SoMBu 2023 Week 19

—

by

John L. Clark
in ,

Language: Español

Broadcast Thursday, May 11, 2023

logo Sofa with name long scaled - - Sociocracy For All

In this broadcast:

  • Opening
  • Announcements
    • How does SoFA organize its pay for work?
    • New Zoom storage policy
    • New patterns for using Canva accounts
    • Recent Groundhogg training
    • German sociocracy conference
    • New members
  • Member events
  • Department circle reports
  • New articles
  • Training opportunities
  • Help wanted: SoMBu broadcaster role
  • About SoMBu

Hello lovely people!

I hope you are feeling as inspired and empowered as I am feeling after our Annual Global Conference last week. I am very much looking forward to reviewing recordings from sessions I could not make it to personally. It is this coming together to share ideas and experiences which nourishes us in our work. In the days and weeks ahead, I hope that you will be inspired to join in your circles with renewed perspectives. What can we learn and try as we continue to evolve SoFA?  

I would also like to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who helped to make the conference a success–and I look forward to the conferences coming later this year.

– Rhonda Baird

Annual Global Conference

We had an incredible two days of the Annual Global Sociocracy Conference last week. Together, we embarked on a journey exploring topics and learning more about inclusive and effective governance in the world. Thank you to everyone who attended the event, hosted zoom rooms, presented at the conference, played games, and engaged with us.

Recordings are available in the event portal for two weeks for everyone who registered and attended the conference. A selection of recordings will be made available to the general public within a few weeks, and a full collection of conference recordings will be made available for purchase soon, as well.

May you continue to harness the shared power of sociocracy in your endeavors, and may the synergy be with you always.

Warmly,
Shala Massey
Program Administrator, Continuing Education Circle

How does SoFA organize its pay for work?

What questions and tensions are coming up around paying for work in different circles and different roles at different rates? People are in different places with different needs. Do we understand each other? How do we understand SoFA strategies and constraints as those show up in budget and pay decisions? Could we have a more systematic way of deciding how much people get paid? For many weeks there has been a desire from several different circles to come together to explore our decision making about pay for work.

On May 23 (1030 to 1130 ET, 1430 to 1530 UTC) Rhonda will host a sensing and exploration conversation around pay for work. We will be sharing pay information and will look at one option for a more formal pay framework. This conversation will be followed by a three-part conversation around budget and strategy as we prepare for a new 12-month budget cycle beginning July 1. Anyone in a paid role is invited to the May 23 meeting. If you are not able to make that time please write to Rhonda at <[email protected]> to indicate your interest.

New Zoom storage policy

In the last couple of months, members of IT Circle have been working on reducing the amount of space that we use for storing Zoom recordings within the Zoom accounts (in the cloud).  We want to continue to keep the amount of space we use within the limits provided for our account, and so IT Circle members have developed a policy which they request we use to meet this goal together.  The policy is as follows:
SoFA members should store their recordings from using Zoom in SoFA’s Shared Google Drive. All working members can make a recording of a meeting. You can either
  1. Record to your local computer and upload the recording file to Google Drive, or
  2. Save it to the Zoom cloud and transfer to Google Drive later.
Due to limited space on the Zoom cloud, IT Circle will delete all recordings on the Zoom cloud more than one month old. To help keep the Zoom cloud clear, please delete recordings on the Zoom cloud yourself once you transfer them to Google Drive. Conference recordings in the sofa1@ zoom account are handled differently by Continuing Education Circle.  In some instances when a conference is approaching, IT Circle or Continuing Education Circle may need to delete recordings that are less than one month old, although in those cases the members doing the cleanup work will provide a 2-week notification to SoFA members via SoMBu. You can find more guidance in the Zoom Recordings Best Practices.

Transition period: end of June 2023

As we transition to this new Zoom Recording Policy, IT Circle will back up videos on the SoFA Google Drive before they are deleted on the Zoom Cloud. From July 2023 on, videos that are deleted on the Zoom Cloud will not be backed up.
IT Circle will review this policy at the end of July, and they offer these Zoom Recordings Best Practices:
  • We recommend recording to your computer when you are the person who will download and share/backup the video and you have a reliable internet connection and computer
  • We recommend recording to the Zoom cloud when you are not the only person who will download and share/backup the video or if your computer or internet connection is unreliable. 
  • To help keep the Zoom cloud clear, please delete recordings on the Zoom cloud yourself once you transfer them to Google Drive.
  • We recommend storing/backing up recordings on the SoFA shared drive in your circle’s sub-folder in a clearly marked folder, such as “Meeting Zoom Recordings”.
Please provide any feedback that you have about this policy to IT Circle at <[email protected]>.

New patterns for using Canva accounts

Until recently, SoFA members have been using Canva with a collective account. Because we are a non-profit, we have newly obtained a team membership with 50 free accounts. We will migrate all existing content to the new accounts on May 16th. 

Please fill out the following form if you want your own Canva account: <https://forms.gle/MNacokT2mAktBL7z5>.

We will remove editing permissions from the community account after the migration. People with access to that account will still be able to access the designs and to duplicate projects, but they will not be able to edit files owned by the SoFA Team from that (community) account.

Images are harder to transfer during the migration. If you can, please copy important images, videos, and graphics to the folders you’ve been using in our shared SoFA Google Drive; we would be very helpful for that assistance.

Thank you!  Please send questions and comments you have about this to IT Circle members at <[email protected]>.

Recent Groundhogg training

Last week, Audrée Morin and Zujeil Flores hosted a training session describing how to interact with organization information in our CRM system, Groundhogg.  If you’re interested, the recording of that session is available on our SoFA Drive for you to attend.

German sociocracy conference

Save the date!

November 9, 2023, 1300–2000 (German time zone). The online conference will include a variety of presentations and discussions about sociocracy implementation and related topics in the German language. We are looking forward to seeing many of you there! A call for speakers and details will follow soon.

New members

  • Anna-Marie Swan (UK) supporting member
  • Lauren Greenspan (US) supporting member
  • William McGrath (US) supporting member
  • Saul Shanabrook (US) supporting member

welcome

Member events

Department circle reports

International Circle

The International Department is working to implement the big restructuring that they’ve been planning recently.  When working on selecting roles for the new International General Circle, some members raised objections, and so the circle members decided to meet more frequently (every two weeks) to deepen their relationships as a circle and work through a circle review.

notes::International Circle

General Circle

The members of General Circle started their discussion by looking more closely at the tensions and conflicts reported from the new International General Circle.  This discussion revealed a sense that the members want to have more space in meetings to be able to work through agenda items, and in particular they want to have a better understanding of the budget and the relationship between volunteers and compensated members.

After that rich conversation, the circle members went on to understand more about how the health check process works as developed by Outreach Circle for evaluating organizations.  They also spent some time reviewing the sector roadmap as part of the customer learning journey.  The conversation suggested that the learning journey is not broadly understood by SoFA members, and the circle will try to do some work to share an accessible summary of those ideas.

notes::General Circle

Content Circle

Your editors offer a few notes from circles within the Content department.  Ted’s new book can be preordered by proofreaders now: new chapters will go to proofreaders as they are written.  Fundraising Circle is working on donor profiles, getting more operational, connecting fundraising with the annual report, financial transparency, and approaching organizational leaders and content partners.  The members of Training Circle are thinking about reviving several CoPs (such as for trainers and consultants).

notes::Content Circle

Ecosystem Circle

The members of this circle affirmed a new NGO & Nonprofit delegate: Mike Leigh Cooper.  They also learned more about how to interact with grants from the perspective of sector circles and took a first look at the next round of the budget.

notes::Ecosystem Circle

SoFA Support Services Circle

This circle started a review of the various ways that SoFA members communicate with each other.  They want to evaluate how well these channels are working for members, and explore how communication systems could be more effective.

notes::SoFA Support Services Circle

New articles

Training opportunities

Spread the word!

MAY

JUNE

Many sessions are free; all are sliding scale.

SoMBu broadcaster role

Help wanted

We are looking for a person to take the role of SoMBu broadcaster. The SoFA Member Bulletin (SoMBu) is our bi-weekly internal newsletter with important information for members.

Responsibilities:

  • Collect information to draft the newsletter
  • Think of creative approaches to the newsletter
  • Send this broadcast to all SoFA members and publish it on the SoFA website
  • Connect with international circle leaders to localize the bulletin

This is a volunteer role that requires around 4-8 hours per month and knowledge of HTML. Training will be provided as needed. You would be part of SoFA’s support services circle that meets once a month, but as the SoMBu broadcaster, you will only need to attend the report section of the meeting. (You could also become a full member if you prefer!)

SoMBu logo

About SoMBu

SoMBu is the bi-weekly SoFA member bulletin (although we are currently operating a monthly schedule until we select a new SoMBu broadcaster). Circle leaders and secretaries, let us hear from you! Submissions are due on the day General Circle meets the first time each month:  06-06, 07-04, 08-01…

Submissions, questions, or feedback: [email protected].

John Clark and Pame Carmona, interim SoMBu broadcasters

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