Hey!

Like so many of us, I caught COVID and was out for 2 weeks. Glad it’s over!

It’s summer where I am, and that means things are slowing down which is delightful. Being sick, I’ve thought a lot about the value of slowing down, of not-functioning, not-performing, and things not being perfect. It’s all part of being human, and yet so easy to forget.

I hope you find some time to slow down soon. Hopefully, you don’t need to get sick to be reminded of that!

In this broadcast: 

• Call for proposals
• New members
• Upcoming member events
• Circle reports
• Announcements
• SoMBu feedback

Call for proposals

SoFA’s 2nd annual Sociocracy in Intentional Communities Conference is accepting presentation proposals.

• Deadline for submissions: August 19, 2022
• Date of conference: Saturday, November 19, 2022

The conference will explore how sociocracy supports ecovillages, cohousing projects, and housing cooperatives to meet social needs through resilient, equitable, and regenerative self-governance practices.

New SoFA Members

• Bob Kosse (Netherlands) — Dutch Circle
• Frances Spector (US) — Supporting Member

Welkom • Welcome!

Upcoming member events

July 2022

• TUE, July 26 — Community of Practice: facilitators of sociocratic circles
  A community of practice for people holding the role of facilitator in their organizations. Meets monthly.

• TUE, July 26 — Summer SoFA Writer’s Workshop
  SoFA is offering a Writer’s Workshop! Join a small group of other writers for mutual support in writing articles to be published on the SoFA website.

• THU, July 28 — Sociocracy Implementation Peer Support (SIPS) Community of Practice
  A community of practice for mutual support for people implementing socicoracy in their organizations. Meets monthly on the fourth Thursday.

• FRI, July 29 — Breaking Cycles Community of Practice
  Breaking Cycles is 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 […]

August 2022

• WED, August 3 — Community of Practice: Schools and Education
  A community of practice for mutual support for school sociocratic practitioners.

• MON, August 8 —  @Work Community of Practice

• @Work Community of Practice is a mutual support group for people practicing sociocracy at work. This community of practice is a space for people to share experiences or potential situations […]

• MON, August 8 — Community of Practice: Sociocratic Intentional Communities
  Find your people! Advocates for Sociocracy in Community is our community of practice for Intentional Communities. We meet on Zoom once a month to support each other in using sociocracy […]

Circle reports

Mission Circle

• The members of this circle raised objections to the Language Equity statement; they were concerned about how to keep track of the resources used across SoFA to implement the statement in a way that everyone would find both reasonable and satisfying.  They have a plan for working with General Circle to find a way to move forward.
• This circle is discussing the recently drafted Conflict Engagement Policy.

notes::mission circle

General Circle

• Hearing responses to their feedback, the members of General Circle agreed to schedule a climate fresk among General Circle and Mission Circle members.
• Remaining objectives from the Language Equity report will land in other appropriate SoFA circles for review; you may see a request to engage with some of those objectives in your circles.
• Ted guided the members of General Circle in an ACT Matrix exercise exploring how we engage with time and money in SoFA. This was a rich conversation and demonstrated how our relationship with time and money touches on many deep concerns that we share around how we meet our needs and how we engage with each other and the world around some closely-held values. Please do peruse the notes from the exercise if you want to see how the members of General Circle reacted to this question.

notes::general circle

Content Circle

• The members of Content Circle are finishing up their work on their internal restructuring.
• The circle also reviewed and consented to the SoFA Voice statement, and members have been gathering some feedback for the Language Equity Helping Circle.

notes::content circle

Ecosystem Circle

• The Co-op conference, held in June, went well; part of the conference involved launching the Co-op Community of Practice, and the Co-op CoP (heh) is now in active growth and formation.  Many conference attendees experienced frustration in working with the website, however.
• The circle is developing role description templates to offer as options for how members of sector circles can engage meaningfully with the work of their sector. 

notes::ecosystem circle

International Circle

• This circle has established a new sub-circle—Open Collective Europe Circle—that is currently working to connect with OCE as a legal financial entity in Europe, particularly as a basis for receiving grants and donations.
• This circle also has a new language sub-circle for spreading sociocracy in Dutch for the Netherlands—SoFA Nederland.

notes::international circle

Talking about Language Equity

• How can SoFA commit to creating multilingual spaces without going broke?
• What is the value in challenging English as a dominant language?

We’re asking these questions about the Language Equity Statement currently being reviewed as new policy by the Mission Circle. What do you think or feel about this topic? 

—Andy Grant, leader of the language equity helping circle

Advocates for Sociocracy in Community

Next meeting 8/8

This community of practice for Intentional Communities meets the second Monday of every month at 11:15 EDT/EST; next meeting August 8.

Final Reminder: New Zoom address

To help speed up our website, we’ve changed SoFA’s Zoom redirects, shortcuts to our Zoom rooms. They work exactly as they did before, but go to a different subdomain. The change is simple but important:

Ease the burden on the website and prevent broken links in the future!

Questions? Contact the IT Circle at [email protected]. To learn more about booking SoFA’s zoom rooms, look for instructions on the Member Dashboard.