One of the things that struck me from planning session notes was the absence of tech topics!
Here is the streams/sessions list from those notes:
Sales and Business Development
Operations and Finance
Branding and Marketing
Outreach
Community (and internal communication)
Governance and Decision making
Skill sharing
Only Skill Sharing had a sub point (Pioneering blockchain and crypto) that sounded more techy (although could easily be focused on non-tech aspects too). Maybe those other sub points are very techy, I cannot tell, but it certainly doesn’t seem the main focus.
Two goals from the document are to “make CoTech work better for all its members” and to “focus on the practical over the conceptual”, so I am curious as to why more “pure” tech topics didn’t come up.
Perhaps people see a need to get the network more well established first? Or members want more support regarding the co-op-y topics, less so tech ones? Or the set of people that would want more tech-focused topics did not input into the planning meeting? Or the purpose of the weekend itself is not supposed to be about the actual tech?
So, to make a concrete example - why is there not a session/topic about how to best configure code splitting when using webpack? and, whatever the reason, is that a problem? (to (hopefully) be clear, I’m not saying there should be…)
I’d really like to bring this convo back to Pete, Sion and Laura’s proposal and get more thoughts on it - the event isn’t far away. For those who haven’t commented, what do you think?
Thank you for the proposal about facilitation and for all the time you and the other facilitators have put in so far.
We’d really value having facilitation at the event to ensure we get as much out of it as possible. Having said that we would also value a decent amount of unstructured time, but we’ll feed our thoughts on that into the thread about the agenda.
The additional £100 or so per ticket seems fine as far as we’re concerned and is certainly relatively insignificant when compared against the opportunity cost of us forgoing billable client work for the duration of the event.
We think it’s entirely reasonable for you and your fellow facilitators to charge a standard day rate, because in acting as good/neutral facilitators, we imagine you wouldn’t be able to participate as fully as other attendees.
Many thanks James, et al. That’s appreciated and useful to know. We’re on the case - we’re trying to to find a way forward that pleases as many as possible. Hoping to have more to say soon. Best
Hi all. @PeteBurden , @laura and I have been listening carefully to what people are saying on the subject of facilitation, including costs, agenda (developing), structure (or degree of structurelessness), for Wortley Hall.
We think a flexible agenda (see Laura’s outline) with some directed activity but also a double measure of open space co-design is most likely to satisfy both those who want to simply turn up and produce, and others who might want to engage in a more reflective/discursive or structured way; and to enable those tendencies - and everyone in between - to interact properly and make it a really effective event.
To contribute to the discussion, and maybe help it towards a proposal (on Loomio?) we’d like to make a revised offer which is that the three of us work as the facilitation team for the three days of the event, on the basis of a collective fee of £5,275 ex vat, which would include all expenses including our accommodation and travel. For transparency his is based on a day rate of £450 x 3 x 3 = £4,050 and £1225 expenses. The prep work, including everything we have done so far, we calculae as an additional 1-1.5 days each and this would be pro bono. This amounts to around an extra £100 per attendee, assuming 52+ come.
We’ve discussed this briefly with @aaron Aaron and @chrislowis in terms of how this money could be collected and managed, but that’s for another place perhaps.
We think this is probably the best way to cut the ‘Gordian knot’, i.e. without triggering a complicated discussion of internal CoTech day rates, free work, and so on.
If people feel this is still not right on balance, then we’ll withdraw and simply attend as members of CoTech, including helping out with organising as we can.
Thanks for all your work so far and for sharing this. To me it seems like a fair suggestion and one that I am very happy with (I am not speaking on behalf of everyone at AC, just for myself). One thing to note is that the proposal does not include any time spent ahead of the event, and I appreciate that a fair amount has been spent already.
Facilitation is a tough gig, and I personally believe 100% that WH should be a facilitated event - I would reconsider my attending if it were not so. We have a team that I trust and believe will do a good and honest job of helping to make the 3 days all they can be, and given the work involved it’s right that this should be paid.
As mentioned before, we aim to submit a proposal to Solid Fund for £3,000 to ease the costs and help allow less well-off coops to attend. If we are successful, it could bring down the cost per person to about £50 - depending on numbers (we would need about 70 attendees).
Reminder that there is a planning meeting for Wortley Hall at 1pm this Friday 3rd November at Space4. The following people filled out the Doodle:
Fabian Tompsett | @Leutha
Szczepan (Animorph) | @SzczepanOfAnimorph
James Mead (GFR) | @james
Chris Roos (GFR) | @chrisroos
Bryan Mathers
Dan | @dansmallaxe
Bill Olivier | @Bill
Mateus | @Mateus
Bradley Reeder | @Bradley
Kayleigh | @Kayleigh
Aaron Hirtenstein | @aaron
Is anyone else interested in / able to come?
I’m currently thinking that we will create the agenda / activities together and possibly break into groups to get some stuff done rather than having much single group discussions. If you have any thoughts on things to discuss or ways to approach the meeting then please let me know on this thread!
