Hello,
In the light of registrations and of attendance to presentations, as well as the number of apartments available, team R&O would like to propose some adjustments to the logistics of the presentations, an additional point of entry for busy families who want to become EM and a common message on the minimal commitment expected from the same busy families.
The proposal is available here Login – Nextcloud for review.
Depending on your reaction maybe we can still have this ready for this Friday’s agenda ?
I’m tagging @MariaAM@joannes@Hannah but if anybody else is available too just let yourself known.
Thank you Lucia, the proposal looks good.
I don’t know where else to mention this, but in the current website, the following is stated:
Which language do you speak with the children in The Reef?
Most of the mini-Reeflings learn French in the creche or at school, and so we will mostly speak French with them (or English of course if that is what they prefer).
I guess this is outdated, because Hannah’s children and mine all also speak Dutch. It might help attracting more Dutch-speaking families.
Let me know if this isn’t the proper place to bring this up
Hi Lucia, I think this is very interesting. I think we have all had the feeling that we need to make some changes in the way we attract people to the project. I think the 1-on-1 meetings can be interesting and maybe we can even find the way to group them if there is more than one request. In Volta, they set dates and a place (often a café) and their approach is “we will be there there for however who wants to come and know about our project”. It sounds like a half-way proposal between the 1-on-1 or meeting people at once’s place or at Joanne’s. Maybe also something to consider?
Yes, but if the main problem is that evening plans are difficult for families, maybe we should think of something like an online morning coffee or an after/during lunch talk.
Thanks for that. I added it to the agenda for consent. Can you please move the proposal to the 2025 proposals folder in the Team Reef folder? (please use the “move function” so that the link doesn’t break) TIA!
Dear @MariaAM,
Thank you for your suggestion. I also saw this in Volta’s newsletter and recognize why it’s appealing.
I’m just checking I understand your concern correctly : when you use the phrase “half-way proposal,” are you suggesting that we should scrap both Point 1 and Point 2 of the proposal and replace them with the café drop-ins ?
The R&O team did discuss the “Café Drop-In” idea in an earlier version of this plan, but it didn’t make it into the final version presented to the Plenary. Here is my understanding of the reasoning :
Why we keep the presentation in a “presentation-friendly” location
While the “Café Drop-In” would make us more available to people, completely getting rid of the formal presentation means we might lose something important to me : the clear, inspiring message that Lee prepares and delivers. I fear that if we switch straight to an informal chat, that important information might get missed or diluted.
We all recognize that running the same heavy logistics for a presentation when only a few people show up is discouraging. That’s why we want to move the live presentation to a fixed, comfortable place (like Joannes’ or another member’s house) just to make the setup and teardown much easier. This “quick win” keeps the presentation format that works, but makes us more efficient.
Why we chose “one-on-one” over Café drop-in
Higher probability of show-up : the main benefit of setting appointments is that we are much more confident that people will actually show up. We simply can’t afford the time to wait at a café for a long time only to find out nobody came. Right now, Team R&O doesn’t have the available ressources to staff a drop-in.
Targeted focus : we would focus our limited time on the people interested in the 3BR appartments that are hardest to sell.
Content testing: We don’t think these one-on-ones will be hard to prepare for, as we can build the content using the material already in place for buddies. We can also consider these one-on-ones as a way to test different ways to pitch the project to find the best approach for a “Café Drop-In” style information session, if we do them later.
I personally also think the “Café Drop-In” is a good idea—any extra effort can only increase our chances of finding new households. However, we would need extra people to handle that effort. We can discuss during the plenary if a member wants to take the lead on making it happen.
What I meant by “half-way” is that a cafe 1) keeps the atmosphere of “small” setting that the 1+1 offers, but 2) allows to have several people in the info session (even a small group, like in the public presentations), and without the weirdness of going to an unknown person’s home. I love Namahn, I think it’s a great space, but it is a professional space; and a small setting, less formal, can also be nice. In that setting one can also use a tablet to go through the presentation. Rather than scrapping anything, I would think more of a rotating system where we have different formats and different time slots, and keep the 1-1 as a Plan B (if you cannot make in any of these days, contact us and one of us will reach out to you for a personalised talk); and specially we try different things to see what works best for our target audience.
: when you use the phrase “half-way proposal,” are you suggesting that we should scrap both Point 1 and Point 2 of the proposal and replace them with the café drop-ins ?