We have discussed the plenary meeting frequency a couple of times now, and we concluded that we’ll need more frequent meetings.
Challenges
Here’s the challenges that I think we need to throw in the mix:
We don’t have enough time in the plenary meetings to tackle all subjects we need to discuss, and some of us also experience the meetings as too dense / intense.
According to Mark we’ll need weekly meetings to discuss building-related issues, so that we can finalise the “avant projet” stage (i.e. being ready to launch the building permit).
We need more space to discuss things among Full Members only.
There is also a concern about getting a burn-out because we are having too many meetings.
Proposal
Meeting frequency
We keep the plenary meeting frequency at every three weeks.
We add extra Full Member “working meetings” in between (exactly like a plenary, but with FMs only), about every 10 days, and we organise about half of them during the weekend.
We change the frequency of the Full Members dinners from every six to every eight weeks, and we change the focus of these dinners back to what they used to be, i.e. on connection and on meta-things that are important to us (see Full Members meeting: refining its aim and organisation?)
More concretely this could like something like this:
Week 1: plenary meeting
Week 2: FM working meeting (weekend)
Week 3: rest
Week 4: plenary meeting
Week 5: FM working meeting
Week 6: rest
Week 7: plenary meeting
Week 8: FM working meeting (weekend)
Week 9: FM dinner
Given that we’ll depend on the architects for input, we will probably need some flexibility and re-planning, but trying to fix the dates to increase availability can only add value. In case of need we can also organise or add the occasional FM working meeting online.
Poll
I’m not sure where everybody stands with regard to organising meeting during the weekend, so I like to organise a poll to check.
So in the proposal we are looking at FM working meetings during the weekend about every 6 weeks. Can you please tell me about your preference?
I am really in favour of FM during the weekend
I’m ok
If yes: Friday evenings are ok
If yes: Saturday mornings (10:30) are ok
If yes: Sunday mornings are ok
If yes: afternoons are ok too
If yes: I’d rather not have them in the afternoon
If yes: evenings are ok too
If yes: I’d rather not have them in the evening
I would rather not have FM meetings during the weekend
0voters
Review
Let’s review how we are feeling about this say by the beginning of October?
Here comes the draft schedule for our meetings until the end of the year (I have tried to keep the dates that we had already agreed upon as much as possible). I have been staring at this for some time now, so let me know if any date doesn’t make any sense, collides with another meeting etc.
If I don’t hear anything until 9 August, I’ll put them in the calendar
14.8 Plenary (Wed)
20.8 FM working meeting (instead of 27.8) (Tue)
29.8 Plenary (Thu)
rest
15.9 FM working meeting (weekend) (instead of plenary) (Sun)
19.9 Plenary (Thu)
rest
30.9 FM working meeting (instead of plenary) (Mon)
@reeflings, just drawing your attention to the meeting schedule proposed by Sophie above.
@reef-full, as for the proposal to go for Saturday mornings and Sunday evenings, let’s go with Sophie’s proposal. It’s only one Saturday and two Sundays, so let’s see how it goes.
Thanks Sophie !
I was just making a post about this on another thread. Am I right in thinking that I can remove the FM dinner on 27/8 from the calendar?
In the post I’ve just made about the weekend away (13-15 September), I’ve mentioned a plenary on the Sunday morning, which for some reason was a definite thing in my head. But I see now that with the schedule changes, it is now supposed to be a Full Members meeting that day So if the weekend away goes ahead (which seems increasingly likely), it would make sense to swap the plenary of the 19th with the Full Members meeting of the 15th…
I’m fine with the current frequency. Whether it’s going well or not is also related to being on top of the decision-making and topics needing to be discussed, sometimes at length. I’m a bit out of touch, having missed the last plenary and Coordination Group meeting, so I don’t have a good read on the big picture. Bottom line: if our momentum is good with this frequency, then no problem for me…
Here’s my two cents as a Reefling: for me it doesn’t work very well. The rhythm / schedule (for nobody’s fault) doesn’t seem to align with our meeting needs, which causes us to cancel half of the meetings. For me there are also too many Full Member plenaries. I can see the need for having a meeting to discuss very sensitive issues every once and a while, and I certainly see the need for efficient meetings (i.e. without being outnumbered by newlings), but for now I think we are losing out on including our Associate Members.
My proposal would be to wait for the architects’ meeting schedule and the updated gannt chart (project’s planning), and then to see whether we can rethink the schedule.
I find it hard to evaluate as the holiday period coincided with this test phase of the new meeting frequency.
So far it doesn’t feel like it works well, it created confusion for the associates, i have the impression (but might be wrong) that more meetings means less presence per meeting (might be the holidays again as well), which lead to cancellations so our goal is not reached,…
If i reread the challenges of your first post, i still think they are valid, so we still need some kind of solution
I also think we need to build a clearer view on what decisions we need to take by when (on the level of all teams), indicate dependencies, make a timeline and try to match our meetings to that. (fyi: In the last team building meeting we came to the conclusion we needed more regular brief contact moments with the architects to get a regular update of the project’s planning, to get clarity on what decisions/actions they expect from us by when,…)
So if the weekend away goes ahead (which seems increasingly likely), it would make sense to swap the plenary of the 19th with the Full Members meeting of the 15th…