Organizing the 2022 Annual General Meeting

Just voted using the pol.is tool there and it’s a great idea - yay democracy!

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Thursday Dec 29 seeming to lead… I like the extra time for prepping. It’s looking like 6am in my timezone is the preference. Mmmm… coffee.

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Yeah, could someone give us a link for 2022-12-29T14:00:00Z? @Hakanto

Polis seems to allow me to add a second vote.

I think it provides interesting and relevant information but should be taken with a grain of salt.

Hi all, I just wanted to follow-up here and propose some next steps for @simonfreund and I to tackle in the coming weeks.

  1. The AGM is confirmed for 2022-12-29T14:00:00Z, correct?

  2. We are still waiting on a Zoom link to be created for this, right?

  3. Where will RSVPs for the AGM be collected? I am assuming via another forum calendar event that still needs to be created?
    – I don’t have access to the Resonate Zoom account, but should be able to figure out how to create a forum calendar event once we have the link available.

  4. Once we have the meeting link and the RSVP link, here were a few things Simon and I have been discussing to communicate the AGM to members & the public:

  • Pin the forum post with the AGM event/RSVP link.
  • Create event pages on social media that link to the event RSVP link - this improves reach and (public) visibility.
  • Send a few broadcast emails leading up to the meeting via Zoho Campaigns to all Resonate contacts encouraging them to show up to the AGM and become a member, if they’re not already.
  • Send a handful of social media posts on all social accounts leading up to the meeting encouraging people to show up to the AGM and become a member, if they’re not already.
  • Potential to reach out to partner organizations & artists to promote the Resonate AGM & membership opportunities.

These were just some of the steps/ideas I remembered, so feel free to add more to this list of communications ideas.

If all looks good here though, keep me posted when an event link has been made, and then we can take communication tasks from here.

Thanks!
– Sam Martyn

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  1. I haven’t heard any objections to that date and, by the poll it appears to work for most people

  2. We are waiting for a Zoom link. @richjensen or someone else could offer one. Once we have one, I can add it in the AGM topic. The meeting link isn’t urgent, since we’ll be directing folks to the forum topic, not the meeting link itself.

  3. I’ve created a calendar event for the AGM. That forum topic will be the where to direct folks for participation and to RSVP

    • they will need to create a forum account to rsvp and participate in voting
  4. I’ve made the AGM post a banner so it is visible everywhere in the forum

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Well done, @Sam_Martyn @simonfreund – appreciate your initiative on this.

There are two primary emails which will need to go out.

The first is the announcement/invitation to the AGM. You can use as a template what I posted. This email needs to go out to members two weeks ahead of the AGM, so that means sent by 8am central on Thurs the 15th is the deadline. I suggest sending it on Wednesday. It must include in writing every rulebook amendment which is being proposed for voting at the upcoming AGM. It does not need to include the text of non-amendment resolutions.

Later, a follow up email offering an agenda can be sent.

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Maybe this is too far of a strech given everything that’s going on – but I feel it’s the right thing to do, so I’ll try anyway… : )

Regarding the Zoom link I would love to use meet.coop instead of Zoom as I believe that it’s important to support each other as coops as we are allies working towards the same goal.

I have already been in touch about our next AGM. Here is what Wouter from meet.coop replied to my request:

If I’m not mistaken, Resonate is still a contributing member of meet.coop. I remember the great AGM participatory design that your man Hakanto made (see here his summary on our forum) In any case we’d be glad if you’d use meet.coop for the AGM. Some caveats though: in our cooperative servers you can have up to 100 people in the room.

And if you are indeed that many, it’s generally wise to agree on some norms for participation:

  • only one or a few people activate their webcam (you could even restrict the activation of webcams and limit this to only moderators)

  • agree on norms for speaking up, and use the chat or raise hand feature

  • use the whiteboard area to present plans, slides, etc, and avoid screensharing (the latter is more intensive)

I’d suggest to ask people to confirm before whether or not they’re participating, that’s useful to get an indication of how many people you can expect. Obviously your meeting will be very different on either end of the extremes in your range.

Another option we have is to rent a dedicated BigBlueButton server. We have two options published on our site. Then again, that requires some setup time and costs we cannot waive.

If the cooperative servers we have are useful for you, please let us know when the AGM will take place so we can note it in our production agenda.

Do you think the cooperative server with 100 people will be enough for our AGM and if so, can I go ahead and organise a link to the meeting with Wouter or do you @Hakanto still have a login that you can share with me?

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Thanks for looking into this, @simonfreund!

If Wouter feels we can handle up to 100 people, I’d love to use meet.coop. That sounds worth trying to me as long as we have a backup plan. We could use the Assembly Fields I designed as well – they are a wonderful way for folks to express their opinion and engage during a call without having to wait in line to speak.

@peter I’m unable to log into Resonate’s meet.coop account with the credentials I have. Can you let me know if you can log in?

If we can’t get access, we could use my meet.coop account I have through social.coop.

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Ok, great – I’ll let Wouter know. Backup plan should be Zoom, I guess?

I asked Wouter if they can help us to login – if I get a reply, I’ll let you know ; )

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Here is the reply from Wouter regarding the login @Hakanto & @peter

Maybe, you entered peter@resonate.coop instead of peter@resonate .is out of habit?

about your login to our BBB servers: since last July we are using Single Sign On; the resonate account is on Peter’s email: peter@resonate.is as I can see in the system. He has verified the account so he/you should be able to login. If necessary you can reset the password, and change the email address once logged in. Here’s the FAQ: FAQ – meet.coop Single Sign On (SSO) - faq - membership & access - The meet.coop Forum

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Hey @simonfreund I’m now able to log in. I’ll message you to sync up about credentials

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The Zoom account under my name expired a couple of days ago.

I would need a few dollars (<20) to renew it. I’m waiting on a check and don’t have the funds myself.

I suggest being very clear about the process for this work today.
Where is the draft coming together? When exactly will it close? Who will send it?

Rather than launching tonight, I would suggest working toward a final draft to send at perhaps 2022-12-15T12:00:00Z.

Perhaps the cutoff for resolutions could be about 2022-12-15T05:00:00Z?

(Gives anyone who might have been thinking of items a bit of time to settle their texts.)

Considering this task is being done by a group of volunteers who are scrambling to fill the gaps left by those on the board who’s specific task it is to organize this meeting, I hope that this is coming alongside an offer to help actually get the work done, rather than the backseat commentary I see all too frequently present here from those in official leadership roles at the co-op.

I’ve seen work on the draft coming together in the Communications Pathway channel of Mattermost, the official (as voted on by the Board) chat program used by members to get work done. This is also the way we’ve organized sending out previous e-mails, including the announcement for the last GM. It is being done by @Hakanto @Sam_Martyn and @simonfreund . They’ve also been coordinating with @brndnkng and @peter about getting access to all the right accounts.

Cut off, by the rules, should be 2022-12-15T14:00:00Z, 14 days before the AGM. An announcement needs to be sent out before then too.

Since the work started for the AGM planning on November 15th, and a date has been picked since Nov 28th, I hope people have been working on whatever resolutions they’ve thought of putting in, and that they’re past the drafting stage at this point, honestly. (the AGM was initially going to happen on the 17th!)

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This is helpful, thanks.

There was no mention of that in this public space, therefore my questions.

I see resolutions that have dropped in the designated category in the last few hours.

@richjensen, all I see from you is last minute suggestions on how others should do the work you abandoned.

You could have helped with this work, or given guidance earlier. You could have done the work. But now it is the final day. Folks have already figured out how to get this done in the way they feel is both responsible to the co-op and works well for their schedule. The work has been happening transparently both in the forum and on Mattermost.

By the current rules, we are only expecting amendments to be raised by directors. If only those 9 people could be submitting amendments to the rulebook, and you are the Chairperson, and there have been no board meetings in months, and you haven’t communicated at all with directors about submitting amendments at a reasonable time, then who’s fault of coordination is that? The volunteers including myself who have stepped up to make sure we even have an AGM?

I’m not going to ask @Sam_Martyn who is holding down this work to doublecheck the forum tomorrow at 6am for a last second rulebook amendment, quickly revise an email, and then have it sent out by 8am.

The cutoff for posting resolutions in the forum for the AGM is tomorrow 8am US central, as @psi said. The cutoff for raising amendments should be this evening, so that we don’t force volunteers who are doing the work the board has neglected to scramble at the last second.

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Perhaps we have different ideas about how work is done, how we value it and how we show that we value the people who contribute it.

I follow the Forum because it is an accessible space.

Some aspects of the work have been offered here previously.

Because today is essentially the day that work must be completed I asked some basic questions about the work, continuing from the threads above, essentially to benefit people who use the Forum for their point of contact with the Coop (myself among them).

@LLK posted a resolution here 4 hours ago. Perhaps others have as well.

How many hours are left?

(Don’t answer, that was rhetorical. Thank you for the informative replies offered above.)

Your comments reflect a heavy interpretative history of our time cooperating together. The thing about interpretations is that there may be different versions.

If I’m here, I’m here to help, here to work, here to cooperate.

This will be my fourth AGM. It is not ideal but this is how they have all come together in my experience. I think this is a mainly a consequence of not having resources for administrative support in the coop.

For what it is worth, the @directors’ obligations under the rules are to “Call” the meeting.

I will encourage the Board members to confirm that this statutory requirement is met.

The above isn’t my “interpretation”. The board essentially abandoned all responsibility for organizing the AGM and I and others have stepped up to get it done after being put in this bad position. I’m not hearing any apologies from you – and I’m not hearing any thanks to the volunteers like @psi who put together the member list and @Sam_Martyn who has been organizing communications.

@richjensen, if you were going to help we needed you a long time ago, not today. You could have taken initiative to make this all a smooth process months ago. You’re too late, man.

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