn’t show up for a few weeks that they don’t care about ocp; staff is here because it is their job;
David: next week getting prepped for other hip replacement – will be gone again for a while – doesn’t mean I am being lackadaisical about ocp – at this point it is amazing to be able to leave the house to come down occasionally;
Ron: want to observe that we can have a membership that the definition isn’t everyone who cares about ocp; board is a small group, staff is a small; 2/3rds of people on teams might not be members, then there are people that just come to ocp but aren’t members or anything – they just come; we haven’t really said “a member run community center” – if it were to go in that direction, seems like we would want that group here; we never did like the word membership – maybe we need a new word
Alex: kind of sounds like we are talking about some sort of executive committee – membership seems like everyone should be a part; “membership” doesn’t seem to make sense for what it seems like we are really talking about;
Ron: being stopped a little in tracks about how hard it is for people to attend meetings (like board meetings) who want to be involved; like the idea of the filter system where the person who never plugs in is not involved in decision making; seems like the idea of all membership attending
David: why hasn’t anyone though about a suggestion box
Ron: this reminds me of having the membership create some specific groups like judiciary and might vote on that group and who comes; makes me think that a quarterly membership meeting would allow us deal with important issues; all this makes me think of some kind of hierarchy in membership;
Larry: comment about hierarchy – never experiences the staff lording power over or being superior ; however the membership develops, it is very important for people to be/feel included;
Ron: keep feeling like members will attend quarterly membership meetings;
Mark: supposed to be talking about meeting attendance; we need to understand that if we have someone who needs to come to three membership meetings to become a member and have meetings quarterly
Ron: monthly membership meetings – have to have a quorum, and members should do their best to attend membership meetings; if someone feels passionately about something on the agenda and cant be there they would get their comments to someone who can be there; maybe agendas would be out ahead of time
Alex: likes the idea of someone being able to attend any three meetings; never experienced a bad sense of hierarchy – have experienced leadership;
Ron: even if we establish a membership and a structure, doesn’t seem like we will ever run out of things to talk about; would be nice to have a time once a month to get together to talk about issues; if you are going to be on a team anyway, seems like you are already committed; the idea of inviting others into the process – even the person who talks at the kitchen team meeting but not so much at the membership meeting time may have the most important thing to do; members will agree to attend monthly membership meetings
Michelle: had a thought – in the beginning, we did teams – a place where all the team meetings have minutes posted; like the idea of at least a weekly meeting per team; a big major meeting might work every 1-3 months as long as teams were meeting regularly;
Philip: there will be a lot of things to discuss and lots of team details that need to discuss other team details – that we are all in harmony and following the
Larry: have a trial person attend membership meetings and team meetings might be too much
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