Thursday, June 13, 2013

OCP Workshop 06/05/2013

Ron:  New Member Orientation is left on our list of deliverables –
Philip:  would a new member even need an orientation after doing a trial period
Ron:  maybe people would need to spend time with each of the teams during orientation;  maybe this is really like a one time session – history of ocp, orientation about all the teams;  recently I did this premarital counseling thing and then went to an official training;  maybe we should give people time to come to some meetings, etc and then offer orientation
Ron:  maybe just one orientation where anyone could come – volunteers, people wanting to become members, people who are just new to OCP;  maybe we would want them to be more professional ;  maybe we could do these orientations outside of the footprint since we aren’t open that much and we would want these pretty regularly
Philip:  my mind went in the direction of a regular orientation that would cover a lot;  trying to create a manual for ocp
Mary:  it is good to know about membership and volunteering;  how do the new people know who is a leader, who has a membership;  what about an id for people so new people know who to talk to
Ron:  interesting question – a little more serious – we have talked about name tags – you would either be member, volunteer, visitor, or staff – what we don’t like about this (or trying to preserve) is that anyone is welcome and that people feel welcome – even if they don’t think what we think;  regardless of where they are coming from, a person would be welcome;  another idea has been to have pictures on the wall of staff, board members, and maybe OCP community members – this might be better than name tags;  if the member is upholding the rules, etc of ocp, a person should be able to trust that person a little more, depend on that person a little more;  
Michelle:  regarding name tags, I have been here since the beginning, but I don’t want to be labeled as an old-timer;  don’t feel like the name tags are a part of what we are trying to convey to people – maybe too much like a hierarchy;  we don’t want the staff to lord power, and we want to make sure that volunteers feel like they are a part;  always loved that we have always felt equal at OCP;  would worry that someone might feel like they cant do something because they aren’t a member;  like the idea of pictures on the wall;  anytime you talk with someone who has been around and don’t know the answer to question, I point people to the right person;  name tags make me think that I am working for money;
Ron:  seems like there is a feeling to consolidate this “orientation” with our volunteer orientation;  it would be good to really look at the content of the orientation with the manual, historical, philosophical, the order it would be done;  what would be take away (a notebook, rules, etc);  maybe the volunteers would be split up from new member orientation;
Philip:  on our staff agenda is to review the manual that Philip has been working on;  it would be fun to have it go out to the members;  took a lot out of The Haven’s manual and made changes to make it work for OCP;  
Ron:  wondering if we can get out of this topic realively easily – maybe we just say that a person will attend an orientation before becoming a member;  we could actually have someone attend a volunteer orientation now before making additions and changes;  
Philip:  can we add the orientation as a requirement to the trial period;  move to include new member orientation in the trial period definition;  seconded by Michelle;  9 in favor, 0 opposed
Ron:  looking at what’s left at the bottom:  community center purposes, framework for community to govern itself, set of rules and regulations, hours/access proposal, plan for programming/entertainment, funding;  regarding community center purposes – do we need to have some purposes that apply directly to the community center outside of our organization-wide purposes;  framework for community to organize itself – this seems like it might be the membership itself – does the membership have the power/ability to govern itself or the community center;  set of rules/regulations – we have done some strong work on the rules listed on our page;  how do we make rules;  what are the limitations of decisions;  hours and access proposal – this came out of some frustration about the current hours and a need for more access to shelter – the idea was that this might become a proposal to the OCP board – how more hours might be achieved – the board could still say no;  
Philip:  we are coming up on two years since the September close – feeling the move towards some type of hours expansion – seems like we are about there;  would love for the members and the staff to figure out how some additional hours might work;  it would be fun to works towards that – knowing that it needs to be sane and healthy;  matt’s had some ideas about this for a while;  
Ron:  hearing this makes me feel antsy to get the membership started – if we are going to be member-run, lets let the membership set this up and then the new decision is held accountable to the membership – accountability seems like it is going to be a big issue;  my opinion might be to dissolve the workshop and begin the membership at some point;  
Mark:  now that we have some free time, how are we going to officially start the membership – we need to figure this out;  
Ron:  this topic might fall under community governance;  plan for programming and entertainment – this seems like team that we have already created could deal with this once we start the membership;  funding was maybe something mike farrand added on – it is related to enterprises;  also it is related to hours and access;  not sure we have the muscle to deal with some of these issues right now;  
Matt:  seems like funding should be left to the staff unless someone has an idea – we should put it aside for now
Michelle:  wondering where to sign up for membership;  could we get behind the idea of funding, hours/access, programming, and rules and regulations all coming off our list;  then maybe we have community center purposes – not sold on having to discuss this topic;  maybe we can focus on framework for governance and how to start the membership;  who is going to chair a membership meeting, talk about the relationship of workshop to membership, agendas – how people can get things on an agenda
Matt:  like the idea of talking about Mark’s topic – who will be in the initial group;  like the idea talking about hours – maybe the first week of October, we could be open on a Friday;  maybe this will be a discussion, but would like not to push this talk off to far;
Ron:  it’s June – we have been working on this for a year – seems like the time to talk about ending the workshop and starting the membership;  seems like we could have things up and running by October and that wouldn’t really be too far away;  

Jonathan:  maybe we need to discuss who might want to be involved in a discussion about who will be in the initial membership

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