TechComms Meeting notes 07/26/25

Attendance: LP, P, J----

Agenda

No agenda

Notes

What is the history of communications in space, challenges?

Mailing lists, moved to signal groups (30+ groups)

Groups are mixture of open/closed, some groups developed 2nd chats: Pantry/Pantry regulars, Kitchen/Kitchen 2

Operations chat

Comms issues:

Signal to noise
Shared culture
"Missability" / ease of missing notifications in groups
Discoverability / Invitationality / Lack of way-finding / sense of place

Mention of previous comms work being done by Ella/LP via operations group, inspired by Spanish squat with plaques per group.

Review of gym operations and culture

585 has no...
..bulletin board
..community chat
.."democratic" or aggregation-based broadcast system 

Issue: Information isolated in DMs

Interview groups re: comms problems, within group, with other groups, with greater org?

Why would groups want to talk to each other?

"Comms towards collective culture"

Desire to cultivate vibe sharing & a sense of care about other groups, even without involvement

Minimum set of projects/services to support RC

• Website
• Calendar
• Email
• Mailing-lists
• Donor platform
• Social media tech (registration, credentials, documentation, "workflow")
• Doc store (if only for core spokes functionality)

~~~

• Strategy
• Outside communication

What is actually needed in intra-group comms?

Website

• Explain the space
• Code of conduct
• Calendar
• Onboarding
• Group list / who uses the space / entry points

~~~

• Forms: General contact form, rental inquiries, issue reports (facilities, tech).

Calendar

• Rental booking
• Public event listing
• Program scheduling
• Meeting schedules

What does calendar represent? Main space, gym, basement?

Email

• Connection point for financial and contractual issues
• Variety of emails for specific functionality
• No personal emails

Transparency?
Hosting?

Domain

ridgewoodcommons.nyc 3/3 votes
commons.nyc - experimental staging and link shortening

Mailing Lists

• Rise-up
• Hosted via electric embers (https://electricembers.coop/services/sign-up/)

Donor platform

• Pact (open collective)
• Camraderie
• Patreon
• Withfriends

Donor strategy? Presence on many platforms with seasonal push to preferred platform? Single platform? Use of actual Patron features re: perks?

Social Media

As above, this group should be limited to tech aspects, not directly involved in content.

Doc Store

When is shared docs useful, when is it not?

Some obvious stronger intra-group comms, e.g. finance with rentals

Action items