Governance & Structure Working Group

March 21, 2004 - minutes

Present: Joe Inskeep, Debbie McCubbin, Tom Adducci, Jan Watson, Jane Arthur, Esther Siebold and Dan Naistadt.

Regrets: Alex Halpern, Jane Vosper

Member’s introductions were followed by a brief overview of issues related to the workgroup, including milestones of the work over the next year.

Hopes and concerns were expressed. A few are mentioned here:

• Seeing follow through from congress is encouraging; hope we can play with lots of ideas and use what was developed previously at congress; think globally and locally; continue the openness from the congress; acknowledge and find a way to work with the informal as well as formal systems.
• Useful to start with core principles to guide the work; reiterated the importance of thinking globally AND locally; cited work at the Minneapolis centre that reflects aspects of the larger initiative.
• Hopes we get beyond the constraints of our own situations into a larger perspective; wants our work to model the process; work toward synergy rather than a collection of “healthy parts”; discovering what makes the energy flow in our mandala; bring teachings into the work so we don’t end up with a conventional view; moving toward governance and structure as society, not just organization; recommends the Treatise.
• Underlined several previous points; stressed the Treatise as important; connecting to a global view and a view rooted in the teachings.
• Wants a governing approach that addresses the real needs and taps the real expertise that is available.
• This work is quite broad; hope to clarify year 1 objectives as quickly as possible, particularly where interdependencies in the work groups exist; open ended process is quite slow; attract the right talent to get the job done; need to work on how to support the immediate transition needs; phone conferencing has real drawbacks.
• Would like to build/share a Body of Knowledge as a group (based not only on work previously done but also on interviews with leaders and other community members) that would specifically support our work with Governance and Structure; important to build a strong group of individuals with a diversity of strengths, with flexibility and time to do individual work on behalf of group; might be critical to divide into and then integrate the work of key sub-groups.

 Points of Discussion

• Defining Scope: suggestion that guidance for a group’s scope and priorities are often defined from up the chain. How does that work in this case? Members felt based on what occurred at the Congress and February Boulder board meeting, we will have lots of responsibility to define the work ourselves. One member felt coordination with Richard Reoch and the other workgroups is important, though looking for them to provide a well-defined task for us is probably not possible.
• One member explored scope further: are we assessing and designing governance processes, or also looking at existing policies in place? Members felt our scope is designing a governance model for the future, not assessing existing policies (except perhaps where those two are in conflict).
• Does our scope include international, national, regional, practice centers, and city centers? Our brief discussion suggested members feel we should not focus attention on governance/structure of local “autonomous centers”, but instead look primarily at issues of central governance and structure and how that impacts relations with individual centers.
• One member suggested we ask what is the purview of the administration or organization, and what is the purview of the community and society. Are we talking about societal governance, or organizational governance? If we understand the purview of society, perhaps the admin part will fall in place. The question is left open.
• One member suggested we begin by discussing the governance principles of democracy and monarchy. The question is left open.

 Going forward

There was a request to circulate email and phone contact information. JI agreed to gather and distribute that information.

 One member suggested that a skilled note taker be found from outside the group to take notes and draft minutes. The workgroup will probably need this contribution in both group meetings and review meetings.

 Members want both clearly defined agendas and advance reports or preliminary concepts circulated in advance so they can prepare outside meeting time.

 The group briefly discussed meeting for a group retreat in several months. Most people supported that idea. JI will make a proposal.

 The group agreed that as a general rule, phone conferences every two weeks made sense.

 Since not everyone would be available for meetings, the group discussed moving forward based on a quorum of participants. JI will seek agreement on that next meeting.

 Next steps

The next phone conference will be held on Sunday evening, March 28^th, beginning at 8pm eastern. The group will review and finalize a set of objectives for governance and structure. JI will send a preliminary set of objectives to all members.

 Members should give thought to defining objectives that our work group can accomplish over the course of the year’s work.

 Those members unable to attend the conference can email other group members with additions/changes they would suggest.

 A set of recommendations will be finalized in the Sunday phone conference and be submitted to the larger planning group the following Wednesday.