OCP Workshop 06/26/2013

• Some things left over from last time:  the idea of a comprehensive orientation for new ocp members, new board members, new staff members;  another discussion was about people in jail or people who have been kicked out of OCP;  other items left to discuss
• How do you lose your membership status?  What about people in jail?
• How do people get things onto the agenda
• What about goveranance
• Special “hard core volunteer” exception to initial member definition – ie. Skip, david alleman
• On the 17th, this will be the first real membership meeting and we can discuss when and where we would like to meet;  we will also probably work on establishing teams;  
• Ron:  can a person currently incarcerated become an initial member – one example is Kris
• Ron:  think we should allow it – this is a one time in history kind of thing
• Michelle:  kris when he was here, he more than fulfilled his membership requirements;  with the initial membership, seems fine
• Mat:  agree
• Ron:  if there are no objections, we can move on
• Mark:  love kris too, but as far as being an initial member, if he becomes a member in name only, he won’t be part of meetings, discussions, no planning, no work of any kind
• Mat:  understand Mark’s concern – if ron wrote kris and kris would want to be a part of the initial membership,
• Mark:  if the membership takes a vote, will we wait to hear from Kris
• Ron:  members who aren’t at a membership meeting wouldn’t have a vote later;  the little grill came up with the idea of a “hiatus” so that someone could leave for some reason for up to one year and come back and still remain a member;  if Kris comes back he could jump right in, and maybe it is just a way to reach out to someone – Kris
• Mat:  don’t think we should spend too much time on this – we should first ask Kris if he is even interested
• Ron:  if he can’t be a member, don’t even want to ask him;
• Mat:  agree with Jonathan – write him a letter, find out what he wants, and then we can decide what to do;  kris will consider that he hasn’t been around, coming to meetings
• Michelle:  where is Kris –(ohio)
• Jonathan:  motion to offer Kris Elzey membership if he is interested; seconded by Michelle – unanimous vote for
• Ron:  what about the hard core volunteer exception
• Mark:  david alleman, john rust should be allowed to be members
• Ron:  maybe Roger Thompson too;  the membership is different from the Friends group and these people might want to be members
• Michelle:  skip too;  has done so much for OCP – went to the farm and did a lot there;  he is out in the county now and can’t always be here
• Ron:  yesterday talking with David Alleman expressed interest in the membership but couldn’t be here on Wednesday morning. Other examples – former board members, long-term supports/mentors who can’t be here on Wednesdays
• Michelle:  kind of agree with Jonathan
• How does a person lose membership status?
• Jonathan:  membership should decide this
• Governance and getting things on an agenda
• Ron:  the membership could develop these things, but maybe we should give it some thought – would be have a president, vice president;  who takes minutes;  along the lines of having the meetings when we are closed, no microphones, no one walking in and out making random comments
• Anna:  think it would be a good idea – how to get things on the agenda, governance – the membership meeting could talk about these things, but it would be nice to know some of these answers at the first membership meeting;
• Michelle:  thinking that relying on Ron leading meetings and Jonathan taking minutes, we should just start this way;  like the idea of finding a central spot at OCP and using the internet as a way for people to keep up with what is going on;
• Ron:  thinking about how a lot of organizations start and you just pick some initial people and then the first order of business is to elect new board members – see the argument for continuing on with what we have, but we could talk about if we want to have a president – a presider – been involved with groups having a rotating presider, but don’t like this style – seems like we need to have people who are good at presiding, but we could have room for people to be trained to preside – maybe our goal would be to elect a president, vice president, and secretary and think about how long terms might be – we could work some of these things out now so the first membership meeting wouldn’t have to be so boring
• Michelle:  maybe we could hash that out over the next few weeks;  in three weeks, we could probably come up with a plan;  do like the idea of knowing ahead of time what is going to happen;  people on the OCP board were initially given amounts of time that they would serve – think it is easier if we start with a plan in the beginning;  
• Michael:  to get something on the agenda, would it involve making motions
• Ron:  the workshops have been really geared towards the workshop deliverables;  along the way, there have been lots of ideas – like being open on Friday or a dance night – how do ideas get out there – to the membership;  if a group doesn’t know what to do with an idea or a complaint, people begin to do subversive things to get power – if it is clear what people do with ideas of complaints, the group can be a good functioning group;  we could let membership figure out some of these things, we could make some suggestions over the next few weeks to establish some beginning place;  
• Michelle:  don’t see very clearly the difference between working on something here and then working on something with the membership;  coming in on July 17th with no plan, no one taking minutes, no one leading doesn’t make much sense – think we should figure out exactly who is going to be in charge on the 17th
• Sadie:  agree with Michelle that there should be established who is in charge when we begin
• Jonathan:  would like to make sure we talk about a way for the initial membership to vote – using the next few Friends meetings to talk about this, governance, and agenda issues