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 Date: Wednesday, June 15 at 6:00 to 10:00 - at Tsunami books (eat dinner before? but food for snacks/share) -- Tsunami has WiFi we can use

 

Audio recording

 

Mission Statement Discussion

 

Photos

 

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Also on Friday, June 17 at noon to 6:00 pm:  at Truleen Delgado's house

 

Photos

 

Across the street from Churches and a field.  All houses are even numbered (although they are on the side of the street that is odd numbered for other streets in the area).

 

Check stated availability here:  https://uoregon.doodle.com/u25fmk3at52ihuc6

 

Suggestions by Ruth  --  I like the simplified outline Stan suggested -- details listed by Robert, Charlie, Fergus, Alicia, Geoff and others fit within the outline:

near and long term goals/update mission statement

capacity and corresponding commitments needed to accomplish these goals

organizational structures that would provide the capacity to accomplish these goals

 

My personal preferences for some details discussions:

• Membership policy including fundraising via memberships?
• Fundraising - are we going to solicit grants - what do we want to raise money for and how much?
• Documentation - do we want to document tasks so that new volunteers can be trained more easily, we can more readily replicate our work in other communities and we can show accountability and competence to funders?
• Steering Committee membership/attendance policy
• Steering Committee list subscription policy
• Working Group policies
• Civil Disobedience in our future?
• Trainings can we please schedule these?
• Facilitator by John F and Geoff and Colin?
• PBWorks by Dave Herries and Charlie or Geoff?
• Email - how to filter wtp-steering emails into a folder so emails won't be missed
• Volunteer Orientations 

 

 

Suggestions by Charlie Swanson

• our mission (our mission statement) - there has been some noise about changing it, adding local sovereignty?
• our local resolution for the city council - how to proceed?
• possible next campaigns after the local resolution
• requirements for a city charter amendment, for a county ordinance or amendment
• what can we do to increase our working capacity - using our members/contacts?  
• coordinating education/action with other groups working directly on corporate personhood - U of O OSPIRG, LCC OSPIRG, maybe U of O Democrats, maybe DPLC
• partnering with groups that may want to do something related to our effort as a side show to their main effort?  Should we do anything (if so, what?)
• outreach to other national groups related to our effort (beyond Move to Amend) - Alliance for Democracy, Reclaim Democracy, Common Cause, Progressives United, Corporate Accountability International, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, etc.
  

 

Suggestions by Fergus

• consider making the steering committee be composed of representatives from working groups; clarify decision making & membership 
• discuss advisability of becoming a nonprofit; clarify the scope of WTPE's ambitions and how to use grant funds 
• discuss turning in petitions in a public 4th of July press conference accompanied by op-eds
• explore our summer strategy and process for choosing our legislative approach 
• PROPOSED WORKING GROUPS:
• 1) Finance/Fundraising/Budget
• 2) Meeting Logistics/Facilitation/Minutes
• 3) Events
• 4) Web Page/PBWorks administration/computer literacy
• 5) Media/Graphic/Performance
• 6) Strategy & Resources/Newsletter/Public Speaking
• 7) Membership/New Member Orientation/ Membership Networking 

 

Suggestions by Alicia Markus

• 1) Discuss/ show new organization of petitions
• 2) Discuss the intended purpose of petitions (solidarity, mailing lists, demo of support in Eugene, rally of citizens toward action...)
• 3) Discuss what information we want on them to accomplish this purpose and what we do with that info

 

 

Suggestions Geoff Barrett

There are two key issues that I see us needing to face very quickly:

 

• 1) Adopting a sustainable structure to keep this work moving forward.

On this first point, just to move the discussion some, John has suggested or
offered an example of the spokeswheel structure. This is a non-hierarchical
method of organizing our work in which the work is really completed by
working groups or committees, each of which sends a rep to the steering
committe. What I've seen happening is that we set up working groups, but we
are still all centralized around the steering committee. This isn't a very
time efficient structure because people with limited time available are
spending a lot of time in what is essentially a business meeting rather than
meeting to get work done. I would like us to wean ourselves from the
steering committee, in favor of working group meetings with each working
group sending a rep to the steering committee. Right now, I see [we have]two
committees really, an education and outreach group and a fundraising group.
Maybe there are other ways to break up the work we are doing.

 

• 2) Developing a concrete strategy, and within that, we need to develop a
  campaign strategy and tactics for our one current campaign which is the
  resolution drive.
  
  
  

More Suggestions by Fergus

•  I've found the twelve design principles of permaculture are quite an effective guide for organizational social ecology as well as in the garden.
• The first is Observe and Interact. I've tried to compile a list of the tasks our group needs done- especially the ones Ruth is frustrated about- and gather them into working groups. Here's what I've come up with:

FINANCE/FUNDRAISING/BUDGET we already have this group
MEETING LOGISTICS/FACILITATION/MINUTESit's increasingly vital to see facilitation as a key, learnable skill and train ourselves
EVENTS
WEB PAGE/COMPUTER LITERACY Dave H. has offered to do some PBWorks classes; we have volunteers ready to join this group
MEDIA/GRAPHICS/PERFORMANCE
STRATEGY & RESOURCES/NEWSLETTER/PUBLIC SPEAKING we should have a regular, frequent newsletter to keep everyone up to date
MEMBERSHIP/NEW MEMBER ORIENTATION/MEMBER OUTREACH AND NETWORKING folks joining Alicia [??????] developing our membership network
This list expands on [Geoff's] list of fundraising and outreach. I think each one of these working group task clusters is essential to our group's success. It's pretty much the job list Ruth and Julien split between them from the beginning. Policy and interaction with other groups, as well as supervision of any executive staff, stays with the steering committee as a whole.

 

• The second Permaculture Design Principle is catch and store energy. Where is the energy in our group?
  It's key to our success to recognize that we need to develop a system that can tap into the abilities of talented people who have limited time to spare. One way to do this would be to have a core minimum size of three committed people in order to start a working group. This means a working group can be maintained effectively without any one person having to make a huge time commitment; the three core working group members can be reliable and accountable to the steering committee without risking burnout.

Another place I see energy in We the People is in the interest people have in the weekly (or biweekly?) steering committee meetings. People really want to get together, to mingle, share ideas and information, and stay on top of changing events. This meets a basic human need. There's a lot of energy behind that I think we need to recognize and respect. And yet I don't think we can sustain more than a single regular meeting. That's why combining working group and steering committee meetings appeals to me. If we had a suitable space, we could convene the steering committee and set the agenda; break into working groups for (well facilitated) 45 minute work sessions; reconvene the steering committee for an hour. All in one weekly or biweekly two hour meeting.

Voting members of the steering committee would come from the active, functional working groups. Larger and more active working groups could have more than one representative on the steering committee. The steering committee portion of the meeting could take place in the kind of "fishbowl" format David Cobb talked about, with those who wanted to birddog their working group representative observing, seated outside the steering committee circle itself.

With these clearly delineated working groups, we could have folks who sign our petitions indicate which working group they wanted to join when they first sign up. After passing through a monthly new member orientation offered by the membership working group, and attending one of Dave's computer working group PBWorks trainings, they could begin to participate directly in the working group of their choice and still feel themselves an integral part of the organization by being able to observe at the steering committee meetings, while the steering committee is kept to a manageable size. We might want to revamp this structure when active working groups get larger than 25 or so.

In addition to meeting the needs of WTPE, we might want to consider one of our rendezvous (retreat) goals as the development of an organizational template other communities can use to start up We the People type groups.

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• Here are the other 10 permaculture design principles:

3) Obtain a yield
4) Apply self-regulation and accept feedback
5) Use and value renewable resources and services
6) Produce no waste
7) Design from pattern to detail
8) Integrate rather than segregate
9) Use small and slow solutions
10) Use and value diversity
11) Use edges and value the marginal
12) Creatively use and respond to change.

 

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Suggestions by Robert Beal:

 

Below is a suggested agenda.  I have no idea how long it would take to cover the items, but they are listed in suggested order. They are not in priority order but rather in prerequisite order.  In other words, the agenda sections build upon the subject matter of the preceding sections. 

 

Many organizations would love to be in our position, having several times demonstrated enjoying each other's company in the context of progressively more challenging accomplishments, and now being focused on consolidating the ways and means for carrying on that spirit and effectiveness.  Some of those organizations also wish that they would have undergone a systematic and thorough organizational design/planning process as early as possible in their history, because it is never as easy, inexpensive, or constructive later along in the life of the organization, after maybe a little too much trial-and-error.  As you might suspect, the point I'm making is that we should not shortcut the organizational development process, or even think we will ever be done with it.

 

Below the agenda is a summary of the strategic planning elements that are listed on the agenda.

 

Finally, if we are thoughtful and comprehensive and practical in our planning, it is likely that potential donors will like what they see (and possibly want to contribute also to our development process).  So be careful what we wish for!

 

 

Suggested Agenda

 

Set of agreements for sharing space

 

Select facilitator(s)

 

Approve agenda

 

Check-in

Culture -- Power relationships – gender, class -- and problems/opportunities for creating longstanding functioning personal relationships.

 

Process -- Consider either a policy on consensus blocks and/or creating a leadership circle (about 15 people) and a smaller steering committee (about 5 people)

 

Popping the bubble -- LGBT, de colores, rural, libertarian, constitutionalist, conservative, Republican, etc., (consider inviting a future presentation by Kari Koch of Rural Organizing Project)

 

Strategic planning

Vision statement

Mission statement

Value statement

Goals and objectives

Strategy and tactics

Implementation plan

 

Operational structure

Organizational identity and members' self-identification – circles within circles

Steering and working committees

On-going scheduled and as-needed activities/tasks

Responsibilities and accountabilities – self-define assignments

 

Building capacity – budget outlining (resource planning)

 

Not appropriate topics

Routine business

Issue/message analysis (theoretical/philosophical) for its own sake

 

 

Strategic Planning Elements

  

Vision statements tend to be brief, concise, unambiguous, vivid, bright, realistic, aligned with values, and memorable.  They describe why it is important to achieve the mission, describing what will be achieved in the wider sphere if we and others are successful in achieving our individual missions.

 

Societal vision statement focuses on the desired end state that the enterprise seeks to effect.  What we want to see?  What is the impact of our work?

 

Organizational vision statement is internally directed.  What do we want to become?  Where do we want to be, in terms of program, budget, and staff size?

 

Mission statement tends to be a bit longer and expresses our purpose, indicating the primary reasons for being (why do we exist?) and what we do (and how we do it) in order to get to the envisioned state of affairs.  It can include or be accompanied by a societal needs assessment and description of the needs to be fulfilled or the problems to be solved.  Mission statement is more specific to what we can achieve ourselves.  

 

Values statement of principles on which we are built and which guide our planning, operations, and programs, i.e., the means to our end.  Values drive an organization's culture and priorities and provide a framework in which decisions are made.  What do we believe in?

 

Goals and objectives are desired outcomes.  The progress toward them is measureable.  Goals are more general.  Objectives are stages towards a goal and are specific, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.  Objectives are achieved through actions which create specific responsibility for those with the assignment, who will be measured by how well the action they take achieves objectives (see implementation or annual plan, below). 

 

Goals and objectives for public programs.  To what extent will we accomplish our work toward our societal vision?

 

Goals and objectives for organizational development.  What do we want to accomplish toward our organizational vision?  Statements of internal goals and objectives can include or be accompanied by description of where the organization stands today - an organizational assessment, which defines our strengths and weakness and can focus on specific areas to improve.

 

Strategy and tactics.  How will we accomplish our work?

 

Strategy is what we are going to do to achieve our vision, i.e., the large-scale plan we will follow.

 

Tactics are the means by which we will achieve our strategy. i.e., the specific actions, sequences of actions, and schedules we will use to fulfill our strategy.  

 

Implementation plan or annual plan details the cost, duration, priority, and accountability for the strategy and tactics.  What are our specific priorities?  How can we logically and feasibly pursue our strategy? 

 

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