Pending Proposals

Proposals that have not been voted upon yet; ready for review/ vote at upcoming meeting

Your Group Will Organize This Meeting Every 9ish Months

Overview

Person or group submitting

- purl

Proposal History

- Submission Date:

- Vote date:

- Vote result:

Motivation

In-person RC Spokescouncil meetings are designed to be the primary site of full-space discussion, information dissemination, and decision making.

The small group of people organizing the spokescouncil meetings lack the capacity to continue to be its sole organizers, nor were they intended to be. As a result, Spokescouncil meetings proper have not been held since December, though there was a General Assembly in March, an informal Community Check-in in April, and weekly open admin committee meetings began in April.

Proposal Summary

The responsibility to plan and facilitate the monthly spokescouncil meeting will rotate between the working groups. For example, if there are 12 working groups, then your working group will be responsible for organizing the meeting once a year.

The hope is to arrive at a sustainable way to distribute this organizing labor, grow the pool of individuals who have org-wide perspective on RC, and increase our collective ownership, agency, and strategic planning in the space.

If there is not enough buy-in from working groups to distribute this organizing labor, then perhaps we should collectively decide to cease the Spokescouncil and seek other methods of organizing.

Details

Background info

Ridgewood Commons formed in the fall of 2025 when Woodbine left the space at 585 Woodward Ave. Woodbine-- the previous stewards of the space-- had an opaque body of core organizers with closed membership that required an explicit invitation to join.

The Spokescouncil model was designed to empower the wider community of space participants with a forum for collective decision making, and to advise and hold accountable the core organizing body. The structure was planned over the course of a year. An organizational split was never considered during this planning process.

A week before the first scheduled Spokescouncil Meeting, the Woodbine Board of Directors forced a decision on the future of the space. The community chose to stay at 585 while Woodbine would pursue a new location.

What was intended to be a provisional organizing body slowly taking on larger domains of responsibility through an iterative process of development and growth was now tasked with a myriad of financial, legal, logistical, and organizational responsibilities during an abrupt, chaotic, and contentious period of transition of stewardship.

This is all to say that the folks most invested in refining this experimental process of self-governance became those with the least bandwidth to do that very work, given the new responsibilities and workloads presented by the transition.

It's entirely possible that this model is not the appropriate one for the space, and it at least needs major refinement. But ending or changing the Spokescouncil should be a decision made by its participants.

Groups this proposal will affect

- all working groups

Labor required

- sending out announcements and reminders about the upcoming meeting

- reviewing the previous meeting notes and commitments

- preparing an agenda for the upcoming meeting

- hosting the meeting (setting up / breaking down the room)

- facilitating the meeting

- making sure any proposals are archived on our wiki.

Individual or group doing labor

- all working groups

Money Required

none?

Proposal Description

There are 9 formally recognized working groups (pantry, gym, tutoring, spokes planning, dinner, tech collective, tues reading, writing workshop, yoga&meditation).

Assuming the meetings continue once a month, and these groups all participate, this means that once every 9 months a group will assume the role of the Spokescouncil Planning Group.

2 weeks before the next scheduled meeting, the Planning Group will send out:

- a reminder about the upcoming meeting to the Spokescouncil Announcements[1]

    and WG Spokescouncil Chat[2]

- a reminder that each group should select two people to serve as a participating delegate and a notetaker at the meeting

- include links to any proposals that have been submitted that target that

    meeting.

- a collaboratively editable pad where groups can post items they’d like to see on the agenda for the next meeting


The two week timeline is intended to give Working Groups enough time to arrive at internal consensus on each proposal ahead of the meeting.

1 week before the meeting the Planning Group will send out a proposed agenda for the upcoming meeting.

[ INSERT TYPICAL AGENDA STRUCTURE HERE ]

By the day of the meeting, the Planning Group will have found individuals to fill the following roles for the meeting:


- Facilitator

- Note Taker

- Stack

- Time-keeper


Ahead of the meeting, the Planning Group will set up the room and prepare the projector for public display of the meeting agenda.

After the meeting, the Planning Group will clean up and return the furniture to its original configuration [ where is that specified? ], remove reviewed proposals from the proposal board, add the meeting notes to the the meeting agenda page, and move reviewed proposals on the wiki into the archived section [ how? ]

[1] password-protected link to Spokescouncil Announcements chat ?

[2] password-protected link to WG Spokescouncil Chat ?



Switching Internet to NYC Mesh

Proposal History

Motivation

NYC Mesh is more values aligned, arguably safer, definitely more moral than Verizon. This would also save us some money.

Proposal overview

We cancel Verizon, and start donating to NYC Mesh (I suggest 1/2 the price we were paying Verizon).

Details

Background

NYC Mesh is a volunteer run way to participate in the internet. Its non-corporate, doesn't wanna spy on us, and helps support our values by expanding affordable internet to our neighbors, like Future Space, who already use it.

Since August, the RidgewoodCommons wifi has been on NYC Mesh. There has been 1 incident where we switched back to Verizon while we worked on repairing a cable.

Who this affects

Affects coworking the most, but basically everyone who is in the space. We have made some small announcements of testing the network, changing things, letting people know 1-on-1. 

Work required

Talk to whomever is paying Verizon, and have them call, cancel, return equipment.
Ask Finance to help us setup recurring donation to NYC Mesh.
Make sure people have a way to contact Mesh for any support needed.
Contact RC NOC to cleanup the equipment in the gym, and whatever else they need to do.

People doing the labor

There is an informal group called RC NOC made of 3 (soon 4) volunteers who have been maintaining it, and are happy to continue. The (one-time?) additional labour would be from Finance and whoever is on the contract for Verizon.

Money required

We would be saving money with this proposal, even after donating. We have been donated equipment, but having a small budget to improve the installation hardware (make it less in-the-way and more fun) or a small pizza party to celebrate, inform, and decorate (<$150) would be nice.

Proposals

Other options include moving to the lowest cost verizon plan as a backup, or just taking down the mesh completely. Or using mesh as a backup for verizon, but that seems like a waste.

Create a regenerative work list

Proposal History

Motivation

I think writing down a list of all the little and big things everyone does to make the space what it is can serve a few purposes. One its a celebration of just how much work goes into the space, and makes it visible. Two it is a soft on-ramp for people to help out and maybe connect to groups. Three its a check on ourselves for what actually needs to happen and practicing grace when things don't.

Proposal overview

We create a spreadsheet, that has a list of stuff that people do, and who is the current bottom-liner. We check in with each other (yearly? quarterly?) and ask if they'd like to continue bottom-lining or help finding new volunteers or needs to change.

Details

Background

This is the main bit of coordinating work at NYC Resistor and I think we could benefit from trying it. It happens once a year, there are cookies, its also kinda a mini-reunion since it really involves us all.

Who this affects

Every working group? It could be framed as participation in spokes / a part of spokeswide activity.

Work required

Make a list somewhere - wiki or docs
Coordinate a time (preferred), or allow folks to fill in their labour async
Plan a yearly checkin

People doing the labor

I am so bad at the coordinating stuff, so maybe this proposal is a call for help in making it happen

Money required

None


RC Door Entrance Wayfinding Project

proposed by Momo. full proposal text here: https://pad.riseup.net/p/gUZVoxB7FwzZRaRhQp6W