Present: Josephine, Mel, Lauren, Angel, Toby, Sahar (and daughter, Shanah?), Izzy, Sue, Vicki, Rowie, Liz, Annika
Facilitator: Indy
MInutes: Kevin
ACTION POINTS
- Kevin: fire up Procedures WG to progress conversation started in GM about tightening and refining procedures
- Kevin: to make membership forms more visible and to communicate the requirements for membership.
- Indy: repost proposal, gather interest and organise participation for new logo/identity design
- Kevin: convert Communify Relationship private chat to secure group for coordinators
- Mel: book Greens campaign meetings
- Liz: arrange for art work in hall to be taken down.
- Liz: remove non-functional fridge and dishwasher
- Kevin: arrange for coffee machine service
- Liz : send proposal for notice board to Communify
Acknowledgement of Country (Angel)
Comment from new volunteers:
- Toby: loves the people and the vibe
- Sue: ditto - it's a pleasure - sometimes not as friendly as it could be; procedures may not be clear and some guidance would be helpful
- Angel: best community centre in SEQ - hopes everyone can pull together to make things better for young people
- Sahar: loves and feels at home at the space
- Josephine: loving meeting new people
Kitchen procedures and respect:
- The roster can't always be filled and we should keep our capacity in check instead of taking on too much and coming to intractable situations. We should do coffee/muffins or close, if necessary. (Izzy)
- May help to have clear procedures and charts/signage to communicate these - Angel can help creating the signage (Angel)
- Everyone has a different way of working and the understanding around individual needs may not always be easily understood or tangible - the procedures need to be flexible enough to accommodate these (Indy)
- We need to have clear roles and can use insignia (e.g. coloured clothing) to communicate the roles (Angel)
- There is a lot of work that falls outside the roster that is necessary e.g. free store or donated food sorting, shopping - having better rostering and closing for a day does not address this. (Indy)
- People are not looking more broadly for work that needs to be done e.g. a large number of boxes can build up and be left outside. (Liz)
- Need to build a culture of checking the work list and looking around for things that need to be done - procedures have been written down and posted in the kitchen but the problem has persisted (Indy)
- Toby is willing to follow new volunteers to make sure they know what is going on. Mel and Toby have worked with the Greens, who have good, well-executed procedures for following up with volunteers.
- Take induction outside kitchen hours to take the pressure off?
- We can have a procedure for introduce people who are thinking of volunteering to see how the space run; we should have a point of contact e.g. come in on Sundays when there will be people that can talk about the space. (Liz)
- Labels have disappeared, which makes the kitchen procedures more opaque to volunteers (Rowie)
- Observation: volunteers need more clarity (Annika)
- Induction procedure needs to account for the capacity of the volunteers on particular day to take on new volunteers.
- Membership forms in the kitchen. (Kevin)
- ACTION: Kevin to make membership forms more visible and to communicate the requirements for membership.
- In order to protect volunteers safety, we need to make sure that everyone has been inducted and has been rostered. Sometimes, there are far too many people in the kitchen, unrostered or unknown people intervening in the operations of the kitchen. (Mel and Lauren)
- Volunteers sometime feel unsafe with unknown people hanging around in the area behind the kitchen (Sue)
- For people that are not rostered, there needs to be a protocol to ask rostered volunteers if they are happy to have them in the kitchen - this is to show respect to the rostered vollunteers (Kevin)
- ACTION: fire up Procedures WG to continue the conversation, which is too big for a GM (Kevin)
Communication within the group
- People are not communicating their objections directly to the people implicated and this can sometimes be expressed as ridicule or other forms of "unsavoury" behaviour. This is creating a very uncomfortable working environment. (Izzy)
- Some people (including some who are not volunteers) have felt that the space feels volatile (Liz)
- Some of the stresses will be alleviated by resolving some of the issues discussed in the previous item. (Indy)
- We need to rebuild our kitchen culture (Lauren)
- We are looking at running some workshops to create cultural changes in the group. (Izzy)
- Procedures will not fix all problems as the space has an inclusive culture that welcomes people who may have difficulty with conventional social interactions (Toby)
- People are not engaging with the meetings and this is creating conflict because they are not aware of what has been decided or spoken about (Mel)
- Mel has stepped into Liz's role as the defacto co-ordinator of the space; this is an exhausting role and we need to set up a way of distribute the load and the workshop can help to do this. (Liz)
- Need to have a conflict resolution suggestion mechanism to diffuse problems before they become intractable (Angel)
- We need to express our collective gratitude to what we all bring into the space (Vicki)
Report back from monthly meeting with Communify (Liz)
- Meeting attended by Christine, Miranda, Liz and Mel
- Building door code to be changed.
- Will aim to change the code periodically e.g. every three months.
- Phil (Communify) has looked at the oven and has made the following observations:
- Oven temperatures measured - no problems found
- Observation: the large oven tray is being used which may inhibit the air flow from the fan and affect the distribution of the heat. The large tray should be removed if smaller trays are being used to allow even cooking.
- Gas jets have been cleaned.
- ACTION: find another oven rack.
- ACTION: need to take down art work in hall (Liz)
- ACTION: remove non-functional fridge and dishwasher (Liz)
- ACTION: arrange for coffee machine service (Kevin)
- ACTION : Send proposal for notice board to Communify (Liz)
- Toilet cleanliness is becoming a concern
- Need more toilet paper and cleaning supplies
- Miranda to provide toilet and cleaning supplies.
- Eletrical tagging completed for the entire site.
- Code-base lock for the meeting room discussed
- Miranda to look into viable options.
- Storage: convert "Dave's studio" into lockable storage room for FS?
- Skip required for clean-up; Miranda to action.
- Proposal: place large mirror in storage rooms so occupancy can be determined without entry
- Nick to investigate viability
Designing logo and identity
- Who is interested in designing a logo/identity? (Indy)
- Angel, Izzy, Eliza, Liz, Kevin interested.
- We should approach people who may be good at it (Izzy)
- ACTION: Indy to repost proposal, gather interest and organise participation
Particular needs
- How do people communicate their specific needs to the crew? (Annika)
- Proposal: have a check-in every morning so people are invited to bring up their needs. This needs to be contained so that it doesn't take up significant time and resources. (Kevin, Mel)
New general chat
- Proposal: change Communify private chat group to "core" group chat.
- ACTION: Kevin to make changes.
Inclusive women's shed (Vicki)
- Aunty Leanne runs this group where women can talk and bring children
- They are proposing to run monthly Friday morning meetings.
- Seeking meeting space and catering for 8-20 people.
- Space has been booked through Communify
- We need to be aware of our stretched capacity and we need to be cautious when taking on more work. (Mel)
Other business:
- Suggestions to make more space available for free store display (Shahnah)
- Greens are looking for a space to run campaign on Mondays.
- ACTION: Mel to book it on the calendar with Kevin.