Mandala Governance and Structure Meeting

June 13, 2004

Present: Tom Adducci, Joe Inskeep, Arbie Thalacker, Jan Watson

Regrets: Jane Arthur, Brian Callahan, Michael Carroll, Debbie McCubbin, Dan Montgomery, Esther Siebold, Giovannina Jobson

<>

<>Note: Four workgroup members were present. Notes included below reflect both minutes of the meeting, and material JI planned to present to all workgroup members during the call.

<>Introductory Report (Joe Inskeep)

< style="text-decoration: underline;"><>Project Teams

We’re into a new phase of our work.

• Shift is to identify and discriminate between discrete pieces of work, and to take ownership of those in project teams.
• There are four such teams.  Two have one or two members and are on the verge of getting started; two have already started and are defining scope, contacting stakeholders, and gathering information to support recommendations.
• Timing is a concern in relation to the July meeting, which is "just around the corner". In the next few weeks, Joe asks each project team to:
• Agree on a project leader, if you haven’t already. Please let JI know who will fill that role.
• Consider whether and who you want to add to your sub-group. If the teams so choose, further evolving the membership is encouraged. Please coordinate with Joe if you would like to add members.
• Define the objectives of the project team. These may be defined in more detail or with a different emphasis than the original workgroup objectives.
• Please write up a short status report on your project team by July 3^rd, to be consolidated by Joe into a workgroup report to the Mandala Governing Council. Please don’t feel compelled to bend the team process to this deadline, but do give an accurate report of where the project team is. 

<>

Project teams:

 Project Team Leader Members

Governance Principles	J. Inskeep	Entire Workgroup
Central Services/Staff		Debbie McCubbin, Jane Arthur, Jan Watson (not available until 8/1), Brian Callahan
Governing bodies, roles and relationships		Arbie Thalacker, Esther Seibold, Michael Carroll
The Congress and Governance	Giovannina Jobson	Giovannina Jobson

The Mandala Governing Council

meets in late July. The Governance and Structure Workgroup will offer a 45 minute presentation to the Council. Our group is given 15 minutes more than most: we have 30 minutes for presentation, 15 for Q and A.

In regard to this July conference:

• The deadline for submittal of written materials to Connie Brock is July 6, so submissions (approx. 100 pages total) can be collated and distributed to the Governing Council in advance. JI will need project team submittals by July 3^rd, in order to have 3 days to format the workgroup package.
• Each workgroup is asked to submit
• List of group members (Joe will provide)
• Ground, path, fruition for the workgroup. (Joe will provide, and review with the workgroup if there is time.)
• List of workgroup objectives (Joe will provide)
• Status report for each objective or project team. (Team leaders will provide).
• Any findings or recommendations to date. (Team leaders will provide).
• JI will be at a family wedding during the Council conference, and has asked Dan Montgomery (there to represent the Shambhala Institute) to lead our workgroup presentation.

 

Progress Reports from Sub-groups: 30 minutes

1. Arbie Thalacker reported on the project team focusing on governance bodies, roles and relationships.

• Arbie, Esther and Michael had 1.5 hour conf. call last week. They have had a number of conversations with President Richard Reoch (PRR) last week to explore his view as to governance bodies and structures; to be sure that the team didn’t have any misunderstandings out of the long 2.5 hour meeting they had had with him the week before. PRR was incredibly helpful.
• After the project team ideas are reviewed in the workgroup, PRR wants to discuss them with the SMR before we make any formal recommendations to either the SMR or to the Mandala Governing Council.
• Esther suggests we use the review group as another round of review.
• PRR’s views are much clearer now to us. The 3 of us (the project team) have had discussions and more recently exchanged written material and memoranda on these conversations with PRR. But we haven’t had time to further comment on what we’ve said to one another.
• We are going to need this week to bear down on that, expand, and elaborate to get a work product to the chair in the next 10 days.
• We want to put something together with PRR, put it to the workgroup, and then consider what the consultative process should be.

Member: That sounds right. Develop a straw man, review and test it in our group, then in the review group, and then in the Mandala Governing Council.

Member: If we go out and get 8 points of view now, it may be very confusing for us and what we end up with may not work for RR.

Member: I agree with this.

Member: Richard described the whole process that he’s gone through, and how that process shaped his view about governance and structure.

Member: We have to be aware of our process. If we divert the energy by including too many people in the dialogue, it will sidetrack us.

Member: I do want to talk with Alex about all this before we’re done, because he’s thought a lot about central governance.

Member: You also mentioned Chuck Lief.

Member: Yes, I’ve talked so much with Chuck Lief over the years, but I want to get the 3 project team members on the same page first, what we need to focus on, elaborate on, what to emphasize. This is such a big area, there’s so much we could be paying attention to, but July 6^th is coming at us like a freight train.

We tape recorded the long conversation with PRR, but didn’t take minutes on the other phone calls with him. He clarified his views much more than I thought he would. He is saying-"this is what I want to work with". He’s surprised me in the breadth of the representation he wants. I want to consider whether some of this will get too unwieldy. But it’s come together very quickly, much quicker than I would have expected.

He wants to make sure that the SMR will agree with the ideas brought forward; I think he’s floating some of this with SMR along the way.

SMR said he wanted the Dorje Kasung and the Acharyas to report to him, but of course that hasn’t happened. The Acharyas don’t report to him. So PRR is working between. At this point, PRR says the Acharyas and DK should have a seat on the MGC and the Board.

JI: We need to circulate notes from these meetings with Richard so other project teams in our working group get access to that information.

AT: I’ll recreate memoranda of the shorter conversations. We have the tape of the longer.

Member: There’s lots of vision created by PRR and Chris Tamdjidi, etc, and then there needs to be a collaborative process as well. We need to balance these two carefully. But I think we have enough people involved for now.

JI: I understand, I think, the issues about keeping a focused group working the issues in order to meet the deadlines established by the MGC. We also will keep posting these minutes to the Congress site and open to the Review Group.

Member: We will get PRR’s ideas, as a critical stakeholder, and then test them in other settings with other groups along the way.

Member: For example, when we discussed hiring a CFO in the New Economic Model Group, PRR was leading in terms of the vision about that. But the group pushed back on key issues about CFO residency in Halifax, for example. So there is both PRR’s leadership and the flexibility of dialogue in the process.