Hello @reeflings,
I am following up on the message that @Liesbet posted in the chitchatters chat about starting a Helping Circle “Outreach”.
Ideally we would have discussed this issue in the Coordination Group meeting of May, but as this is not going through, I am proposing to handle this issue online as much as possible, until we have the possibility to consolidate it in a Coordination Group meeting (hopefully in June).
In this post I am offering a bit of history and a couple of suggestions on how to take this forward.
1. History: the merger of outreach and external relations
Until February of last year, all outreach activities used to sit in Team @reef-recruitment. To reduce the workload at the time, I believe they were then given to Team External. Especially in the beginning this led to a couple of serious glitches, with no evaluation following-up.
Likewise, before the 2025 merger, Team External’s domain only included our … ehm … external affairs, i.e. relations with the neighbours, relationships with politicians, promotion of cohousing etc.
2. Why it makes sense to spit it again
The main driver for the merger was the scarcity of people who could do work. This situation has now changed.
What has also changed is that we have the pressure breathing in our neck of completing the group (see https://edgeryders.eu/t/question-re-urgency-of-recruitment/22563). Here there are a couple of main challenges:
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There is a long-standing promise to complete the group before we get the building permit. This is explained in the post above as reducing the impact of a pitbull bite: the more complete the group, the smaller the hazard we will suffer if things would go wrong.
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Diversity and harmony: Some people don’t want to go with “first come first served” and would instead like to have more options to increase the diversity and harmony in our group.
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Efficiency: Presentations require quite some investment, and so it is a better use of our time if we reach more people in one go.
To me, these are arguments to reconsider how we organise ourselves and where we set our priorities. To me, all this justifies the creation of a separate HC that will concentrate only on the outreach activities, i.e. on getting more people to sign up for the presentations.
3. Where should the HC be placed in our organigramme?
It’s a public secret that I don’t care a lot about our circle structure. I think we have bigger problems than this, and so I usually don’t manage to develop a lot of interest for this.
In this particular case, the most logical thing to me seems to restore the link with Team R&O. First because this is where quite some of the glitches originated, and second because this puts the responsibility for the entire understaking of completing the group in one circle. If we would follow this logic the HC Outreach would be a child circle of Team R&O. This would mean that there would be one person from R&O who makes the link, and that other than that any Reefling can join the HC.
But as I said: I am not going to die on this hill. What matters to me is that the work now doubles in speed, ASAP.
4. Working methods
I myself would like to join this Helping Circle. If those who are too would be open to it, I would like to propose to bring in what I call the Board-style working methods: fast-paced, outcome-oriented, high individual independency, very few meetings. Filling 3-4 units should be a perfectably doable mission, and if we make it a priority I’m sure we can succeed.
5. Who’s in?
Bringing @Liesbet’s call to the surface, here’s a poll where you can express your interest:
- I would like to be a member of the core team of the HC
- If there’s no other volunteers, I’d be ok to join the HC
- I don’t have enough space ATM, but I would be happy to take on a specific task (e.g. social media, newsletter, …)
- Not this time
