Hey,

Pandemic, nuclear provocations, climate catastrophe. With these global threats looming it felt surreal last week to attend SoFA circle meetings. How could I go ahead with business as usual, I thought, but I quickly recalled that this is not business as usual. We are remembering our way back to an effective and heart-centered way for groups of like-minded people to circle up, listen deeply, and decide together. The world needs more than ever what sociocracy offers — an infrastructure to help social change movements of all types, where every voice truly matters and we do what needs to be done, even or most especially in hard times.

Today, SoFA has 224 active members around the globe. We envision “a world in which people engage together to meet their individual and collective needs in an equitable way, with respect for all living beings.” May it be so.

Check out the Mission Circle discussion, below, on the question: What are the places where [SoFA’s] contribution makes the most sense?

Andy Grant, SoFA membership guide and SoMBu broadcaster

Our budget situation

I know circles have been wondering and worrying about the budget. Budgeting Circle took a deep dive into numbers and it appears that this quarter will work out because we brought in more money than projected and spent less. With that, GC approved this quarter’s budget and will immediately focus on Quarter 2. We will track income and expenses very closely and strive to improve the accuracy of our projections. Circles, please be sure to send in budget changes or budget requests to [email protected].

Ted Rau, SoFA operational leader

Promoting SoLT 19

You can help with some SoLT outreach! Here’s something you could be writing to a few friends, colleagues, or on social media:

• • SoFA is doing an immersion-based training starting March 30. I don’t know about you, but the SoLT training was a key part of my sociocracy education and how I met many people throughout SoFA.
  • It’s a great opportunity to let some people in your community or project try out sociocracy in a “sheltered” context for a limited time.
  • How it works: participants join a “play” circle with a small project and then have the meetings to figure out all the questions and make proposals in sociocratic ways. It’s perfect for everyone who doesn’t have as much experience with sociocracy yet but wants to get more fluent!
  • More info: sociocracyforall.org/solt

Thank you!

Member development survey

We (the Member Development Circle) would love for you to respond to this survey right away. If you don’t respond we will send a couple of reminders. We aim to end the survey on March 15 so we have some time to analyze and send a report to the SoFA General Circle meeting on March 29.

This survey is sent out to all members of SoFA to check what our learning needs and desires are. We kindly receive your answers to this survey so that we enter into learning from a perspective of joy and exploration, and that we put both our money and time on things that develop us as an organization and us as members.

Below are the questions to consider, if you like, before starting the survey. We think it will take you around 15 minutes to complete. If you don’t want to respond, just open the survey and answer the first question, and we will not send you the reminder emails.

1. When did you first join SoFA as a Working Member?
2. How did you grow in your roles in the last 6 months? What has been your biggest ‘aha!’ moment?
3. What is currently challenging for you when it comes to work in SoFA?
4. What would you like to be learning? What is your next step of development? What help could you use towards that development?
5. If you are a member of multiple circles, would you answer these questions differently for the different circles? Explain!
6. About your connection with other SoFA members — does it feel adequate right now? Want more? What kind of more connection would you like?
7. How is the SoFA Member Bulletin (SoMBu) working for you? Do you have suggestions for improvement?”
8. Anything you want to let us know, that this survey didn’t cover?
9. Which circle(s) are you a member of?

New SoFA members

• Kata Mórocz (Hungary) – Conference Circle
• Deb Cooper (US) – Co-op Circle

Upcoming member events

• TUE, March 1
  SoFA Writer’s Workshop
• WED, March 2
  Community of Practice: Schools and Education
• MON, March 7
  Co-working & IT Support (Spanish & English)
• MON, March 14
  @Work Community of Practice
• WED, March 16
  Community of Practice: leaders of sociocratic circles
• TUE, March 22
  Community of Practice: facilitators of sociocratic circle

Circle reports

Mission Circle

• Did a sensing session on this topic:
  
  “The issues in the world are complex and intertwined. Sociocracy is a good tool to make decisions under these circumstances. Given that we can’t do everything, what are the places where our contribution makes the most sense? And what does that mean for SoFA?”

  In the SoFA Forum, watch the (18min) recording of the sensing session and share your opinion!

notes::mission circle

General Circle

• Approved Q1 budget. 
• Started drafting a SoFA strategy embedded in theory of change. 

notes::general circle

Content Circle

• Training Circle: badge reviews, Academy and certification planning; trying to increase client work/follow-up with organizations.
• Website administration team coming together & getting ready to work on website restructuring
• Social Media has a new strategy and metrics.
• Book “Let’s Decide Together” is going to be translated into French!
• Approved color scheme for social media.

notes::content circle

Ecosystem Circle

• Co-op Circle: Working on their conference planning
• Intentional Communities Circle: Members doing workshops!
• Permaculture Circle: New potential member; still working on OKR. Rhonda has a new article that needs some revision before sharing with the SoFA audience
• Nonprofit Circle: Preparing a survey to share with nonprofits which will develop into an article and outreach for new members
• Education Circle: Qualitative Research project underway. Working to seek new Rising Foundation grant for continued education work
• Organizational Memberships Circle/Communities of Practice (OMCOP): Planning to roll out organizational membership along with April conference
• Free and Open Source Circle (FOSC): working on a survey to discover needs and how to best support

notes::ecosystem circle

Membership Circle

• Finance Circle: Financial review done
• Budgeting Circle busy with budget/projections

notes::membership circle

International Circle

• Language Circles Guidebook is officially done!
• SoFra (French) is progressing very well with translations and website and high engagement.
• SoPRa (Spanish)
  • Proposals for income generation.
  • ProPS started with 17 people.

notes::international circle

Cooperatives Conference (6/23)

The Co-op Circle is calling for proposals for presentations at their second Sociocracy in Cooperatives Conference scheduled for June 23, 2022. Please spread the word!

How to publish web content

Web Content Publishing has a new system for publishing website content. To publish anything, go to the Member Dashboard and select “Publish on the Web.” Questions? Get in touch with [email protected].

SoMBu feedback: [email protected].

Additional notices from role holders or circles are welcome. Submissions are due on the day when General Circle meets: Mar 15 | Mar 29 | Apr 4 — all Tuesdays.