July 28, 2002 Sangha Meeting Notes

Cover Letter from the Sangha Development Committee
(originally emailed on 8/7/02)

Dear Sangha,

There are three points below.  Please read this email.  We need and request your input.  Thank you.

Overview of Sangha meeting on July 28:

Deep Spring has been a concept for many years. At our July 28^th meeting, we talked about why we came to Deep Spring. High on the list was Barbara and Aaron. We also began talking about how we could organize to get things done. And we discovered our form of governance is unclear and internal communication could be improved.

We are working towards finding the right communication, the right governance model, the right style of meeting, the right inclusiveness to allow this organization to become stronger and grow.  With that intent comes false starts, tension, confusion as well as opportunity, closeness, and evolution. Just as with a person, we need to determine how to allow space for all that movement to settle.

The Sangha Development Committee wants to continue to expand these meetings and include more people. We don't want to "lose" any attenders.

To that regard:

1. If you weren't at the meeting, the information the Board provided on their new policies invites us all to participate.  Please read it.  If you were at the meeting, we'd appreciate your feedback about what worked and what didn't for you.

2. The next meeting we would like to spend some time exploring how we can bring our practice more directly into this process. Some questions can be: How can we support a kind and loving space as we work through our growing pains? How can we hold that loving space to allow each of us to be fully present in who we are, what we feel and still be able to participate? How can we directly extend our practice of compassion and open-hearted presence with whatever arises within ourselves to the full Sangha? Can we agree on some 'norms' for how we work together in meetings based on the dharma? How can we open our hearts to the searching and gently support the organization's growth?

3. We need your input on what date would be best for you for our next two Sangha Meetings. You will be receiving in a separate e-mail, a request for your input for our next meeting date. The choices are on Sundays --September 29^th and October 13^th; and for December – the 1^st, 8^th or the 15^th. The meetings would begin at 12:30 p.m. and conclude at approximately 3:30 p.m. Location to be determined. Please respond to this request when you receive it.

Sincerely,

Jack Koepfgen
On behalf of Carol Blotter, Cassie Cammann, Anna Marie Henrich and Corty Cammann
Sangha Development Committee

Notes from the Sangha Meeting of July 28, 2002

Agenda:

Ground Rules:

• Listen.
• One conversation at a time.
• Respect the wisdom of others.
• Give each other space.

Sangha Business Agenda:

• Sign-ins and volunteers of space for future meetings
• Ann Barden:
  • Board Update
  • Retreat Committee (including no-frills report)
  • Budget Update
  • Teacher Activities
  • Nominations Committee
• Cassie Cammann:
  • Service/Outreach Report
  • Fun/Connection Committee
• Volunteer Committee Update – Cassie Cammann and Ann Barden
• Other Issues – All

Discussion Notes

Reasons for coming back to DSC

• Learning from each other.
  • In small groups particularly.
  • Sense of community.
• Barbara and Aaron as teachers.
• Sense of potential.
• Personal and spiritual development
  • Sharing with each other and support from each other.
• The non-hierarchical nature of the group – people can become what they want.
• A very American group – it fits our mid-western lives.

Sangha Business Reports

From Ann Barden:

• Ann Barden is the new Board President.

• Board is forming a nominating committee.
• We need an assistant treasurer who will become treasurer in January.
• The nominating committee is aimed at Board positions primarily.
• The committee includes Aiji Pipho, Jane Grace Bowman, Barbara Brodsky, and maybe one other.
• Teacher Training
  • Teachers are working on an ethics statement and they will share it with the Sangha when they are comfortable with it.
  • There is a group working on the curriculum for training DSC teachers.

• Retreat Committee
  • This is an important function of the Sangha.
  • The board wants to enlarge this committee.
  • DSC has been having no-frills retreats where there is a minimum of activity. More of these have been requested. Kris Kurnit, George SanFacon and Pat Shalis will set up a system for dealing with these. Next year there will be two no-frills retreats and a holotropic breathwork retreat.

• Budget Update
  • This is the first year we have had a budget.
  • It is not balanced, but our total income and outflow are in balance.
  • The Board needs to balance the budget.
  • Contributions to the building fund and general contributions are both down. To some extent this is expected in the summer.
  • Reminder to all: United Way contributions can be designated for Deep Springs Center.
  • We should find out what has happened with the pledges that people made.

• Board Report
• April, May, and June were transitions for the Board.
• There are many new Board members and officers:
  • Ann Barden is the President.
  • Cassie Cammann is Vice-President.
  • Pat Shalis is Treasurer.
  • Dotty Coyne is Secretary.
• The Board has created new positions of Assistant Treasurer and Assistant Secretary.
• The Board has created an office manager advisory team to help Su Hansen define the tasks and responsibilities of the new office manager position.
• The Board now has good monthly and yearly financial documents to use in tracking the financial activities of the center.
• Newsletter costs have been cut in half.
• Computers and phones are being upgraded.
• Site search is focusing on the "middle way" approach. The activities here seem stalled and the Board needs to figure out why and help them get going again. The old site search committee is not functioning at the moment and is waiting for direction from the Board.
• The Board has set a policy of having open meetings with time in the first half-hour for Sangha members to speak. Sangha members can also get items on the agenda by requesting them ten days in advance. A memo outlining the new policy was sent to all Sangha members by e-mail.

Sangha Meeting recommendations to the Board:

Have the agenda for Board Meetings sent to the local Sangha in advance so that members know when there is going to be a discussion they would like to hear/speak to.

Have an organization chart of the board and committees sent to Sangha members so they know who is doing what and who to talk to when they have a need.

People at the meeting also wanted to make sure that the Sangha meeting notes went out to the Sangha. People agreed that the web site was a reasonable method (as was used for distributing the notes for the last meeting) but some people did not know they were there.

• Board minutes could usefully be out a couple of weeks after the meeting. There was some discussion of the practical difficulties of doing this, but there was agreement that it would be valuable to do so.
• The general consensus was a desire for the Board to keep focus on developing the communications channels to be quick, clear, reliable.
• Also, there is a need to develop the right balance of how much information to include to keep people "briefed".
• Comments included:
• I prefer a tighter ship with more focus.
• We need high involvement in the process.

From Cassie Cammann -- Service/Outreach; and Fun and Volunteer Committees’ Reports:

• The Sangha had a lovely service day at the Whitehall Nursing home. The work was appreciated and people still make comments about how much they appreciated what was done when they see Cassie.
• People who have ideas for service projects are invited to bring them up. Cassie is happy to help organize them and they can be set up to involve all who are interested.
• The Volunteer Committee is forming. It needs people to serve on the committee and a pool of volunteers who are willing to do various projects. Anyone who is interested should let Su or a Board member know. Cassie is willing to serve as a focal person for this activity until the committee is functioning.
• The Board wants to get a Fun Committee started. It has requested volunteers to staff the committee, but so far no one has come forward.
• A number of people commented that in this area and others we should let people’s energy determine the priority that is put on the activity.

Other Issues:

A question was asked about whether or not it would be useful to have project budgets in addition to overall budgets (for retreats for example). The answer was that this type of budgeting is complex to work with and doesn’t fit very well with our current cash flow method of accounting. We do know that retreats support themselves and we can generate this information on a case by case basis when needed.

A suggestion was made for the Board to consider a finance committee to involve others in helping to monitor the finances of DSC. Perhaps also a technology committee. These committees could be composed of people within the Sangha who have the appropriate expertise and could also prepare people to be effective Board members. It was also suggested that some type of form to collect information about who in the Sangha has expertise in different areas also might be useful. Some of this information apparently was collected already by the Volunteer coordinator.

Focus Topic: Ideas for how to organize ourselves to get "stuff" done:

These ideas were gathered during a brainstorming session involving the whole group and do not indicate how many people supported each idea..

• Criteria for initiatives that DSC undertakes (no implied priority):
  • Sangha wants it.
  • Board approves it.
  • People will do it.
• It is okay not to do things if people won’t do them.
• Communications is key to getting people to want to help/do.
• Invitations to this meeting were sent to people on the "local" sangha list; either by e-mail or by U.S. mail. The list is 100 or so. The observation was made that it would be useful to know why only 20 people came and to know how many of the people have been involved in significant ways in Sangha activities. This was linked to a pattern that some people have seen of a few people doing a lot of work and then burning out. Clearly this is not useful.
• The observation was made there are a number of people who volunteer and likely do so in areas (such as teacher training, retreat committee, board of directors and the like) that they are drawn to; reflecting a much higher number of people being involved in Deep Spring affairs.
• It would be useful to know what people are willing to contribute to Deep Spring.
• It would be helpful to know who point people are for various activities. This would make it easier to volunteer/ be interested.
• It would be good to have a skill list for the people of the Sangha.
• Personal practice support groups (small ones) would help keep people more involved with the Sangha.
• It would be helpful to keep DSC activities focused on the things that keep people coming back.
• It would be helpful for each committee and task group to have a point person. Ask each group to get someone to volunteer as point person.
• It is important that the Board respond to committees and clarify their boundaries and authorities so that people can act. When this is not done, it produces severe frustration.
• It would be useful to have time limits for committees and membership and to have these built into the committee charters.
• It would be useful for the Board to delegate more authority to committees and not retain all decision-making authority to itself.
• Better committee organization would help – particularly it would be useful to have a "Chair". It would also be useful to let committees work out their relationships with the Board in ways that suit both – not to have the board take a "controlling" stance. This led to a suggestion of using the Quaker term "convenor" rather than the more hierarchical term "Chair".
• We don’t delegate well. We second guess each other all the time. The site issue is fuzzy. What we hear keeps changing. Now the rumor is that "we" are looking again. Who is the "we"?
• The observation was made that these are all things that are within our power to clarify and attend to; all we need to do is address them.
• The process of site search was described by a person who participated in a task group to develop options, based on financial parameters of DSC.
  • A group looked at the financials for building space.
  • A proposal was developed, presented to the Sangha, recommended to the Board and approved by the Board – the "middle way proposal".
  • The site committee needs to be re-formed so that it can take the next steps of finding a location.
• One person said they would prefer to have the site work tabled and that since DSC was a consensus organization it did not have a consensus to move ahead. This produced two discussions:
  • The process of decision making was described and the point was made that agreement had been reached at each stage. It was clear that some of the people who attended had not been aware that these activities had been going on and did not feel part of the process.
  • It was clear that we do not have a clear, common view of how governance does and should occur within DSC. It was suggested that discussion of this would be a useful topic for the next Sangha meeting and the Sangha Development Group agreed to work with the Board to come up with a approach for addressing this topic. It was also agreed that we needed to have more reliable ways to get information to people so that they would not be surprised.

 Meeting Review and Next Meeting Planning:

• The meeting ended at 3:45 p.m.
• Attendees gave brief reviews. "Useful", "cathartic" were two examples.
• Dates for the next meeting were discussed. There were conflicts for each possible date. The Sangha Development Group will identify possible dates, get feedback, and set the date that seems to work for the most people.
• It was suggested that once every three months is not frequent enough for this group to meet. This will be considered at the next meeting.
• The start time of 12:30 p.m. seemed to work well, and will be used next meeting.
• The Sangha development Group will talk to the people who volunteered their houses for future meetings and will let everyone know the date, time and place as soon as it can be established.