As you will have seen on a recent post, the schedule for the FM dinner/brunch/meetings for the rest of 2025 is in the process of being set. Lee has suggested using the plenary date of Friday 5 September to get the ball rolling, which is an excellent option in light of how many things are happening next month
There are currently two different forms of FM meetings:
The online meetings to discuss membership, organised by Team R&O
The in person meetings to connect with each other, organised by the FM coordinator
These latter meetings usually involve a meal, followed by a meeting where we make a space for some appreciation of each other, and for each FM to talk about the project from their individual perspective, focussing on their relationship to it as an individual. We also take this opportunity to address any points of tension that may have risen from difficult decisions, contentious plenary discussions and so on. As I’ve said before, I believe that these in person FM meetings are probably our biggest asset in terms of preventing moments of miscommunication and minor tensions turning into conflict, as well as valuable opportunities for maintaining our group dynamic and building our connection to both the project and each other.
Which brings me to the practicalities. I would like to mix it up and incorporate different activities into these in person FM meetings, perhaps involving walks, bike rides, picnics or whatever. As the 5th is a Friday evening, however, let’s keep this as a traditional dinner + meeting.
We aim to eat at 7pm sharpish, so that we have enough time for the meeting if needed. More often than not, it’s a pot luck meal, unless the host feels inspired to cook, or occasionally we order something in. It’s nice to move the venue around, although obviously not everyone has a place big enough to host when there’s a lot of people attending. If you can host this one, let it be known in a messagel below.
I’m afraid this doesn’t really work for me. First of all because picnics, walks etc are in the domain of Team Community Life (and can also be organised by everybody). More importantly however, because the purpose of the Full Members meetings is emotional maintenance. The implied form is sitting together as a group and really making space for deep collective conversations. I’m including an exerpt of the governance reform below.
To be clear: I’m all for walks and picnics. I don’t think we can ever have enough of them, because they provide for really nice moments of connection. I have a very strong need for honesty, trust, appreciation and feedback though (which I also believe is important to the group’s functioning), so I would find it a pity if we would lose out on our six-weekly opportunity to sit together in a circle to talk about how everyone is doing. If I’m alone with this need, I’d be happy to go with whatever the group likes, but in that case I would prefer it to be the outcome of a collective decision.
Does that somehow make sense? Happy to exchange views of course!
For reference, an excerpt of the governance reform (Login – Nextcloud):
>> We use the Full Member dinners for appreciation, feedback and making space for whatever is difficult in that moment
We organise the Full Member dinners every 6 weeks (as it is now). If a dinner falls away, we schedule another one, so that we always have a moment for appreciation and feedback at least every 6 weeks.
We make enough time for emotional maintenance. This means doing sessions on appreciation, personal connection, feedback on things that are not going well or which are creating frustration, and making space for anything that needs to be said.
Reasoning:
See Lee’s post and Powerpoint on managing power and responsibility in a self-managed group: power-with is only possible when people are held accountable, and there is honest feedback given in an atmosphere of mutual trust.
The people who will take up a lot of responsibility need to be able to trust that feedback will be given, as soon as possible.
Making space for appreciation and frustration should ensure that as few things as possible disappear under the water line.
You’re right that these meetings are for a very specific (and important purpose). My intention was not to replace the meeting with a picnic or bike ride, but to do picnic + meeting, or long bike ride to meeting. The ‘mixing it up’ aspect was more about context and setting and how we lead into the meeting. But I’m not attached to the idea
Unfortunately, I’m not going to make it myself for the dinner/meeting on Friday, and in light of the low numbers, I’m going to suggest cancelling and looking for another date in the near future. There are quite a few things that I think are important to discuss sooner rather than later, so I’ll make a post about that as soon as possible…
Those of you who have indicated that you’re available could always gather in a creative way…
