2025-09-02 Spokescouncil Planning WG Meeting

Spokescouncil Planning WG Meeting - Date: 09-02-2025

Agenda 

• Feedback overheard
• Review next spokescouncil meeting agenda - finalize 
• Review proposals - make notes of friendly amendments for the delegate (tbd) 
• AOB (urgent) 
• Additional items if time: 
  • Spokescouncil SOP documentation updates 
  • Recruitment 
• Hugs & kisses & action items before/for Thursday meeting

Notes

Attendance

-shannon, vanessa, ash, paul, katelyn, ewa, caroline, briar

Feedback overheard

• open up discussions for beyond "fish bowl"
• forum for everyone to say something if not at spokescouncil, maybe a general assembly or town hall 
  • GA v Spokescouncil - what are they good for? what can they achieve?
• what is the space for? mutual aid for whom? 
• once per quarter, spokescouncil is observable by general community 
• open up fishbowl to beyond WG's at spokes
• feedback mechanism
• announce spokescouncil meetings sooner + flyer 
• set schedule for planning meetings - monday before every meeting

Review next spokescouncil meeting agenda - finalize 

-how to handle proposals :

• how to handle proposals that came in late - send a note + check in at beginning of meeting + check in on quorum (do WG's who haven't had the amt of time to make a decision care or not if a vote happens?)
  • parking lot for proposals that are tabled for now
  • consent agenda to triage proposals
• visual diagram: longer checklist for WGs to prep+ proposals deadline
• seasons are changing, hard to get ppl in a room together
• delegates making decisions for their group w/o consent could be tricky with issues of trust further developing in the space
• survey or poll for feedback
• prioritize proposals for a consent agenda to bring up to the top what ppl need to discuss 
• groups who are present nominate proposals for discussion, not enough nominations, they don't get to talk about it or wait til the end to discuss the late ones 
• final thought on how to deal with proposals that come in late: any single delegate that didn't get a chance to discuss with their group, the proposal is tabled
  
• sustaining contributions added to agenda
• integrate FAs asynchronously 
  • blocking amendments - this will not be passed w/o amendment (next meeting)

we need to update documentation 

• updated explainer
• cheat sheet

6 month - Nov - general assembly to get feedback

proposal workshop/mentoring: checklist, as our WG announcement

cofac - katelyn, looking for co-fac at next meeting

role for our group: proposal round up, make ppl know they can reach out to one of us if they send something a little late, aggregating proposals and sending them out

culture point: ppl always post to the delegates chat when they write a proposal 

open call to help shannon with developing general assembly @ signal in agenda

Proposal Votes:

Bathroom Proposal https://wiki.commons.nyc/books/spokescouncil-proposals/page/proposal-for-bathroom-cleaning-rotation

• FA's
  • every week 
    
  • sign up sheet online or irl on the door. chore wheel or random/self selected?
  • consider including a note on the proposal - who keeps track of it? WG self-managed? or facilities?

RC Community Announcements Chat https://wiki.commons.nyc/books/spokescouncil-proposals/page/rc-community-announcements-chat

• FA's
  • "friends of RC" community spaces can share events through this chat. not individuals but sharing events by other community spaces to limit it a little bit. 
  • need clarity around which events are shared? and how? 
  • ask for volunteers to admin at the next meeting and set expectations for the chat 
    

RC Coordination Chat https://wiki.commons.nyc/books/spokescouncil-proposals/page/rc-coordination-chat

FA's

• MOU will have the QR code to be added to coordination chat
• set the chat up so no one needs to be an admin

Physical RC Community Calendar https://wiki.commons.nyc/books/spokescouncil-proposals/page/physical-rc-community-calendar - we didn't get enough time to vote on this 

Action items (need ppl to sign up):

• Short term:
  • Katelyn will look for co-facilitator for next meeting KW discussing with Caroline!!! 
  • send a note about late proposals to spokescouncil announcements chat and delegates chat Iris and KW drafting/ sending this 9/4
    
  •  updates to sep 11 meeting agenda (Katelyn - noted and amended):
    
    • how to deal with proposals that come in late: any single delegate that didn't get a chance to discuss with their group, the proposal is tabled
    • "sustaining contributions" added to agenda for liability/fundraising announcements from Vanessa
    • Spokescouncil Planning WG announcements (for Paul as Delegate to share):
      • Please join the Spokescouncil Planning Working Group! We would love your help to shape the self-governance at RC, talk to one of the people here - we will have a standing meeting the Monday before every Spokescouncil meeting that is open for anyone to join
        
      • looking for co-fac for next meeting in October, volunteers
      • proposal workshop/mentoring offerings as well as training to co-facilitate
      • General Assembly: briefly say what it is (open discussion and 6ish month review of how things are going), reach out to Shannon via signal to help organize 
      • Reminder that anyone can organize a discussion and you don't need to go through the spokescouncil to do it (example: After Sunday dinners people have been getting together to informally discuss what is happening at RC)
      • If you want to form a working group you can do that whenever you want, coordinate when you want to use the space with people in programming and start doing your thing. once it feels like you have a solid working group, write a charter and submit to spokescouncil to be ratified 
        
      • culture point: ppl always post to the delegates chat when they write a proposal so we can be alerted to them and share them outward to the spokescouncil announcements 
        
      • We will be developing a feedback mechanism so people can share thoughts asynchronously to make these meetings and self governance structures better 
• Long term:
  • organize session to air difficult feelings and dreams, find ppl to collab with (Shannon)
  • organize 6 month ish General Assembly, find ppl to collab with (Shannon)
  • introduce "blocking amendment" next meeting in October 
    
  • parking lot on wiki for proposals that are tabled ()katelyn added folder called "WIP proposals)
  • feedback mechanism, email, survey or poll for feedback (need BL)
  • updated explainer document and spokescouncil cheat sheet (need BL kw started both here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LHIFz9Il7UPGIBO_woM4YXV6xGoPKrmO2P70wBdpMgE/edit?usp=sharing; to finish after next meeting and share before next spokescoucil wg meeting)
    
  • standing meeting days for RC spokescouncil planning - Monday before every meeting  kw will add to calendar once access from Johnny
  • develop visual checklist + deadlines for next meeting in Oct (need BL ... can we use the table in the google link above?)