Circle Call 2019-05-29
Attending
Coops that are members of CoTech: Leo - Autonomic, Polly - Outlandish, Annie and Cat - Dot Project, John - Code-operative, Maria - Agile Collective, Chris Croome - Webarchitects, Liam - Mediablaze, Szczepan - Animorph Observing: Pete B
Quorum is around 12 based on 1/3 of ~36 - this meeting is not quorate
Agenda
- This meeting:
- Roles for the meeting
- Quorum
- Time limit for meetings? - Leo
- Is it acceptable to have one or more observers?
- Audio/video calls really suck unless everyone has the ideal setup! - Leo -- agreed (Liam)
- Joint Workers co-op / CoTech weekend next year, see https://community.coops.tech/t/worker-coop-weekend-2020/1409
- Announcements:
- CoopHack https://community.coops.tech/t/coophack-planning-for-cooperative-fortnight-2019-july-5th-6th/1400
- Quick Shout out for London Tech Week!!! https://community.coops.tech/t/cotech-at-london-tech-week-2019-june-10th-14th/1239
- BarnCamp - https://barncamp.org.uk/ - https://community.coops.tech/t/barncamp-tech-activism-meetup/1369/6
Minutes
Polly - Outlandish had chat about the proposal. The goal of the circle is to increase participation with CoTech decision making. What happens if we don't make quorum (1/3 members)? What happens if there are big decisions such as setting CoTech up as a company.
Chris - Our quorum would be roughly 12 co-ops (1/3 of ~36) which we don't have today.
Szczepan - That would probably mean that we would put those decisions to the Loomio.
Leo - What about all proposals made in the meeting, all votes made on the Loomio?
John - There are two ideas of what the calls should be! Operations vs purely decision making. The proposals are raised here but co-ops have to come back with a decisions after say a month.
Liam - Wouldn't the idea be to have the call, make decisions, post to Loomio and invite others to comment (however the idea i thought was to replace Loomio), then to come back a month later and vote in decisions with the idea to filter out the Loomio process?
Szczepan - No actual vote completed to authorise the circle as a decision making body (link above).
Polly - More about governance. Unless there is a financial need to discuss events then its not really suitable for the Circle.
John - We should try and setup a co-ordination roles for the next three calls.
Dates for next three calls:
- 26th June 2019 - Liam - Co-ordinator (emailing the co-ops, posting on the forum), Facilitator - Polly (chairing the meeting?), Note-taker - Annie (taking notes/minutes/agreements/actions)
- 31st July 2019 - Liam - Co-ordinator, Facilitator - Aaron/Maria, Note-taker: Annie
- 28th August 2019 - Liam - Co-ordinator, Facilitator - Aaron/Maria, Note-taker: Autonomic
Annie - Circle could be a place to discuss new strategic ideas.
John - This circle, could spin off unto other circles to discuss specific topics.
Polly - there is also going to be a business development circle.
Polly gives apologies and has to leave call for work stuff.
Leo - Observers to the circles are fine. It might be good if observers would only talk in the introductions and at the end (any other business). To be self enforced.
Chris - not sure we need rules for observers.
Chris - In Jitsi, you can ask to speak by clicking the hand icon in the bottom left hand corner, unless you dial in using a phone.
John proceeded to use this system (nice bit of seeking consent, John!) effectively to gauge opinions on meeting time length. 45 minutes or an hour seems effective.
Announcements
London Tech Week Party
Polly urged everybody to attend https://community.coops.tech/t/cotech-at-london-tech-week-2019-june-10th-14th/1239
CoopHack
Chris - Co-op hack events has been organised by DCDC, a new co-op in Leeds. https://community.coops.tech/t/coophack-planning-for-cooperative-fortnight-2019-july-5th-6th/1400
There is a slack channel to co-ordinate the event. It would be nice for some people from CoTech co-ops to be there.
Meeting Agendas
Leo - good to have an agenda - rolling agenda
Chris - The wiki is good for agendas
John - having an agenda ahead of time is a good idea
Actions
Annie (minute taker) to create agenda before the meeting and share it with Liam (co-ordinator). Emailed to Liam.
Joint Workers Co-op / CoTech Weekend
Discourse forum thread: https://community.coops.tech/t/worker-coop-weekend-2020/1409
Co-ops UK page for last years event: https://www.uk.coop/uniting-co-ops/events-calendar/worker-co-op-weekend-2019
Chris: Proposal to run a CoTech event in parallel with the workers co-op weekend at Thornbridge next year. CoTech will run it's own series events/workshops.
Concerns were raised regarding costs and expense and in response it was pointed out that bursaries from Solidfund this year that weren't taken up and it was cheaper than the two big CoTech events at Wortley Hall and we could also do a CoTech bursary scheme. Costs haven't been discussed specifically with Co-operatives UK.
We took a temperature check about putting this proposal on Loomio and agreed to support the proposal and take it to Loomio as not quorate here.
Loomio thread: https://www.loomio.org/d/S4xyIPas/joint-cotech-workers-co-op-weekend-2020
Any Other Business
Leo - Is it ok to publish the minutes on the wiki publicly? Szcz - Participants can ask for info to be redacted
Feedback to be posted on the forum thread - https://community.coops.tech/t/cotech-general-circle-call-29th-may/1419/17
Finishing with an exercise where everyone states what they are looking forward to in the next week