Virtual Meetup for Microsolidarity hosts

Schedule for Microsolidarity Virtual Meetup

A virtual meetup will take place once a month on the 2nd Friday of the month. The meetup will have two parts:

• Part1: 14:00-15:30 (GMT) intimate (off-the-record) session

• Part2: 15:30 - 16:00 (GMT) optional documentation/on the record session.

The first meeting will take place on April 10, 2020.

The first meeting will be hosted by @Drew Hornbein

Both the above recurring schedule and future hosting/facilitation may be discussed and potentially reviewed during this first meeting (eg: alignment with lunar cycles).

We will meet at https://meet.jit.si/microsolidarity-meetup

Since it does not seem possible to reserve/protect a room on Jitsi, if when the meetup time arrives, there is any problem with the room, please check back with this thread for an update.

If someone has access to a paid zoom room which can be used as a backup, please respond to this thread with information about that.

If you like jit.si some friends from our congregation built a front end for room switching called interspace.chat If the current iteration is too spacey for tastes theres the older version located at liminalvillage.interspace.chat which is perhaps a bit cuter :)

I dig the jit recommendation so not fussed if we keep it simple - I think break out rooms are a nice addition though ;)

Where do you think the meetup will talk place? Is there a platform you typically use? If not, I'd suggest https://jitsi.org/ - e.g. like this: https://meet.jit.si/microsolidarity-meetup.

Hi Hello,

I just recently joined the group and if this call is still on the cards I'd be interested to join. Thanks @Drew Hornbein for instigating.

I'm in Melbourne for the next few months then will be in Chiang Mai Thailand for the foreseeable future. Once a month or moonth sounds like the right kind of rhythm for me.

I've been actively running a congregation with around 200 members since 2017 and I've been making things up as I go along. I'd really like to connect in with other people doing similar work and hear what they are up to and learn from each others triumphs and tribulations.

My dream is see a global network of communities, collectives and congregations link up and start to shape the world I wish to live in.

In terms of meeting format, I like the idea of rotating facilitation and also the concept of doing Case Clinics as per Rich's suggestion. I have some experience in facilitation and I'm happy to take a turn doing this, but perhaps a few months in as I'm a little overstretched right now with commitments. I'm very interested in getting to know people and their projects more deeply over time.

I'm a bit slow to respond but I love the idea.

Where are you? What is your ideal rhythm?

Aotearoa (NZ, UTC+12), monthly is good for me. I'm entirely self-managing so I can do any time, but FYI I prefer to stay up late for a meeting than get up early ;)

What are you looking to gain from meeting up? Tell us a short story about where you are at. Share your dreams.

I'm more interested in what I can contribute, as someone who's been involved in decentalized organization and consensus decision-making since the late 1990s. Currently, I'm a one-man-band, looking for a like-minded crew to contribute to on an ongoing basis. Ideally in a way that allows me to earn some coin for my work, but money doesn't motivate me as much as feeling like I've made a positive difference.

How would you format a meeting?

+1 on the rolling facilitator (one new, one from last time), and checkins/ checkouts. Between 1-2 hours of formal session, with informal hangout time for those keen to continue. I like the idea of having a pre-determined focus for each session.

FWIW I'd really like to use free code tools, eg Big Blue Button instead of Zoom, Etherpad or Cryptpad instead of GoggleDocs

Hey guys,

... better late than never i guess ;-)

Where are you? What is your ideal rhythm?

I'm in Liminal Village, Rural Italy.

We align everything we do with the moon cycle (lunar sprints), starting and ending at new moon. So meeting once or twice a month on key lunar phases would align with our rhythm.

Full moon would be a good moment to pitch "moonshots", to a friendly audience (i.e. close circles) where we disclose interesting and wild ideas discussed during the previous two weeks.

New moon would be the best moment to share the results of what everyone hacked together during the entire lunation, and learn form what others did.

Solar events (Eg: solstices and equinoxes) assume similar pattern, with greater importance.

What are you looking to gain from meeting up? Tell us a short story about where you are at. Share your dreams.

I dream of a networked collaborative society where everyone shares and contributes to each other efforts, raising humanity as a whole.

An intimate meeting at full moon to share "moonshots" with close/trusted collaborators could give early feedback and a good signal to find early collaborators interested in hacking together within your trusted network.

A more formal sharing moment on new moon would inform everyone on the progress of the network as a whole, potentially cross pollinating solutions and ideas for the next cycle.

How would you format a meeting?

For the new moon meeting, every participant registers their participation on a shared google doc, where they put down all info they would like to share about their crew and location, together with any topics they would like to discuss. People who will want to get in touch with one crew or another after the call can find all practical information on this doc, and could be used as a reference list for 1-to-1 introductions (which are better to be done asynchronously)

Rotating meeting hosts can introduce an online version the sharing circle pattern to the participants.

The circle starts with everyone muted, and everyone that would like to speak use the "raise hand" button. People pass it to anyone who still has their hand raised, until no more hands are raised. Depending on the number of speaking participants, it is recommended to keep things short (3 to 5 minutes each) to give enough space to everyone to speak without being in a rush.

After everyone has spoken, the circle is closed. People can hang around the virtual meeting indefinitely, asking questions and text chatting while live music or live DJs are playing. All participants are still on "mute" dancing, or showcasing art, doing live demos of what they achieved, or just simply dancing etc... Participant can share comments in the main room, or just break out into private rooms for direct 1-to-1 communication.

People can then list their projects on a shared location (eg: we use https://async.hackalong.io/) where the conversation can continue asynchronously in their own threads. This will avoid the need to record the entire session and would decentralise the note-taking/summary of the events.

Short Answer

It makes no difference to me whether the meetup happens on Good Friday
or not. I just wanted to make sure that the group was aware of this
aspect of the timing when they consented to it. If so, no worries.

Longer Answer

I'm not religious, but I'm aware that puts me in a minority. I'm also
aware that a lot of people avoid mentioning their religious affiliations
in online communities, as it can attract negativity from the
anti-religious. I think it's important to be conscious of unconsciously
excluding members of a large sector of population from activities
intended to facilitate the work of making the world a better place.

But putting the religious aspect aside ...

I can't speak for other countries, but I know that in Aotearoa, Good
Friday is a public holiday, like Christmas Day. Because employers are
obliged to let workers take time off for public holidays, they are a
time when a lot of people - religious or not - take time away from work
and work-adjacent activities. As such, it can be a poor time to schedule
such activities.

I'm sorry that you felt uncomfortable when receiving this clarification.
But as you say, it's important that we avoid implicitly giving each
other jobs to do, and I'm not accepting the job of working through your
emotional discomforts for you. FWIW you seem to have leaped to a lot of
conclusions about my motives for sharing the information I shared, and
even if they had been correct, I suspect all that leaping created a lot
more work for you than anything I said ;)

Thanks for communicating so clearly and thoroughly. It really is quite
refreshing :) I hope that my reply, like yours, is received in the same
spirit.

I really love this response, its such a gentle way bringing subconscious patterns to light. Its so hard to deal with the little issues because they usually seem so innocuous, bigger issues are so much more transparent!

Hey Danyl :) Your proposition seems so simple ... and yet I found it challenging. I have come up with a short answer and a long answer ... both offered as softly as I can convey in written words and from my heart.

Short Answer

I do not wish to carry the burden of making that choice on behalf of the group nor with the burden of deciding if it warrants the group's attention nor with the burden of deciding if/how to bring it to the group for resolution. HOWEVER I would like to acknowledge and remind you that you can and are welcome to shoulder that effort.

Long Answer

1: Peace & Clarity

I treat every message I generate here (or by email, or on twitter ... wherever) caringly. I am aware that every message generates an attention-demanding vibration for everyone who receives it. I believe we live in a world we are bombarded by such signals. I believe these signals (regardless of our affinity for their contents or senders) are at levels that undermine personal well-being and as a consequence collective well-being.

I hesitated to offer the scheduling mechanism. On one hand, I wanted to help (if I could), on the other hand, I felt that by merely offering the mechanism I'd be making a bunch of assumptions on behalf of the group IN ORDER to make it a clear and peaceful process (with as little back and forth and noisy communications). I did not feel comfortable making those assumptions. The resolutions of these forces acting within me led to the above scheduling mechanism.

2: Externalized Cost

When I saw your message I had an uncomfortable feeling. Part of it was because of the timing of the message: arriving AFTER a surprisingly swift, peaceful and clear schedule resolution. But another part was the sense that by asking your simple (and informative and constructive) question you were implicitly asking me to do more work on your behalf. The implicitness of that request is what makes me feel uncomfortable.

I am choosing to shed light on this because I believe this is a deep recurring pattern that negatively affects our world. This pattern has seemingly become increasingly evident when we think about plastic in the ocean or labor-conditions in Chinese factories. But I feel it slips under the radar in the contexts of personal relationships. This is an irony because very few of us are actually in the presence of plastic in the ocean or Chinese factories, but we are present (or are we?) in our relationships.

Please consider this an invitation to witness this pattern together in the hope that we can learn to be more discerning and caring around it.

3: Values

Also, I sense that at the heart of this may potentially be a question of values. I don't really know what Good Friday is, but I can guess, by crossing it with other signals in my life, that it is related to Easter. I was not born into Christianity and am not religious. I have directly experienced and witnessed A LOT Of wrongdoing associated with religion and so I have a negative response to it.

That negative response is moderated by a higher value I hold: svatantra (freedom-ish). I feel good respecting others making their own choices, including religious affiliation. However, I get uncomfortable when a religiously-informed individual applies (often sliding subtly into enforces) their considerations/choices onto others.

AND within that I'd like to invite a further discernment. What is it that you truly value in Good Friday? If it is spending time with your united family ... I am with you (and a bit envious of you)! If it is being physically together with your family while constantly bickering and overworking to exhaustion in order to be together ... I am not with you. If it is being with your family (how is that going these days?) how is Friday 10/4/2020 special in that regard? Is there space for you to both participate in this meeting and be with your family?

How important is this microsolidarity meeting for you?
Where does it fit in your values?
Have you done your value work before asking me to work on your behalf?
Have you done your value work before agitating everyone in the group to work on your behalf

Are you yourself religious? with your family? or alone in quarantine - sincerely floating a theoretically caring-about-others question?

Conclusion

I feel like I am going out on a limb with this message ... I hope it is received with understanding.

This felt TO ME like a more valuable signal then n more signals trying to consensually move the schedule (though I am fine if others want to do that).

Ronen:

• 2nd Friday of every month - can start this week 10/4/2020

FYI the 10th is Good Friday. Might be better to start the following week
2020/04/17 ?