Discussion and Development of an Elected Social.coop Governing Board

regarding member engagement and information dissemination

in our last tech meeting minutes we discussed the installing the towncrier bot that was created by someone on sunbeam.city to announce loomio activity to mastodon. currently it can only access fully public content (which for our loomio group means many of the discussions, but not the polls).

Like emi, I think it would be good if you felt willing to be involved in the group Darren. I seem to remember you don't always have online access? If so, do does that make things difficult? I hope not. Cheers.

Thanks for your input Darren. I think your concerns strike at something that we've been trying to address in the CWGOT regarding member engagement and information dissemination. I like your proposal about using #social.coop to get the word out about proposals etc, this seems like a practical and definitely easy to implement solution to getting greater engagement from the members.

I think your perspective and ideas would be GREAT to have on the coordination working group! I know there is a lot that can changed and with additional perspectives, I think maybe we can talk about how these groups can change/morph to better suit the community.

While there is much I can get behind within this coordination working group formation proposal I worry about the direction this may take the coop. It feels like for the last year and a half much of the organising has been happening in a manner where the membership cannot easily engage (or dont want to?). I worry this trend would continue as this working group begins its work.

My experience of this vote illuminates another worry. I read the proposal and felt I wanted to carefully consider & discuss it's many and potentially significant contents but I've had a whole lot on and havent have the time or headspace to engage. All the while agree votes have been landing (which means the proposal is almost certain to carry?) with ever reducing time for discussion and re-consideration.

I think much of the functions of this proposed working group & the discussions around the decisions it makes are likely to benefit from wider member participation. I'd also hope that the ability for members to participate would drive greater engagement. I'm happy this proposal suggests that is a primary goal (hoping a new Loomio sub group would be open)

I'd like for all working groups and ops groups to try, as much as is practical, to seek opinions about their ideas (and requests for help in their tasks) via Loomio and Mastodon, as well as by any video call meetings, (maybe in our matrix room also? Any toot containing #socialcoop in its body, not in a content warning, ends up there) giving membership more of a chance for discussion and consideration of issues before proposals land.

I'm not totally sure why this working group needs to have limited empowered participants, its not like we are currently being crippled by over participation in working/ops groups. Also why some of its proposed functions couldnt happen elsewhere (eg. budgeting tasks could happen within the existing finance working group)

I just read my earlier comment in this thread and see I'm covering a fair bit of the same ground as I did there - probably a good indication I should finish here and go to bed.

Realistically, we now function with two working groups (with most work being done by the Ops Teams - two people for TWG, four people for CWG). I think of it the way Nick does: co-ordination WG picking up the ops functions of the other groups. But this does not mean that members can't make proposals to the whole group, as I understand it. 6 months seems short to me, it takes time to get these working groups on a steady footing, maybe one year?

I agree, would like a bigger picture on how this relates, I see 4 working groups as @Noah Hall mentions in my loomio sidebar. Seems a bit much tbh...

It also feels a little bit hierarchically focused to me in that it seems things need to be approved by this new group before it can go to the membership vote, how to encourage the wider membership to participate in discussions and processes if they would have to wait for so long to actually join.

And agree with @Leo Sammallahti that 2 years seems too long, maybe 6 months is better.

So, perhaps just 3 working groups is sufficient:

• co-ordination (this one being discussed, kind of admin stuff... with whatever financial and governance working groups did before rolled into it)

• community (moderation, and whatever else it does)

• tech

Is my impression accurate, that this proposed committee would be subsuming a large portion of what is currently the responsibility of the Finance WG (edit: also the apparently-defunct governance WG, and to a lesser extent, the tech and community WGs as well)? In general terms I think there is useful work to be done by a body of this type but ideally I'd like a bit more clarity on how it fits within our existing structure - such as it is - before voting.