Team Conflict Prevention and Management - next meeting

The Reef
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Hi @Laurianne @RalfWetzel @lenaftng @Matthieu @Nic

I’m playing it safe and tagging everyone individually, as the Edgeryders site has been a bit problematic recently regarding notifications.

It would be good to have a meeting in the near future, to clarify what this team is all about, where we’ve got to so far and how we can move forward now that we are more people.

As the de facto team leader for the moment, once we’ve settled on a date to meet I can put together an agenda, and be more specific about the points that need to be discussed.

So, I’m going to put out some potential dates to have an online meeting, and either we will miraculously find that there is one we can all agree on, or I’ll create some sort of online availabilities document, if it quickly descends into chaos :wink:

For the moment, I am free this month on:

Saturday 3rd (morning)
Tuesday 6th (evening from 7pm)
Thursday 8th (evening from 8pm)
Wednesday 14th (evening from 7pm)
Thursday 15th (evening from 8pm)
Saturday 17th (morning)

We shouldn’t need much more than an hour for the first meeting, as much of what we need to do next is research with regard to establishing a particular process/protocol/technique to serve as a framework for resolving potential conflicts in the future…

:slight_smile:

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Thanks Chris for this great suggestion and the proposed dates
my availablities are
Thursday 8th (evening from 8pm)
Wednesday 14th (evening from 7pm to 8pm)
Thursday 15th (evening from 8pm)
Could you kindly flag / direct me to any work / document that has already been done so I can familiarise myself upfront
:dizzy: :pray:t4: :dizzy:

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Hi ! Thanks for impulsing this Chris !
Only date possible for me : 3/1/2023…

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I’ll get on to that soon, and post something here :slight_smile:

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That last possible date on the list was a misprint, and should have read (as it does now) Saturday 17 December

Are there any times that you are available in December? We may have to meet without you if not, as I think January is a bit late in light of some of the things that need to be moved forward…

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Hey, sorry for the late reply! The error in the notifications system left me completely oblivious of this post. Thank you, Chris, for pointing this out to me yesterday at the workshop!

I’m afraid I can’t make any of the proposed dates work :zipper_mouth_face: Either they have passed by now, I’ll be tied up with (evening) work or I’ll be abroad on holiday.

I could totally do this Sunday December 11, any time after 16h (so that I can make it back home on time after my appointment with the confesseur) though!

If that doesn’t work for everyone else, @ChrisM, could you maybe make a doodle with alternative dates and times? FYI, I’ll be in Greece on holiday December 14-21.

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Thanks @Nic !

It is indeed a difficult time of the year to get everyone together. At the workshop on Sunday, Laurianne has already said that she’s is only available in January. Although it would have been good if all of us could have met anyway in December, it looks increasingly unlikely that we will find a time that works for all of us.

So here is what I propose:
In the next day or two, I will post something here about the purpose of this group and what we need to think about moving forward. I will also create a doodle for having a meeting in January. That way we can get started doing some research and thinking about things individually, so as to be in a good place to perhaps make some decisions when we do actually meet.

Feel free to use this thread to ask questions or share related content with the group…

:slight_smile:

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Hey Chris, thanks for the initiative and sorry also for my late reply, it also completely passed by me on edgeryders.

In theory I could make it on

Wednesday 14th (evening from 7pm) and
Thursday 15th (evening from 8pm)

And possibly Saturday 17th (morning) even though I have the connoisseur meeting that day around 11:30 I think, so it would not be ideal.

Otherwise I‘m also happy to look for a date in January, as this looks more realistic now.

Thanks and best :slight_smile:

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Hi all,
I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that it’s been a bit of a challenge to find opportunities at this time of year to find time for everything Reef-related in amongst our busy schedules. Having said that, I do intend to post something in this thread in the near future about the aims of this team and what we need to be thinking about before we meet in January. So both that, and a doodle for the meeting date, to appear here imminently!
Looking forward to seeing some of you at this evening’s plenary… :slight_smile:

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As promised, here is an overview of what this team is all about and what we need to be thinking about moving forward.

The objective of Team Conflict Management is both to prevent conflict and to manage situations when things go wrong. Beyond that, there is also scope for this team to explore training and techniques for strengthening the relationships between members, and between members and the community as a whole.

When this group first met, there was a sense that we were somewhat of a luxury, and that working towards achieving our objectives was perhaps less of a priority than the work of teams such as Building and Finance, for example. However, even a few months later, there is more of a sense of urgency about having well-thought-out techniques in place, both in terms of anticipating potential conflicts and managing them when they arise. And they inevitably will, as anyone who has been involved with big, complex group projects will know.

So, there are a number of tasks on the Reef’s to do list which will at some point require the attention of Team Conflict Management, but the absolute priority is working on section 6 of the Governance document (internal link 1). This document is in the process of being revised, as some of you will have seen in another thread, and the aim is to present the revisions for consent at a plenary in late January.

Some of section 6 is clear, but in the first subsection on direct conflict resolution, you will see that a number of techniques are suggested as potentials, but we have not settled on anything specific. So, our job before we meet in January is to research possible approaches and techniques that we can use if and when conflicts arise. In the Skills and Experiences document, it is clear that many of you already have a grounding in this area, which is very welcome news :slight_smile: If you feel that one of the ways you have worked with in the past, or are currently working with, would be a useful approach for this team to take, then by all means present that to us when we meet next. The hope is that when we meet in January, we can collectively decide on how to quickly move forward to the point where we can be a valuable resource for the rest of the community.

Two things to take note of: firstly, that the technique or approach that we decide to run with is one where accessible training that is not too expensive exists; and secondly, that whatever we choose will not be set in stone. We talk about sociocracy and nonviolent communication as being essential elements of our organisation, and they are, but we are also committed to continually growing and learning together, which means that we may well gravitate towards complementary, or even better, ways of doing things as we discover them.

Once we have settled on our starting point and developed the foundations of the team, we can then turn our attention to exploring things such as restorative practices, or defining The Reef’s interpersonal commitments, as was done in Heartwoord Cohousing.

This was a much longer post than I intended! From a personal point of view, I’m excited to begin working on this with you all, not just because I hope to learn a lot with regard to the different skills and experiences you bring with you, but also because I’m confident that we can do something really meaningful for the community.

:slight_smile:

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I’ve created a poll called “Team Conflict Management meeting” to find a time in January to meet. It would be lovely to meet in person, and we could do it at my place in Anderlecht if everyone was available for that, but I expect everyone’s busy schedule will necessitate an online meeting…

You can fill in the poll at the link below :

https://framadate.org/Ig641stBvlwHILzK

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Hey @ChrisM, thanks for creating this poll. Just a practical question. How long will the meeting be?

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No longer than an hour and a half. It could even be shorter, if that’s the difference between us finding a time to get together and not… :slight_smile:

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Hi everyone!
Sorry to only be getting back to this now… bit of a chaotic start to the year :-/
So I propose a meeting next week on Wednesday at 19h30 (online), as according to the Framadate, @Nic, @lenaftng and myself are all available. Hoping that @Matthieu and @Laurianne will also be able to join us, but in light of how long it’s taken to get to this point, we’ll go ahead, even if it’s just the three of us.
I’ll post an agenda at the beginning of next week, but as I said earlier in this thread, our main aim will be do discuss and settle on one or more techniques to use for any conflict resolution issues that come up for the Reef community moving forward…
:slight_smile:

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Hi evryone!

Thak you for the suggestion

I need to see how I can rearrange my planning for Wednesday 18th as indeed in the mean time that availability is gone

How long do you think the meeting would be ?

Take care

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Good for me. Thanks for organizing this

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At the most, an hour and a half, but quite possible shorter if we move quickly to settling on the technique (or techniques) that we are going to start with as the basis for this team. My hope is that one of you with some conflict management experience will suggest a useful method/training/etc. that we can all agree upon, so that we can move forward with familiarising ourselves with it and present it to the rest of the community (largely by writing it into the Governance document). If you can make it for even some of the meeting, that would be good, and of course it would be nice to see you, even briefly :slight_smile:

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I should be able to attend ! :*

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Thank Chris for the details

rearrangment didn’t work out - apologies for that
maybe able to join you for the end of the meeting -
it would be nice to see you all indeed! :wink:

Would it be a good opportunity to already pencil in some future dates for the months to come
Take care

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Agendas and minutes - Team Conflict Management (December 2022 onwards).pdf (179.3 KB)

Hi everyone!

Here is the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting. Normally this would be a link to the file in Nextcloud, but it seems there is still a glitch opening files there. I would have liked to upload it as a Word doc, so that you could add items to the agenda if you wanted to, but Edgeryders wouldn’t accept that. So if you feel strongly that something that is not on the agenda that should be, perhaps say so in this thread.

Does anyone have a professional Zoom account, or something similar that we could use to meet? No worries if not, as I can set up a Jitsi meeting and post the link here 5 minutes before…

:slight_smile: