Loomio
Sat 11 Apr 2020 9:34AM

Virtual Meetup Impressions

RH Ronen Hirsch Public Seen by 95

A container for recalling, documenting, sharing, discussing, resonating following the virtual meetup.

RH

Ronen Hirsch Sat 11 Apr 2020 10:01AM

The 1st virtual meetup took place on April 10th 2020 with the following participants: @Drew Hornbein , @Richard D. Bartlett , @Adam McKenty , @Patrick Campbell , @Josh Fairhead , @Markus Koller , @James Lewis , @Tom Schloegel , @Alex Rodriguez , @ Alex Mel , @Sven , @Rashid Owoyele , @Ronen Hirsch

Meeting notes can be found here

The meeting included:

  1. Introductions

  2. Reflection on what we notice about the group

  3. Discussion about what the group can be

  4. Laying the ground for the next meeting.

  5. Agreement on using this thread as a means to collect impressions from the meetup instead of placing a burden of documentation on one or more people.

Next Meetup

  • The next meeting will take place on May 8th, 2020.

  • It will be one hour earlier to better accomodate time zones needs.

  • It will be based on UTC timezone to avoid confusion.

  • Meeting time: 13:00 - 14:30 UTC + optional 14:30 - 15:00 UTC for documentation.

  • A host/facilitator is needed for this meeting.

  • Same location: https://meet.jit.si/microsolidarity-meetup

Meeting Impressions

This thread (as implied by its name: impressions) is an invitation to a living documentation process. You are welcome to add your impressions (expanding with personal touches that go beyond the notes taken during the meeting), to reply to other people's impressions, to add more impressions as they come to you in response to other people and to softly and naturally transform into a conversation that may lead to new places and that may feed into the next meetup.

S

Sven Sat 11 Apr 2020 12:16PM

I'm happy I got to know all of you and look forward to the next meeting. I think being able to share experiences and lessons learned among us is a great opportunity and will be a big help for everyone. As an example, and to get the ball rolling, I'm particularly interested if anybody has experiences in dealing with very strong-minded people, or people that tend to talk over others in meetings, that have a very hard time being patient and wait their turn. I consider my self rather on the sensitive side and thus, I've struggled with this kind of situations and would be glad to hear what others experienced and what kind of solutions have been found.

Stay happy and healthy everyone, talk soon!

RDB

Richard D. Bartlett Sat 11 Apr 2020 1:30PM

I could only join the first half. From that piece, the main "tactical" impression I had was that I wonder if it is useful to create distinct spaces for people at different stages of their journey. E.g. stages might be something like:

  1. curious, reading, thinking, feeling, exploring

  2. seeking my first crew

  3. crew is stable/learning/growing

  4. seeking to expand into a congregation

  5. congregation is stable/learning/growing

It might be useful to focus the conversation on one stage a time.

JL

Joe Lightfoot Sun 12 Apr 2020 12:33PM

I like this idea.

JL

Joe Lightfoot Sun 12 Apr 2020 12:33PM

I enjoyed encountering everyone. I got the sense that there was a wide range of motivations for people joining the call, a balance of those seeking mainly a 'being' experience and those seeking a mainly 'doing' experience.

RH

Ronen Hirsch Sun 12 Apr 2020 2:46PM

What I Witnessed

I was impressed by and grateful for inherent qualities (too easy to take for granted) shared by the people in the group.

  • The ability to speak clearly and concisely.

  • The ability to listen without being on the needy edge of response.

  • The ability to relax into the space without worrying if you will be heard .... trusting the dynamic of the group will be attentive to and inclusive of you.

  • The ability to be lightly facilitated.

  • Knowing how to operate the mechanics of a video conference call.

The meeting felt clear, soft, flowing and contained.

Though the group was dominated by male-bodies:

  1. I felt that there was a healthy living mixture of masculine and feminine qualities.

  2. For most of my life I felt a need to apologize to women and to the universe at large on behalf of "men and toxic masculinity" ... this group presented a "masculinity" I can embrace, get behind and identify with.

  3. I do hope that in the future female-bodies will join :)

The Group

There is an interesting pattern of "definition" I've learned in my Yoga studies: definition based on qualities. Eg: a definition of asana (physical postures associated with Yoga) is "that which makes you feel light and steady."

I would like to tap into both that specific definition and its underlying pattern:

  1. Specifically: a group experience that leaves you feeling "light and steady" feels like something worthy and aspirational.

  2. Pattern: while we sort out and experiment with the contents and structures of these meetings, I would like to discover what can emerge when these meetings become a steady and habitual pattern. I would like to discover what commitment and continuity to a group can present. I would like to be able to look back in 2 years and notice the qualities that emerged and then say: that is what this group is :)

Content

Whatever content we choose to explore (eg: the 5 stages described by Richard) ... I would like to suggest:

  1. That it be grounded in personal experience ... and to avoid theoretical speculations.

  2. To explore (maybe as part of the structure of the call?) a combination of examples of what works (celebration) and inquiry into failed attempts.

  3. That maybe we use this Loomio space to offer examples that can be brought to the group and then adopt a strategy to select what gets on the agenda.

Eg: if we choose to talk about "seeking a crew" I'd like to hear from people who are seeking a crew, have tried & failed at seeking a crew, have succeeded at seeking a crew ... make it real and vested :)

Structure

I would like to suggest experimentation with the 2-hour window potential that we've created. I (too) felt drained after the 90-minute call (but felt that the 90 minutes were needed!). So, I was wondering about taking a 5-minute break (cycling fluids and stretching legs) somewhere either around the 1st-hour mark or when a part of the meeting finds closure. Maybe that will be refreshing ... also an opportunity to step away from the established field and maybe see things from a new perspective (pee-ing reliably does that for me :)?

Possible structure to explore:

  1. Arriving and check-in round.

  2. "Celebration" case presentation/discussion.

  3. Pause

  4. "Failure" case presentation/discussion

  5. Closing and check-out round

JF

Josh Fairhead Wed 22 Apr 2020 10:14PM

It was really great to meet everyone there during our previous meeting. My impressions were positive as it felt like people were attentive and present, undistracted and of a good intent. I'm currently feeling a bit overstretched and scatty but in the spirit of self organising I'm up for facilitating the next round if nobody puts their hand up in the meanwhile.

I'm happy with the suggested structures above and would add that it might be good to get certain topics on the table early - i.e. myself and Joe had a brief chat about cults after the last call and speaking about power early to raise awareness of the forms it takes might also be healthy and build resilience.

MK

Markus Koller Wed 29 Apr 2020 10:19AM

I really enjoyed our first meeting too, and getting to know you all a bit! I think the group is an interesting combination of different backgrounds. I was a bit nervous in the beginning but quickly relaxed while listening to everyone's fascinating stories.

I was thinking about the question "What's the conversation only this group could have?" for a bit before the meeting and failed up to come with a good answer. After the meeting I wondered instead "What's the conversation this group couldn't have?" as it seems we could talk about pretty much anything, which feels very nice considering we've just met. 😄

Drew suggested a few people as facilitators for next time including me, I'd be happy to give it a try too but maybe not right now as I'm not very clear yet on what the format should be like. Maybe we can collect some more ideas in this thread?

I like @Richard D. Bartlett 's suggestion to look at stages, I also thought it would be interesting to do a little "show-and-tell" round where everybody gives some more detail on their current Microsolidarity project and what stage they're in. Not sure if it makes sense to actually split up the group already by stage (maybe later), but I think using stages as a frame could be helpful.

Also seconding @Ronen Hirsch's suggestion to do bio-breaks! 👍

After the meeting some of us kept chatting for a bit, and @Joe Lightfoot suggested doing a little survey to pin down everyone's ideologies/backgrounds. I think that would be really cool, maybe you want to expand on this idea a bit here Joe?

JL

Joe Lightfoot Thu 30 Apr 2020 8:29AM

I might save that typing methodology I spoke of for another day Markus, I still wanna polish it up some before setting it free into the world, but one day soon it would be great for this group I agree :)

MK

Markus Koller Thu 30 Apr 2020 8:32AM

@Joe Lightfoot ok awesome, no hurries 🙂

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