Governance & Structure Working Group

March 28, 2004 - minutes

Present: Tom Adducci, Joe Inskeep, Debbie McCubbin, Esther Siebold

Absent: Jane Arthur, Alex Halpern, Jane Vosper, Jan Watson

The great majority of time during the conference call involved discussing and amending our objectives for submission to the mandala planning group. The finished draft is included here and represents the bulk of what was documented. 

Objectives for governance

  1. Articulate the overarching principles of governance, and in particular, those that could guide decision making across the mandala.
  2. Develop a recommendation that defines what will become the central governing bodies of our mandala following Shambhala Day of 2005.
  3. Develop a set of recommendations to clarify, guide and bound the particular governance and decision-making relationships between and among the central governing bodies and other principal entities of the mandala. In particular, make recommendations that address current conflicts in authority and decision making.

Objectives for structure

  1. Develop a realistic model that identifies and prioritizes the critical tasks and services in the mandala, and identifies where responsibility and authority for managing these could most effectively reside.
  2. Develop a set of recommendations for structuring the mandala to create a robust form for accomplishing our mission.
  3. Coordinate these recommendations with the budget and funding model being developed in the New Economic Model work group.

Additional comments noted:

1.    Governance is not just decision making, it is how decision making is implemented as well. It will help to show how those two are connected.

2.   Governance also includes accountability and fiduciary responsibility.

3.   We should be cautious in conceptually separating governance and structure. It may be important or useful to do that for our purposes, but we need to stay with how those two relate with each other.

4.   We should begin with the overarching principles. Administration will flow from that.

The next phone conference was set for April 3rd, at 4pm Eastern. The topic will center on how to build a body of knowledge about our focus area.