After the review 2024, I would like to suggest some agenda items and a (partial) reorganization for @reef-finance.
Given the positive experience of the past couple of months, I submit that we are are at our best when we undertake sunstantial, well-defined tasks that can be done largely by one person, and then use each other as a second pair of eyes or a reviewer. A stellar example is Justin’s Société Simple Statutes Explainer (internal link, requires NextCloud accesss). Fortunately, there are now several big tasks ahead of us. So, I propose to just assign them:
Map the cash flow of individual households in The Reef. When do people need to put how much money into the project? What happens during the construction period, when we have taken loans but we can not yet live in The Reef, so we need to pay to live somewhere else and the loan rates at the same time? When will the bank pay the loan into our accounts, all at the beginning or pro quota, as the construction company delivers stages of the work? How does the authorization process for the money to go from individual accounts to Coral’s account work? These questions are constantly raised, among us and at presentations. The task is a natural fit for @RichardB, with his banking experience. If he accepts, he will need to liaise closely with Triodos.
Quantify the first mover discount. We intend to give a small discount to the households that front the money to buy the option, just as other cohousings did, to compensate the “pioneers” for the hard work of bootstrapping the organization and finding the site. But how much? How does this affect the budget of The Reef as a whole? I volunteer to prepare a proposal for this. I will need to spend maybe one hour with Mark, and do some Excel work.
Prepare a comprehensive interactive cohousing budget. This is basically a much better version of the spreadsheet we have now. I imagine a set of spreadsheets that does two things: first, it comes up with a description of The Reef (costs, surface vendable, common areas etc.) dependant on relevant parameters (size of the garden, cost of the site, maybe some technological parameters, for example related to materials etc.). Second, the ICB would compute the price of an unit based on parameters of size, number of rooms etc. Ideally, we could make this general enough that it would make sense to open source it to help other cohousings. @Quentin and I were discussing this today as a project that he might want to undertake, in his own time, while he is on an almost-break.
Wrap up the discussion with the notary. It would be nice to use the story of the statutes for Coral as a way to align with him on how to work together. Part of this would be that we would request that we subtract, from the money he requested for the draft statutes, the amount that we had to pay to the lawyer. This is a natural for @ugne, since she has been managing this relationship, or for @Justin_N .
We could attempt to coordinate on this with almost no meetings: a kickoff to accept the tasks and agree on deadlines, and then status updates in writing. Of course, when a meeting is needed we have one.
PS – I hear that @Angelika has joined team building, so I have taken her out the Team Finance group here on the forum. Angelika, if that was wrong please let me know.
Thansk a lot @alberto for the overview of what is to be done. A kick-off meet to divide work sounds like a good plan.
Just to add on point 1 (financial flows mapping): there were also questions at last plenary meeting on how cash flows work for Partners who exit the Partnership (who pays them what when where).
Additionally, as promised I created a FAQ for the Statutes of the Partnership, please find it here, and feel free to correct the answers I suggested and include any additional questions that frequently pop up.
agree and i also need to write to the notary to ask for the last version of the société simple. He has promised this to our lawyer, but never did send it.
@reef-finance
Also, i see the next finance meeting is planned on Thursday, 15 Feb, but the coordination meeting has been also put on this date. Would Wednesday, 14 Deb work for you?
Hello Alberto,
Indeed I’ve been helping with the online search at Team Building, so that’s fine but please don’t hesitate to ping me if there’s anything I can help with.
Best,
Angelika
Hi @reef-finance
Here are the minutes of todays’ meeting. @alberto we have a few questions to you, could you have a look when you have a moment, so we know whether we need to do anything extra. Thanks
Budget. Here my proposal would be for Ugné plus another person to revisit the budget together, starting with recruitment and onboarding, but also having a look at the rest.
Unforeseen expenses: someone initiates a process to consent to unforeseen expenses. This process lives either in a forum post or in a Nextcloud document (minutes of a meeting, for example), so it has an URL. The URL to consent must be in the request for reimbursement.
Budgeting process: regular updates, indeed.
Unit price parametric calculator: yes, Quentin agreed to take it on, we speak next week.
@RichardB , just follow up on your yesterday’s question regarding the 10% option: this is NOT an option (if 10% is not possible). No further discussion.
Ok thanks @ugne. On the other points: what was said yesterday about the statutes and possible amendments? I made a copy of the explainer document, in which reeflings can suggest any amendments. Is the idea to post a link on Edgeryders (where?) asking everyone to introduce any amendment proposals in tc by Saturday 24 Feb? Time is to short to decide on those amendments at next plenary, but we could ask Reeflings to be ready to present and discuss them. What do you think?
Hi @Justin_N
Sorry for my late reply. I have my sister with kids visiting. Yes, exactly that.
I would just start a new thread if we can’t find an old one on société simple where it makes sense. Given , we want people to see it and to react by next Monday, I would just do a fresh new post. What do you think?
Just a quick update from my exchange with Olivier in Triodos. See his answers to our questions:
When exactly people need to put money into the project & how much? Supposedly in de beginning of the Credit duration before beginning to take up the money of the loan , except if the money is not available (fe a donation), proper means have to be max invested in the beginning.
What happens during the construction period, when we have taken loans, but we can not yet live in The Reef, so we need to pay to live somewhere else and the loan rates at the same time? No , there is a construction period of 2 years were you can take up the money , and than you only pay interest on the amounts you taking up, so still possible to combine it with existing rent.
When will the bank pay the loan into our accounts, all at the beginning or pro quota, as the construction company delivers stages of the work? The payments will happen when we receive the bills of the constructors and are paid on de account o the clients .
How does the authorization process for the money to go from individual accounts to Coral’s account work? We give authorisation to Stater to pay the bills on everyone’s account separately
Is this clear enough, do we need further clarifications or eventually a call? Or good for now?
OK, but can we see a simulation? In any normal loan, most of what you pay at the beginning is interest anyway, so “only” paying interest would still be very expensive. I think they imagine a different formula, but I would like to see it. So, imagine I borrow 100,000 at current interest rates. How much do I pay per month in the first two years? How much do I pay starting year 3?