This is usually how our meetings go and why we do the things we do. We value everyone’s voices and needs, and we want our meetings to have space for important and sometimes long conversations that need to be had rather than rushing to a solution or answer. We look to histories and practices of other cooperatives for guidance. We recommend Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown for more tips and stories about facilitating and organizing. There is a communal copy of the book available in the shed.
Scheduling Weekly Meetings
At the beginning of each quarter, we share our Google calendars with each other once we fill out our class schedules. The first few weeks can be tricky if people still haven’t confirmed their class schedule yet, so we aim to be flexible and accommodating to everyone's needs. Sometimes we meet at the same place every week, but this is also pretty susceptible to change depending on convenience and preference. The Kresge Student Lounge has been a reliable meeting place in the past, as long as no other orgs host meetings there at the same time. You can check in with the Kresge Office about reservations, but we’ve found that if no one is there for the first couple of weeks then there’s usually no regular meeting there besides ours. In warmer, sunnier weather, we like to meet on the porch of the Kresge Natural Foods Coop. Just talk to someone who works there, and see if there’s a time and day everyone can agree on.
During Winter 2020’s graduate student strike, we also opted to meet at one of the coop members’ off-campus houses since ⅘ of the garden members were living together, so that’s also an option.
Make sure to share meeting times and locations with interns since meetings could count towards hours! Attending meetings is a great way to build relationships with the interns as well as better introduce cooperative practices. One of the cons of hosting off-campus meetings is that it may make it more inaccessible and inconvenient for interns who would like to attend meetings so make sure to check in and be open to changes if interns show interest in meetings.
*Note: this was written before the reconstruction of Kresge College, so we aren’t sure which spaces will still exist.
Check-In
We start our meetings with a check-in question to understand how everyone is feeling at that moment. Sometimes they’re silly and light-hearted, i.e. what color do you feel like today? or what have you been listening to lately? Other times, they’re general check-ins, i.e. how has your quarter been going? or what is a rose, bud, and thorn for you?
Sometimes people come to meetings with different energy levels or mental capacities, and check-in questions create a level of transparency and understanding of the space that everyone is working from. They could also indicate adjustments of the meeting energy/flow/roles if needed. Typically, we use this time to also check-in about what each person did in the garden that week.
Agenda
We work on the agenda together in a Google doc on the garden drive, making sure we address important, relevant and/or time-sensitive topics. In every meeting, the agenda usually looks something like this:
Check-in
CSC Grant
Sunday Plan
Readings
Tasks relating to internship
PO’s
Emails
These are usually the things we cover every meeting. If there are topics we don’t have enough time or information for yet, we usually make a note to talk about it at the next meeting.
Facilitator
Before we begin to go over the agenda, two people volunteer to be the facilitator and notetaker. We try to rotate the positions every meeting so that the roles don’t fall on the same people every time. We also understand that sometimes it’s just not within someone’s capacity to take on one of these roles.
The facilitator is responsible for facilitating the flow of the meeting by making sure we cover each topic, checking the time, and keeping stack of who is waiting to speak. This usually includes asking check-in questions periodically during the meeting, i.e. there are 10 minutes left in the meeting, so should we extend the meeting or save these agenda items for next week? or are there any other thoughts about this topic? The facilitator helps keep the timeliness of the meeting while ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to voice their thoughts.
Notetaker
The notetaker is responsible for taking notes during the meeting. This is to ensure accountability both for us and those who view our meeting notes since they are public. Notes are helpful to look back on, so it’s important to keep track of what happens in meetings.
Consensus & Temperature Checks
"Consensus decision making, in addition to avoiding the problem of having majorities vote down minorities and silence vulnerable groups, establishes an ethic of desiring others' participation. Decision-making systems focused on competition–on getting my idea to be the one that wins– cultivate disinterest in other people's participation. Consensus decision making requires participants to bring forward proposals to be discussed and modified until everyone is sufficiently satisfied that no one will block the proposal. This means participants get to practice wanting to hear people's concerns and their creative approaches to resolving them, and not needing the group's decision to be exactly what any one individual wants. If the goal of our movements is to mobilize tens of millions of people, we need to become people who genuinely want others' participation, even when others bring different ideas or disagree with us. Most people will not stay and commit to intense unpaid work if they get little say in shaping that work. We need ways of practicing wanting one another present and participating, not just going along with what one charismatic or authoritative person says...To argue that in the context of crisis everyone has something to offer, that we are all valuable and we can work to include us all, is a significant intervention on the disposability most of us are taught to practice toward one another and the passivity we are encouraged to feel about direct engagement to remake the world..." (145)
Solidarity Not Charity: Mutual Aid for Mobilization and Survival, Dean Spade
A simple way for us to begin the consensus process when faced with a decision is doing a temperature check. For example, someone, maybe the facilitator, asks, “How do we all feel about cancelling garden hours tomorrow?” which is a common question during strikes or the rainy season. Each person can respond with a thumbs up, sideways, or down, and this is usually called a temperature check. Thumbs up for feeling okay with not having garden hours tomorrow, sideways thumb for feelings of unsureness, and thumbs down if that person doesn’t want to cancel garden hours tomorrow. If there are mixed responses, each person can voice why they responded the way they did, and the group can work together to find a solution that suits everyone.
In Winter 2020 during the graduate student wildcat strike and picketing, we cancelled weekly garden hours for at least two weeks, and then we brought up this same question of cancelling garden hours again, at the risk of interns missing out on gardening experience. There were mixed feelings about hosting garden hours, but the solution we found after discussion was that we could host garden hours after the picketing was done (4pm) and on Sundays when there was no picket line because the garden is a community learning space that provides members with the opportunity to practice autonomy and important skills for growing their own food. We also sent messages to interns inviting them to join us on the picket line before garden hours.
Here are some more notes on consensus via Seeds for Change:
“Consensus is a decision-making process that works creatively to include all persons making the decision. Instead of simply voting for an item, and having the majority of the group getting their way, the group is committed to finding solutions that everyone can live with. This ensures that everyone’s opinions, ideas and reservations are taken into account. But consensus is more than just a compromise. It is a process that can result in surprising and creative solutions — often better than the original suggestions.
It is true that majority voting enables even controversial decisions to be taken in a minimum amount of time, however there is nothing to say that this decision will be a wise one or morally acceptable. After all the majority of colonial Americans supported the ‘right’ to hold slaves. People in a majority rule system don’t need to listen to the dissenting minority, or take their opinion seriously because they can simply outvote them. Majority rule systems say that the majority is infallible and they have nothing to learn from the minority.
In contrast to majority voting consensus decision-making is about finding common ground and solutions that are acceptable to all. Decisions are reached in a dialogue between equals, who take each other seriously and who recognise each other’s equal rights.
People are often inactive because they feel that they have no power in the system and that their voice won’t be listened to anyway. In consensus every person has the power to make changes in the system, and to prevent changes that they find unacceptable. The right to veto a decision means that minorities cannot just be ignored, but creative solutions will have to be found to deal with their concerns.
Another benefit of consensus is that all members agree to the final decision and therefore are much more committed to actually turning this decision into reality..." (5-9)
Consensus Decision Making, Seeds for Change
Consensus also has an extensive history, and you can read more about it in the Seeds for Change article.
Other Tips & Tricks for Meeting Facilitation from SeaSol
From https://libcom.org/files/seasol-pamphlet-expanded-US.pdf.
"Listen for proposals in what people are saying. Try to steer the group towards making decisions and acting upon them, instead of talking in circles.
Restate proposals to make sure everyone knows what's being decided on. A few phrases you can use are: "What I'm hearing is..." and “We have a proposal to…"
Keep “stack”, i.e. a list of people who want to speak on a topic. Call on people in order. If it’s too much to keep track of, you can recruit a helper to keep stack for you.
Always have a time keeper and note taker.
Add up the length of the agenda at the beginning of meeting so the group knows what they’re getting into. This may cause people to decide to spend less time on certain items.
You can ask the time keeper to give you warnings (5 min, 3 min, 1 min)
Ask meeting attendees’ permission to extend the time on an agenda item (possibly through a quick vote).
Periodically check back in about the meeting's remaining time, and when the meeting is projected to end.
Need a break? Ask someone else to take over as chair."
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