2019-04-17 Toronto Workers Co-op: All-Hands Meeting

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Time: 17:00 - 18:00 EDT
Location: https://meet.jit.si/offline
Attending: dc elon udit yurko patcon (late) ben (second half, later)

Notetaker:

• benedict
• dc
• elon
• garry
• patcon
• udit
• yurko

[TOC]

Agenda

• Previous Action Items
  • all: please put your position on transparency
    • Review current contributions
    • Contribute cases (e.g. project)
    • patcon, etc: Share resources
    • patcon (depending on the outcome of thread): look at using pol.is
  • ben: discuss with accountant from OCA / referral from dawn
    • Investigate financial softwares (e.g., intuit quickbooks wave, other options?): [loomio thread][3]
  • dc: Set up desjardin meeting
  • dc: set up handbook repo
  • garry: thinking about project-specific transparency
  • udit: Cultivator until end of April
    • demo different pad for next call, have cultivator pick one (riseup)
• Quick Working Group Updates (10 mins)
  • Business Planning
  • Finance
  • Governance
  • Infra & Ops
• Upcoming Discussions
  • Transparency of conversations, tools
  • Opportunities and Proposals
  • Email handling
  • Transition of Infrastructure
  • Check-in on Cultivator role
  • Finances: Software + Banking
  • Handbook Development (Document toolchain)
  • APR 24 Decision on non-profit status
  • early-MAY Review feasibility report / business plan
  • mid-MAY Articles of Incorporation

Notes

• Ran through action items, discussed flow of only looking at Action Items from bottom of last pad

Working group updates

• Business Planning
  • not much to talk about since last meeting
• Finance
  • Talked to joe on the phone
  • Added notes to finance research pad. Has research from all 3 meetings
  • No red flags from desjardins, good vibes, telling it like he saw it
    • Desjardins does not have much co-op business (classic!)
    • No relationship with Meridian
    • They have all the things included
    • Support international accounts/intl wires
    • Have business centre on King st.
    • business freedom solution by visa (business credit card)
    • Credit check for incorporators
  • Need incorporation docs to move forward
  • Next step:
    • Finance group decide on inital products
    • Will make a proposed option to all-hands
  • Yurko on behalf of ben - Ben sent a list of question to OCA waiting for response
• Governance
  • Need to get in touch with Reba? (One other call to schedule)
  • Lots of discussions with folks (govt, etc.)
  • Discussion for profit/np is expected next week
• Infra & Ops
  • Handbook has been set up
  • What shall we use? (gitbook has not been updated for a while, no support)

Discussions

Transparency

• Loomio thread
• “no questions asked” redaction?
  • what is the case where folks who are not as vocal being able to ask for things to be made not public more easily
  • dc: I wonder about whether an explicit consent process covers this
• “meeting notes and other documents”
  • dc: that was probably ambiguity on my part… we should scope it: e.g., all-hands and handbook
• dc: also just want to point to open being very capacity building and a way to be invited in
• patcon: sharing, sincerity, intimacy – when does that make sense as an organization? or what are those things in an organizational ecosystem?
  • default to open, not because an ideal, but because in right environs it enables an intention to be felt
• udit: types of meetings where public sharing might prevent discussion (opps publicly, frank discussion)
• dc: agree – maybe a model/practice of “in camera” might help us? Anyone just asks to go in camera and when to leave it?
• patcon: maybe down the road an intuitive way to grasp where folks were uncomfy down the road
• udit: next steps?
  • dc: have a proposed text submitted to handbook
  • udit + patcon to review

Mailing List

• patcon: process for deciding whether people are gone?
• udit: process for who is here: - everyone who was as retreat is “here” - everyone who has shown up since is “here”
• dc: member status future problem (look at EDGI, Civic Tech?)
• patcon: Enspiral member and contributor? and adjacent friends?
• udit: two mailinglists: “members” and friends+allies
  • garry: “sick newsletter”
  • dc: THERE ARE SCHEMES on autogen newsletters from patcon
  • dc: also EDGI newsletter experirence with active
• udit: who can update mailserver?
  • elon: can do #todo
• ben: want an external email to copy
• patcon: pairing on infra install as a strategy
• patcon: .coop – don’t need to be incorporated to get it. have to be in process (probably loomio link enough
• ben: lets just get it, use hover as initial registration, then set up
• We consensed on:
  • members@ (internal mailing list), trim to the 7 of those committed to incorporating for now
  • xxxx@ (sick newsletter, friends and allies at some point)
  • Yurko will buy the co-op domain
• How much do we have in startup funds?
  • $900 in bank

Projects

• Next time
• Dawn also wants to pitch a collaboration as part of her dissertation work

Handbook

• dc: context – gitbook-cli is unmaintained and only the hosted option is available
  • Fork gitbook cli?
• patcon: what about pandoc and ci?
  • dc: have done this locally! super great!
• ben: jekyll theme?
  • dc: yeah! did the round about 1.5 years ago, saw no great themes
• udit: future ideas: work with OCA or something to socialize idea of co-op
  • patcon: feel most strongly about building precedent in a community
• dc: open source blogging platform, ghost?
• ben: jekyll + travis (tag to deploy), markdown pdf
  • mozilla (open) themes
  • like the tools
  • don’t know if right thing for this book
  • dependencies: https://github.com/tomeshnet/p2p-internet-workshop/blob/master/install-dependencies.sh
• patcon: “what if we had a minecraft office”

Upcoming Discussions

[UPDATE THIS SECTION AFTER THE CALL]

• Opportunities and Proposals
• Transition of Infrastructure
• Check-in on Cultivator role
• Finances: Software + Banking
• APR 24 Decision on non-profit status
• early-MAY Review feasibility report / business plan
• mid-MAY Articles of Incorporation

Actionable Items

• Yurko: date on Bank proposal for next meeting April 24
• Yurko: buy the hypha.coop domain
• dc: draft working open statement for submission to handbook
  • patcon: review
  • udit: review
• all: collect examples for handbook toolchain discussion
• Elon: update members@ mailing list to current incorporators (7 of us)
• ??: transfer members@ to .coop domain

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