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Winter 2007

These minutes were sent out to those present at the meeting before they were posted here in order to give them the opportunity to offer their approval.

The fifth meeting of our community was held January 4-6, 2008, at Aimee’s home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Hostessing (providing a place to sleep and meet, purchasing supplies and coordinating our delicious and inclusive meals) was provided by Aimee with support from Diana T., Carol and Cricket. Meeting notes were taken by various individuals throughout the weekend and compiled by Cricket. Approved by those present at the meeting by 01/29/08.

Attendees: Aimee, ChangingTide, DianaMelisaBee, Diana T., Diane/Cricket, Emily, Jason/Scarecrow, Pablito, Sibyl and Vicky

All of us arrived by Friday afternoon, had lunch together and were able to start Friday afternoon at 1:20 PM (exact time noted for those who are able to read the astrological significance of such things).


Friday afternoon and evening

  • Agreed on the start of the agenda for our time together.
  • Created sacred space for the weekend (included going outside and figuring out the directions!).
  • Check-ins
  • Consensus Training offered by DianaMelisaBee, Cricket, Jason and Pablito. (link to what was offered: Consensus Training offered at Winter 2008 meeting)
  • Enjoyed dinner together.
  • Finished up the consensus training with a role play – What color shall we paint our Community room?
  • Finished up around 7:30 PM to allow an earlier evening for socializing, watching a DVD or resting after a long day of travel.

Saturday morning

Saturday afternoon and evening

  • Began by sharing what we hoped for from this time that we had set aside and called “Clarifying our Vision” on the agenda. (link to some of the what was recorded: LINK #3)
  • Each of us shared what we thought a day in the life of this community would look like to us. (This was in response to the suggestion made by Diana T. and Aimee by e-mail before the meeting, so some people had written something down and others had been thinking about the question and shared their thoughts.) (link to some of the what was shared: LINK #4)
  • Using a drumming CD, we each tranced individually and shared some of our insights after we returned. (link to some of the what was recorded: LINK #5)
  • Discussion about different possibilities, site-criteria, strong personal needs (non-negotiables), next-steps. (link to some of the what was recorded: LINK #6)
  • Enjoyed dinner together
  • Decided that instead of having a ritual and/or trance this evening, we wanted to continue the work begun before dinner. Suggested that ritual/trance could be done on Sunday.
  • Three proposals were consensed to.

Proposal #1: Pablito will take the site criteria that we came up with, cross check with the Diana Leafe Christian book and check with Juniper, add some explanation/context and e-mail this to DianaMelisaBee by January 14th.

Proposal #2: DianaMelisaBee will send what Pablito comes up with to the Supporter’s e-mail list by January 21st.

Proposal #3: DianaMelisaBee will collect and summarize the commonalities from all responses. She will bullet out differences, labeled with member status.

Sunday morning

  • Began at 9 AM, with a look at the agenda for our final day. (From the beginning some items had been on newsprint, on yellow notepads, and anyone could add other agenda items that they wanted to add. Items postponed from Friday and Saturday were there. We spent time identifying which items were most important to the group, established times for them, and negotiated other less important items.) (link to agenda items that were not addressed at this meeting: LINK #7)

(link to Diana T.’s raw notes – LINK #8)

(link to Pablito.’s raw notes – LINK #9)

1) 11:13 AM Consensus Training: Are we trained? And other training issues. Facilitated by Emily, Diana T. and Pablito note-takers.

Decisions consensed to:

According to the Consensus Training that we have agreed to (Consensus-training), we agree that the nine members and one exploring member present at this meeting have fulfilled steps 1 through 4 and have fulfilled all requirements to fully understand and participate in decision making. We acknowledge that there is always value in further training, and there is the desire to tie up the loose end of defining roles (facilitator, etc.) and terms (agree, stand-aside, block).

We empower a group (Aimee, Cricket and Pablito) to work on future consensus training, incorporating the suggestions, with no expectation of an April training. At some point there will be a proposal of a suggestion of a standard training curriculum.

2) Financial issues: Treasurer’s report, finances for this weekend, consequences of not paying dues. Facilitated by DMB, Pablito note-taker.

Treasurer’s report: $2,129.57 in our account, plus $200 more in dues from this meeting.

Expenses for this weekend:

$589.94 – food costs

$150 – catering prep fee

$19.42 – office miscellany

Total: $759.36

Decision consensded to:

All expenses (food, prep fee, office miscellany) to be divided in half, with half taken from the community account and the other half divided among 9 of us (excluding Aimee). This is to recognize Aimee’s contribution in hard work and delicious food. This applies to just this meeting and is not a binding precedent for the future.

This meant that each person, besides Aimee was responsible for paying $42.19 to Diana T. and the treasurers would reimburse Aimee $739.94 for the food and catering prep fee and Cricket $19.42 for the office miscellany.

Other decisions about on-going handling of meeting expenses, including the issue of the catering prep fee, were tabled to e-mail discussion and/or decisions; and the handling of the expenses for the next meetings will continue to be handled on a case-to-case basis.

In regards to the consequences of not paying dues, the proposal first offered by Sabo, and discussed briefly at the Kansas City meeting is still being considered and Cricket agreed to be the topic champion to move this issue along on-line. Members present commit to timely comments/discussion on the dues consequences proposal.

In the mean time, to relieve the treasurers of the task of following up with members who have not paid their dues:

Decision consensded to:

Vicky volunteers to be the Guido Deadline Fairy, and treasurers are empowered to share sufficient information with Vicky to make that happen.

  • Broke for lunch a half hour early so that some could spend time planning for the evening’s ritual, and others prepared for lunch.
  • Enjoyed lunch together.

Sunday afternoon

3) 2:15 PM “Coming Out” at Dandelion Gathering. Facilitated by ChangingTide, Pablito note-taker.

Decision consensed to:

We empower a group (Aimee, DianaMelisaBee and Jason) to prepare a proposal on how to come out at the Dandelion Gathering, to be presented to our group before the Dandelion Gathering, in order to elicit feedback and responses. They are also empowered to communicate with the Dandelion Gathering planners to assure our participation.

4) 2008 meetings. Facilitated by ChangingTide, Pablito note-taker.

Decisions consensed to:

The spring meeting will be held Saturday, April 12th thru Monday, April 14th (people are encouraged to plan on traveling on Friday, 4/11 and Tuesday, 4/15 – and lodging will be provided Friday night and Monday night) at the home of Vicky, Sibyl and DianaMelisaBee in Sunnyvale, CA (near San Jose, CA.) (The Dandelion Gathering is in Santa Rosa, about 2 hour drive north of Sunnyvale, April 16-20, and some members are planning to attend both events.)

The summer meeting will be held Saturday June 21st, possibly starting Friday evening June 20th, thru Sunday, June 22nd. (People are encouraged to plan on traveling as early as possible on Friday, 6/20 and Monday, 6/23.) The first choice for location is Fort Collins, Colorado; Pablito and Emily to research RiverRock or the activist camp. Second choice is Earthaven, NC; Jason to check with Sabo.

The fall meeting will be held Thursday, September 25th thru Sunday, September 28th at Diana’s Grove in Missouri. (People are encouraged to fly into St. Louis, MO as early as possible on Thursday, 9/25 and fly out after 5 PM on Sunday, 9/28 – housing at Diana’s Grove is only provided Thursday night thru Saturday night.) Cricket will coordinate.

A decision was NOT made about the winter meeting, however the possibility of having ChangingTide and Juniper host it in Austin, Texas was discussed.

5) Status and interest in being included in conference calls for all current members, exploring members and inactive members. Also a desire for clarification of commitment to the vision of community we shared on Saturday. Facilitated by DMB, Pablito note-taker.

For details on what each individual shared, please check raw notes.

The Guido Deadline Fairy, Vicky, will follow up with Bob and Juniper to find out if they want to become inactive members and if they want to be included in conference calls. DianaMelisaBee will follow up with Crystalline to see if she wants to be included in conference calls. Emily, and maybe Jason, will follow up with Jessica.

ChangingTide announced her desire to become a member. We followed the currently unofficial, but suggested questions and process to follow (ClarifyMembershipProcess). No concerns were raised by the members present.

Decision consensed to:

A conference call of members interested in evaluating ChangingTide, will be scheduled by Cricket. If you don't call in, you're approving the group's decision to accept ChangingTide’s membership request, since no concerns are present.

6) Deciding on some locations to research according to our site criteria. Facilitated by Cricket, Pablito note-taker.

Decisions consensed to:

Pablito and Diana T. agree to research Walking Stick Ranch with regard to site characteristics as an exercise.

Volunteers will research sites. Sites may include raw land, developed land, and intentional communities whether or not we could actually join them.

  • Pacific North West (west coast, Oregon): Vicky, Sibyl, DianaMelisaBee
  • North Carolina (Southern Appalachians): Jason
  • South West (New Mexico or Arizona): ChangingTide, Cricket, perhaps DianaT and Carol)
  • Western Massachusetts (Berkshires): Emily

  • Enjoyed dinner together

Sunday evening

  • An amazing ritual and group trance to our clan house. Jason captured some notes from the group trance (link to those notes – LINK #10). Ritual also included checking out, a group hand fasting and opening our circle for the weekend.

Background information


Date and location planning content from the original page

information about the meeting shared on the wiki before the meeting

Links to raw notes:

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