January General Meeting Notes
Jan. 10th, 2018 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ian_winterhill posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
whnaWHNA Meeting January 3, 2018
Our next meeting will be Wednesday, February 7 at 7pm, location TBD. The majority of the meeting will be a discussion with our Ward and At-Large Alderfolks about the upcoming year (our elected officials’ agenda, our agenda, and some discussion about both).
Started out with some New Year’s resolutions for the group. Things included, various takes on another block party, bocce!, more formalized structure, meeting with the infamous Chad of the Star Market lot, negotiating community benefits with developers, and more!
Updates, Upcoming Events, etc.
Justin gave the group a brief update about the GLX. He’s on the station construction oversight committee, representing the Gilman Sq area.
A request came to the group with regard to supporting a candidate for governor. We decided to stick with our practice of keeping our group a “non-campaign” space. Folks were interested in working with other groups to maybe host another candidate forum—maybe having to do with state issues with local impact. To be discussed more in the future.
As a part of Earth Day celebration in Somerville, a group will be creating parklets (temporary parks in parking spots) around Somerville. There was as interest in getting some located in Winter Hill. More info to come.
Several environment and climate focused groups in Somerville have come together to form the Climate Coalition of Somerville. They are hosting a social on Jan 24 from 7-9:30pm in the Cafe at the Armory.
Folks noted issues with the 89 bus—off schedule, doubled up, ghost busses on apps.
Proposal for Group Structure
We discussed a proposal to move towards a formal group structure. The hope is to increase continuity between meetings, create more opportunities for people to take on roles and leadership, get more done, be in a better position to establish a legal entity if ever desired, and have more accountability to members.
The proposal was to establish a steering committee and a few topic based sub-committees. The steering committee would be responsible for communicating between meetings to set an agenda, turnout for the meeting, and put together the notes. The steering committee could also draft by-laws or organizational guidelines and principles to share with the larger group and continue to develop the formal group structure. Steering committee members would be expected to regularly (but not always) attend meetings. We discussed some topic based sub-committees, but will wait till a subsequent meeting to establish any.
Concerns were raised about fracturing the group in too many directions; concerns about whether the subcommittees help us achieve our goals or not; desire to keep subcommittees general enough to have broad interest. Conversation to be continued.
Our next meeting will be Wednesday, February 7 at 7pm, location TBD. The majority of the meeting will be a discussion with our Ward and At-Large Alderfolks about the upcoming year (our elected officials’ agenda, our agenda, and some discussion about both).
Started out with some New Year’s resolutions for the group. Things included, various takes on another block party, bocce!, more formalized structure, meeting with the infamous Chad of the Star Market lot, negotiating community benefits with developers, and more!
Updates, Upcoming Events, etc.
Justin gave the group a brief update about the GLX. He’s on the station construction oversight committee, representing the Gilman Sq area.
A request came to the group with regard to supporting a candidate for governor. We decided to stick with our practice of keeping our group a “non-campaign” space. Folks were interested in working with other groups to maybe host another candidate forum—maybe having to do with state issues with local impact. To be discussed more in the future.
As a part of Earth Day celebration in Somerville, a group will be creating parklets (temporary parks in parking spots) around Somerville. There was as interest in getting some located in Winter Hill. More info to come.
Several environment and climate focused groups in Somerville have come together to form the Climate Coalition of Somerville. They are hosting a social on Jan 24 from 7-9:30pm in the Cafe at the Armory.
Folks noted issues with the 89 bus—off schedule, doubled up, ghost busses on apps.
Proposal for Group Structure
We discussed a proposal to move towards a formal group structure. The hope is to increase continuity between meetings, create more opportunities for people to take on roles and leadership, get more done, be in a better position to establish a legal entity if ever desired, and have more accountability to members.
The proposal was to establish a steering committee and a few topic based sub-committees. The steering committee would be responsible for communicating between meetings to set an agenda, turnout for the meeting, and put together the notes. The steering committee could also draft by-laws or organizational guidelines and principles to share with the larger group and continue to develop the formal group structure. Steering committee members would be expected to regularly (but not always) attend meetings. We discussed some topic based sub-committees, but will wait till a subsequent meeting to establish any.
Concerns were raised about fracturing the group in too many directions; concerns about whether the subcommittees help us achieve our goals or not; desire to keep subcommittees general enough to have broad interest. Conversation to be continued.