As we discussed during the plenary on Sunday, there will be a public presentation on 29 January, which may in fact be our last one (inshallah!). This is the moment where we hope to meet and connect with the households who will complete our community.
Some of the details regarding the onboarding process are still being worked out, to be consented to at the next plenary. What is certain is that buddies will be needed in abundance during the 2-3 following weeks after the presentation. In an ideal world, there will be at least two or three eventual Associate Members interested in each available apartment, which may involve a selection process during the exploring membership stage. This means that most of us will need to meet with more than one potential Associate Member, and some of us quite a few. Obviously, some of these meetings can take place online, and others can be done in small groups, but it will still be pretty intense!
Closer to the time, we will post a link to the buddy manual, get an Excel sheet up and running, and discuss the specifics of being a buddy during this crucial round. For now, could everyone please keep as many spots available as humanly possible during this period, so that we can really give ourselves the best chance of achieving our collective goal in a way that aligns with all our values…
I want to express a concern/suggestion towards everybody buddying…
What for me is also linked to efficiency, which we definitely want to have in these times, is focus.
So I have a concern that people of the core teams will need to make this project go to the construction and at the same time buddying (and sometimes still be in other teams).
As mentioned before @reef-building has more or less one tb meeting per week and this will even increase.
I won’t oblige the other TB members to focus on only tb stuff but as coordinator I would prefer this. And I would feel better to continue with three members in tb only having a full focus on tb stuff ( so no other teams either), than to continue with four taking up a mixture of tasks. Thus liberating one person having a focus to take up 5-6-7 exploring members.
That’s unfortunately not how my calendar works. During working hours, slots on a given day or week fill up as that day/week draws closer. I will save a couple of slots right now.
I second Alberto and I am a bit worried that pushing this forward is going to come at the cost of having less time slots than we could have had.
@ChrisM can it be an option to be more specific about the request (e.g. number of time slots or number of people to buddy) and/or to already set up a file in which we all flag our availabilities?
I also see Els’s concern, and I wonder whether we can maybe work towards a division key à la “two buddies minimum, with an exception for the peeps from Team Building”?
There is now an Excel sheet in the Onboarding folder to indicate your availabilities during 2-3 weeks of exploring membership phase after the presentation on 29 January (Login – Nextcloud).
Two things to fill in:
First, how many Exploring Members can you buddy for this period. Remembering that we really need everyone to step up, because if we can get this right, the project will move forward a lot more smoothly than if we make half an effort and don’t onboard the remaining households that we need. So the suggestion is for everyone to buddy at least two Exploring Members, unless you are on Team Building.
Second, indicate your availability by putting some combination of M/A/E (Morning/Afternoon/Evening) in the column for each day you are free during this period.
Finally, as is widely known, I have no idea what I’m doing with an Excel sheet, and that is putting it charitably. There may be a much simpler/more efficient/better way of doing what I’ve done, so don’t be afraid to make suggestions if there are obvious changes that would improve the system…
As we are having the presentation tomorrow, can everyone please fill in the availability table for being a buddy to new Exploring Members in the next few weeks: Login – Nextcloud
In light of the short-term changes to decision-making that we made at the last plenary, some of you may want to review how many people you are willing to buddy. If you are in the Coordination Team (Els, Lie, Sophie, Alberto and Richard) or the Building and Finance pool (Hannah, Sarah and Joannes), you are not expected to buddy more than one person (unless, of course, you wish to do so) during the busy period ahead. Everyone else will be expected to prioritise buddying over anything other than essential tasks in the other teams…
Thank you for being available for this important part of our journey
Most of you will be in the process of connecting with one of the new Exploring Members in the next few days. Before doing so, it’s a really good idea to:
Be clear about what they know so far
Be ready to answer their questions and/or point them to someone who can
Inform them about all the possible ways to connect with us during this phase
Let them know what is required from our end if they want to take the next steps
For the part 1, you could check out the slides from the last presentation (Login – Nextcloud), particularly section 5. It would also be worthwhile to log in to the Reef’s mail box (Login – Nextcloud) and see what Mieke has written to them about after the survey.
For part 2, their survey responses are available to everyone (Login – Nextcloud), with information about their households and motivations for joining the Reef.
For part 3, there is a calendar in the Nextcloud Onboarding folder (Login – Nextcloud), amongst other things. This week, there is the opportunity to join tomorrow’s online plenary and a social event on Friday. I’m not sure if the Q&A session will go ahead on Thursday evening, but there is another Q&A session confirmed for Saturday afternoon.
For part 4, the Onboarding Manual is the place to start (Login – Nextcloud), which they already have access to, and the most important part of it is the link to the checklist for each phase of membership (Login – Nextcloud). Getting people onto Edgeryders early makes everything else easier, and Mieke has already created Nextcloud accounts for them. It is our job to make sure they are aware of what needs to be done, and help if required. Having said that, we don’t want find ourselves chasing anyone up too much if the motivation isn’t there already.
I will be creating a welcome thread for the new Exploring Members once they start arriving onto the platform, where all their relevant info can be in one place.
Feel free to reach out to me or Mieke if anything needs clarifying…
The Q&A session for tomorrow evening has been rescheduled. The two possiblities for joining a Q&A session are:
Saturday 8th at 15h30 (Chris & Els)
Thursday 13th at 19h30 (Chris & Ugne)
The onboarding calendar has been updated and there is a link to the meeting in the Nextcloud calendar. It is important for EMs to let us know if they are planning on attending one of those, in order for us to plan our time well…
Also, if current EMs would like to observe a plenary meeting before making a decision about associate membership, the only possibility for that will be online this evening, as the next plenary will take place during our weekend away…
