This is the last SomBu of 2022!

We just did a round of celebrations in the General Circle meeting, and here in this word cloud are some of the phrases that came up.

Next year, financial stability in the context of growth will remain a big topic — if you’re sitting on good ideas of how SoFA could increase revenue and increase its impact to bring more sociocracy into the world, you’re welcome to add them to our sheet of budget ideas!

I’m so proud of what we’ve built together!

For this break over the various holidays, I’ll be spending time with my kids and refueling. Whatever your plans, I hope everything will work out in your favor.

Membership Survey Results

At the beginning of the year, the former membership development circle sent a survey to identify the main concerns of SoFA members. Here are the main topics that you would like to see improved and the steps we are taking to move forward:

Money — The number one concern was money. How we keep healthy finances and how we keep a fair payment to our paid staff were the two main questions.

Focusing on budget was very important throughout the year. We set fiscal circles for each department that had to review and approve their budget alongside a clear narrative. General Circle is also discussing a new strategy to increase our income-producing activities, and we also have the new Financial Wellbeing circle.

Regarding our paid staff, General Circle also created a Pay for work helping circle where a new policy is being developed.

Leadership and succession — For a long time, department circles leadership were held by Ted and Jerry. This last year other SoFA members stepped into leadership roles, and we see new faces in leadership in sub-circles as well. You can check out our Kumu to see all current roles.

Connection — Many SoFA members have expressed their desire to create more connections with other members. Currently, the Membership Department is going through a reorganization of its aims and domains to support members in creating more connections; the Continuing Education circle is also promoting more social activities.

Access to information — A common question from members was, where do I find all SoFA documentation? You can now find all SoFA policies in the forum. Membership Guides Circle has improved its onboarding process alongside IT circle to support members in finding all the information they need.

This is a very short summary; if you are curious and want to know more, don’t hesitate to reach out to [email protected] or any circle leader. And expect a new survey soon!

New Year reset

Policy manual and circle minutes documents

Thursday 12-29 at 1730 UTC

We are approaching the change of the calendar year, which is when we generally create new minutes documents for our circles. Also, we are now encouraging circle secretaries to help maintain our policy manual. This event will be a co-working session where IT Circle and the Log Keeping Team representatives will be available to provide guidance on the systems we use for keeping records for our circles. We invite you to join us any circle secretaries who want to work together on their minutes’ documents and policy manual entries, as well as any other members who are curious to learn about these processes.

Circle reports

General Circle

The members of General Circle consented to approve SoFA’s budget, but they will be keeping a close eye on a few variables through Q1, as they still have some anxiety about low donation results and uncertainty around Academy registration. The members had a rich conversation about what we can do to stabilize our financial health; see Ted’s introduction above for more encouragement (and see the notes for details).

notes::general circle

Content Circle

In reflecting on the year, the Content Department is celebrating growth in trainings, a very smooth operation of the Academy, increased client work, and increased clarity within Outreach Circle. As for more recent news, this department has been having more dynamic conversations on the Forum using the “wol” tag (for Working Out Loud). And there are a lot of other things going on throughout the department:

• The Otto Scharmer webinar was well attended.
• Sadly, it looks like we may not meet our fundraising goals for this year. We encourage all members to invite people they know to support our work!
• The Schools and Climate conferences are in progress for February and March, respectively.

notes::content circle

Ecosystem Circle

This year, this department has been working to provide affirmative answers to all of these questions: Are circle leaders getting support? Are delegates leaning into their roles? Are contacts with sectors growing? Are circles able to follow through on their domains of activity? And the members of this circle have been seeing good progress on all of these questions.

notes::ecosystem circle

Membership Circle

This department is celebrating its work this year around clarifying and streamlining the workflow around membership. The department did a lot of work around the membership framework and engaging more deeply with the leader and secretary circle roles.

notes::membership circle

International Circle

Celebrating this year, the linking members from International Circle noted how many new members and new language communities had joined the work of this department! The department is also working on restructuring to respond to this growth (and avoid an overwhelming department general circle).

notes::international circle

Member events 

• THU December 22 @ 12:00 – 13:30 EDT
  Sociocracy Implementation Peer Support (SIPS) Community of Practice
  A community of practice for mutual support for people implementing sociocracy in their organizations. Meets monthly on the fourth Thursday.

• TUE December 27 @ 11:00 – 12:30 EDT 
  Community of Practice: facilitators of sociocratic circles
  A community of practice for people holding the role of facilitator in their organizations. Meets monthly.
• WED December 28 @ 15:00 – 17:00 UTC 
  Co-working: accountability, fun, and getting things done
• THU December 29 @ 17:30 – 19:30 EST
  New Year Reset: policy manual and circle minutes documents
  We are approaching the change of the calendar year, which is when we generally create new minutes documents for our circles. Also, we are now encouraging circle secretaries to help maintain our policy manual. This event will be a co-working session where IT Circle and the Log Keeping Team representatives will be available to provide guidance on the systems we use for keeping records for our circles.
• FRI December 30 @ 11:00 – 13:00 EDT Breaking Cycles Community of Practice
  A community of practice for members of sociocratic organizations that are interested in discussing harm reduction and unlearning & breaking cycles of the dominant oppressive culture within […]

SoMBu feedback

We’d love to hear how SoMBu works for you and suggestions for improvement!

Additional notices from role holders or circles are welcome. Submissions are due on the day General Circle meets: January 3 and 17.

Contact: [email protected].

Andrew Grant, SoMBu broadcaster