Chris: what about an elitist feel with the membership, but if anyone can attend meetings
Ron: Early Church has a membership and although anyone can come to meetings, only members have a vote; like the idea of the membership honoring those people who are interested in running the place; looking towards the future, the membership could be some sort of filter for things – ie. Housing or jobs – you couldn’t just walk in off the street and be part of the housing scene; maybe jobs would be the kind of thing that would be available to members; the membership can help implement new ideas – the membership could discuss ideas and then help come up with a plan;
Shinea: agree with the membership idea – if you are coming off the streets, you should be able to come here and learn and maybe you would want to become a member; never really wanted to be a member, but recently, life changes have made me feel like I might want to be a member;
Ron: we did have community meetings once a week, and people did come and participate – now, people would probably respond better to a weekly meeting; membership meetings will be at least once monthly – sometimes someone has to come in front of the community for some rule infraction, and it was always valuable to have the whole community there; mind continues to be confused about a time – mark works at night, others work during the day – do we do our best to talk with our bosses to try and get some time off so that we can attend; a quorum of 51% needs to attend for meetings to happen – members would try to the best of their abilities to attend meetings; seems like everyone needs to participate or just the staff
Chris: if it is important enough to the people who want to be members, it seems like most jobs could work around a schedule with enough advance warning – barring a family emergency or a job that wouldn’t let you leave; we gave our word to be here, so we did come even though we will have to leave early
Ron: is there a magic time that might work for most people – Sunday evenings?; some jobs won’t give you an evening off;
Jonathan: wondering about making a proposal about monthly membership meetings and members are strongly encouraged to attend;
Mark: if we are talking about meetings attendance, lets just start somewhere – monthly sounds good;
Ron: we are trying to figure out what it means that members are supposed to attend three meetings; what about “members will try in earnest to attend membership meetings”; someone like roger is here every day and works all day but will not attend meetings – what do you do about this?; like that we are backing off being legalistic about people coming to membership meetings; time and date might be something for the initial membership to deal with
Jonathan: “Membership meetings will be at least monthly, and all members are strongly encouraged to attend.”; seconded by Sadie; 9 for – 0 opposed
Ron: seems like we want trial members show up to membership meetings during their trial period
Shinea: if you aren’t a member, people shouldn’t be able to use and abuse OCP; all the people that don’t have any place to go should do something here;
Ron: a point of clarification – so far, we have never said that someone would have to be a member or trial period to be at OCP; most people are still interested in OCP being an outreach to people who have nowhere to be and no interest of getting involved; a lot of people have been through a lot and might need time just to be here before thinking about becoming a member; would like us to have some sort of radical generosity but those that are plugging in will be able to have more decision making power; having time at ocp that is just open to members could be something we decide
Shinea: if you are going to come to OCP, you should at least show appreciation somehow – try to help do something – anything; ocp could suffer from people not having their minds right where they need to be;
Michelle: from my own experience, there have been times when I came just because I needed to be with community, but I was not emotionally able to be helpful to anyone or anything; I have watched people walk into this building who came unable to help but within 6 months, came to a place to be able to help; some people are aware of whats going on, but they do not want to have to come to a meeting or feel like it is a job and not just for fun; over the years, I have gone from one extreme to the other; the last couple years have been constant turmoil;
Chris: if you look at an AA meeting, so people come just to draw strength from the circle but might not feel like talking; some young guys started coming to OCP and were interested in lots of other things, but many have come around to being with their families;
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