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Village Minutes 6/14/06 -June 2006

Jen-Lyn facilitating, Samuel faithfully (if not somewhat playfully) recording, everyone shining out their beautiful rainbow vibrations into the cosmic mystical beyond or some such spiritual psychobabble of the sort. One way or the other, we begin;

(did you notice the alliteration in the previous sentence - pretty awesome, I think).

Childcare ­ It is important to have room for kids. Last month we didn¹t, and some of the kids wanted to picket. In terms of raising kids, we¹re doing something right. In terms of meeting, though, we can¹t have booth breakdown in the same space in childcare because the kids need their space.

Agenda review ­ Various items. My bad, I was a little late. (Items supplied by ever attentive and diligent web master)

Registration
Consensus statement
flame in pyramid
fire crew
camping
archeology
sweep crew
Donations
Site report
Construction
30th Birthday
Announcements

Registration starts the 19th and ends the 25th.

Tonight is mostly information and no controversy (we hope).

Consensus statement. The community village makes decisions on consensus. The concept is that it is a way for us to all work toward agreement in decision making. Let us move toward agreement. That might involve compromise, but is hopefully for the greater good of the whole village. If you don¹t feel good, you can agree to consensus because you agree with the proposal for the greater good (outside perhaps of your own needs). You can block if you feel that the decision is not in the groups best interest but you need to be prepared to clearly articulate the reason so that the group can move forward from your problem. In the event that you have personal problems but can see the greater good, you can stand aside in which case it might be appropriate for you to articulate your issues. Think about being kind and treating others with compassion in discussion. Also, when we are discussing issues on which we need discussion, focus on moving the discussion forward rather than just agreeing. At this point, membership is anyone who has participated or is participating in Community Village. There are no current restrictions on who is a Œvoting¹ member.

Daniel is on fire. There is flame in pyramid. If you want to tend the flame (if it is lit someone has to be there at all times) sign up with him.

Everyone is on fire crew. If there is a fire, walk to the info booth, put it out with a fire extinguisher with PASS (pull, aim, squeeze, sweep). Each booth has two buckets of water and two burlap bags. These bags are used to smother errant flames from whatever source. You don¹t toss the water on the fire ­ you wet the burlap and use that. No open flames or incense or any fire at all including tin can candles or anything without a screen over it allowed at all.

Sue on camping with Phil. First, solstice is coming. Everyone gets a candle. If you want to put a donation together, construction. For everyone wanting to call Sue to make sure she doesn¹t need a call, she doesn¹t need one. Fill out a green form and turn it in to Sue or Phil or booth coord. Keith invites all far side village people to the far side of the far side to check out his camp and join in. Bring a tent !!NO LARGER THAN YOU NEED!! Regardless of where you are camping. All tents down by 10am Monday. All little bits of hippy crap (glitter bits, bottle caps, etcetera and what all) should be packed out. You love the land don¹t you? Respect it. There will be youth bulldogs to make sure that no one who doesn¹t belong in our camp doesn¹t come in. Maybe beads this year. Chocolate (the darker the better) works with Sue. Bring some.

Over the last two years the village has been good with archeology. The State has mandated that there is no digging to be done within known sites without a (45 day) permit almost anywhere inside the 8. There have been two walkabouts inside the site. They check out the various sites that exist and make 100 foot circles which fills most of the 8. Any digging without calling arch is a violation of guidelines and there will need to be dealing with it. Next walk around is Sunday before fair after lunch. If people have digging questions, on the walk they have the communications map with a grid to say what can and can not be done. The fair site is the oldest arch site in W. Oregon 11,500 years old.

Everyone is on sweep crew. Small one on Thurs. Fri Sat and Sun there is a big one. This is both Shady Grove and Info/13th area. We¹re the only group that sweeps its own space. Always look under the stage at shady grove. Don¹t, please, sneak anyone in through your tent. Even if they claim not to know you, it looks really bad for you if someone is in your tent. We sweep the tents. Our kids are in the swamp and meadow. Don¹t do it. Watch for breaks in the waddle. Last year someone suggested a card with samples of the various wristbands. Is this possible? Sweep starts at our around 7pm to around 8pm.

Donations ­ Keith and Tim are construction liaisons. There is very little in the way of funds, and donations are welcome as heck. Someone unnamed gave 200, restaurant gave 400, Jerry¹s gave 75, Daniel gave 100, Max Forest Products gave 4000+ in lumber. Their retail is value village lumber. Keith gave 220. We will have spent less than 1500 in real money.

Site report ­ there are still leaning trees. Yesterday David H was onsite for construction (There are workparties on Tuesdays) The DOE booth has 8x8 posts and 8x12 beams ready for carpenters to work on. The swamp is blocked off for leaning trees, and the meadow has some too. Return tools, please. The leaning trees in swamp and meadow are marked. Stay out of the swamp.

Johnny¹s in the basement mixing up the medicine. I¹m on the pavement thinking about the government. The man in the trench coat, badge out, laid off, said he¹s got a bad cough and wants to get it paid off. Look out kid, it¹s something you did. God knows when but you¹re doing it again. You¹d better duck down the alleyway, looking for a new friend. The man in the coonskin cap in the big pen wants eleven dollar bills. You only got ten.

Construction; It is going well, all are working hard and doing good job. Everything is groovy arches and curleycues. The worm from Arts has been saved. More work to be done. Floors and railings to be put up. Bring gloves, bug juice, and water. The construction people are awesome, we are helping with passes, and they have meals. We need to give them smiles and hugs and stay out of the way of the saw and hammer claw.

Booth construction cords for PJ, Arts, DOE, and Restaurant, see Keith at Breakdown. Next two weeks, the booths have opportunity for making railings and making decorative additions and creativity.

Some question about past decisions regarding the fate of the history booth and the power cart.

((note from after the meeting; no minutes I have on my machine mention any decisions regarding the history booth. There was limited discussion in February and March of this year (2006) regarding the possible fates of the history booth, but no record of a decision since I started taking notes))

30th Birthday: There¹s going to be a potluck. Bring Cake for a patchwork cake, there will be a village talent show (bring a show ­ do whatever you want) This is Friday post sweep before all the big night events. Saturday Janet talked about cupcakes to hand out to the public. Cupcakes might be a problem, but sushi? There might be health code issues. The health and healing people have a very nice oyster full of pearls of wisdom. Everyone stomped their feet against cupcakes. From the OCF Guidelines, all food must be from an approved source and prepared on the faire site. All baked goods and dairies have to be from approved kitchens. Melissa¹s e-mail is spinningbeads@yahoo.com to send your great 30th birthday great ideas to. All the booths should do their own things.

Bring your hand cleaners to the faire to avoid weird illnesses.

Have a group photo on the stage at some point, perhaps Saturday after circle. And maybe some cool signs.

Hippie in the cage? Ask Jen-Lyn

Om Circle, Seth says, is going to be our coordinator. There¹s some awesome assistants. There¹s om people. It¹s mad cool The om is for world peace. Please participate on SUNDAY MORNING AT 10:30.

Workshops and demos will be really cool. The Pit has gone to print, but there are some spaces left still. Talk to Laura. The schedule is on the website (although there have been changes).

We stopped having a town crier six years ago, as it¹s gotten too crowded. Maybe we could announce from stage.

At 8pm (and three minutes) we find ourselves in booth breakdown.

Announcements

If you want a blurb for your workshop, e-mail laura.

Nathan from fruits and nuts needs day pass people (36). There is less than normal advance sign up. It¹s a 2 hour shift with a discount pass. 302-1518
(Steve) jacimck@hotmail.com or sign up at growers market

The history display is replacing the village vision, so if each booth could get at least one article about activist groups and their activities, they will be posted. Email to lapsel@aol.com or call 338-9980 Also send any stories (Especially funny ones).

Ten dollars per person per day for worker day passes.

Sue can take camping forms tonight. The candles raised about $70 for construction

10 am crisis intervention training at dragon if you¹vbe been before, one for first timers on Sunday the 25th. One pm village meetin that day with a potluck before.

Next council meeting seven pm next Tuesday 2096 and one half Arthur street

no trace meetings. pack out your trash.

on Friday morning at 10:30 spirit is going to do a ritual about harmony and flow for invocation for the village and fair.

JHVF matches donations to awesome organizations. This years donations go to meeting basic needs.

Ten dollars for worker day passes, this supercedes all other announcements.

Registration begins this Monday, and ends onsite Sunday.

Two weeks after OCF at OCF site is Zimbabwe music festival.

Anyone interested in parades (dragon, and mud) talk to Kimberly (*bring a loincloth in natural fibers)

The hippie in a cage is an artisan talent taught to the pubic at the state fair. Leslie has asked Jen Lyn to help coordinate live art for next/this years state fair. This comes with free entry to state fair, decent food, and gas and materials. Not paid time. A few hour shifts.

Evaluation and song, Jen-Lyn rocks like a hurricane. We stayed on track and productive, full of positive energy, Good times great oldies.

We sing songs at 54 minutes after 8 with all business attended to because we are pirate ninja rock star vikings with a cause.

Nel Facilitating

Stardate 20060510

7:00 ­ opening circle, om, and a little song

7:06 ­ Childcare announcement: at various work parties there will be childcare. Bring water, a snack to share, and sun block and bug juice. One adult parent or other grown up should sign up to help child care. Call 683-8250 to sign up for one of the days.

7:09 ­ We have a full agenda, mostly full of information. Two minutes of introductions.

7:13 ­ Agenda review

consensus statement

fair announcements

site

wd

camping

benefit

om circle

meetings

scheduling

process

onsite meeting dates

construction

30th b-day

eligibility

Amanda

booth breakdown

evaluations

7:15 ­ Parking and building issues.

7:16 ­ Consensus Statement ­ Not done, no one prepared

7:17 ­ Fair announcments

ocfvillage.org is a site that will bring together organizations in the village on the web. Contact Lauren.

This year if you are in far side and want a sticker your booth coordinator needs to know.

Phil is grungy and sweaty and he loves us.

If you want to be in parades, like dragon or mud, please see Kimberly in the Arts booth

Intervention training is Sunday the 25th

7:19 ­ Site not flooded. There are leaning trees so for crying out loud, look up. In the village, most of these are in the Swamp and Meadow. Tree crew is going to have a busy year. There¹s been a lot of erosion ­ the path is undercut in places. There are trees in and across the river.

7:21 ­ Workshops and Demos ­ The official deadline for the peach pit is past. If you want to do a demo, get a form in by tonight or e-mail by 5/11 for extremely last minute peach pit listing. If you miss that deadline, you will not be in the pit, but you can still have a demo. dougnlaura@earthlink.net or 998-3046.

7:23 ­ Camping ­ Sue has a green piece of paper, which booth coordinators are to get. They are very simple forms. There are some different things about camping. We would like sending people to the far side. Bring an appropriate sized tent. No giant friggin¹ tents. Just little tents. This is serious. Get your camping forms to Sue by no later than registration week. Keith and the orange people have space at the far side of far side for villagers. It¹s a walk, but a groovy place to camp. The only person who needs to fill out the form is the one bringing the tent. If you are camping in Far Side and you think you¹re bringing a vehicle, you need to request a far side vehicle pass, or you will not be able to get your automobile into far side.

7:28 ­ Benefit ­ long story really short. There are three areas that had to be figured out with McDonald ­ charge for security, question about tickets, and tax write off. We stayed late so they had to keep their guards on staff. There was confusion about tickets, but the paperwork is correct. We lost somewhere in the $100-$200 range. Daniel is donating the $100, so the village lost $17 or $71. But, you know, we had fun.

7:31 ­ Om Circle ­ Like fire crew, everyone is on the Om Circle Crew. Spirit Booth facilitates the circle, and we are all part of it. Sunday at 10:30 or sometime thereabouts takes the energy of the faire and places it in the universe, which in case one hadn¹t noticed is a remarkably large place (*and expanding all the time). Because the world is in a hard place, it¹s probably good that we can have hands together and make some Om type sounds. Quantum physics shows that conscious intention truly does manifest in physical reality. Science is just magic mapped out with math.

7:34 ­ Meetings ­ There has been talking about meeting scheduling versus religious scheduling and holy time. This has been a concern. We have only a very short time to talk about this. As a regular time, we have our meetings the second Wednesday of each month. In the fall, we confirm the dates for the next years meetings, although historically they have stayed the same from year to year. There is a trade off. You can have an easily remembered day, or you can have a calendar that doesn¹t conflict with known religious dates. If we try to move our dates around on the basis of religious holidays, we run the risk of never meeting. It is possible to institute a process to avoid changing meeting. The problem is the attitude ­ holy days are not to be equated with soccer games. This is not to be treated lightly, it is not about changing meeting days, it is about respect. There was an agenda item where someone did not attend and could not speak to an agenda item. The village has changed meeting dates for economic reasons (we used to have onsites on Saturtdays, and it was moved because of Sat. Market). We should meet in December, perhaps, so that we can have a meeting during the month of the great Capitalist Feast. Honoring diversity is very fun, and some of the e-mails that have shot around have been insensitive. There was no intention of being insensitive. A point of clarity, the camping issue was not added in April. It was brought up in March. We need to deal with our privilege. We are supposed to be non-sectarian and open. Second Wednesday is capitalized and is a holiday. Changes are difficult at the last minute. Last year we did have an extra meeting in the winter and six people came. Last time Passover fell on the 2nd wed. was 15 years ago. Someone says that they are coming from CA for the meetings, which could be really challenging. The Jewish calendar is different. You have the option of not coming to a meeting. A lot of people want the status quo, which makes it difficult to change things. People of all faiths want respect more than a change in meeting times. We need to be very careful to say things in sensitive and respectful ways. If you¹re not sure how someone will take an issue, call or talk in person. E-mail is hard. The council meetings are open to all people. Is there a process to add December as a meeting, even if it¹s low turnout?

7:58 ­ On site booth coordination and other meeting dates ­ Booth coordinator meeting is Thursday may 18th at six pm where there will be a lot of info. The onsite meeting is the day of the onsite village meeting, June 25th (last Sunday of June) at noon. If you are a coordinator and can¹t come, send someone from the booth to get information and pass allocation. Cindy really likes to go to the meetings, and can make one on any day but Thursday, and she would like it if the person scheduling the meetings actually takes into consideration some of the coordinator¹s schedules. Sunday meeting at the worksite, Cindy doesn¹t want to miss a minute of the crisis intervention training. That¹s a lot of meetings for one day. She is asking that the planners consider a different time. Tim is going to address the agenda item. The onsite meeting was scheduled for the 25th, with the time uncertain. The issue was, do we want to have an additional coordinator meeting or an additional village meeting onsite? The coordinators will discuss it at the meeting in terms of an extra meeting for them ­ The council is encouraged to work on these scheduling issues further in advance.

8:08 ­ Eligibility ­ Either give them to Janet tonight, or come to the eligibility committee meeting at Janet¹s house. She¹s near westmoorland school, call her.

8:10 ­ Booth Breakdown

8:41 ­ Return from the brink. Two minutes from Amanda. Construction issue that happened to her husband, she¹s not speaking on his behalf. There was no communication, nor were there phone calls. He was asked to resign. Is there a process or is this a personal opinion being put forth as policy for the village? (note: David was not asked to resign.)

8:43 ­ The party ­ on Thursday of the fair there will be a potluck sixish to sevenish. On Friday there will be a talent show, and there will be a patchwork cake (what a cool idea ­ bring a cake). And bring some cupcakes, cause we¹re going to give cupcakes out. So we might also make some fake mardi gras beads.

Construction Report ­ Keith and Tim are coordinating construction. Keith is in classy shorts. Chris Fitzgerald and his crew are going to be with us. We¹ll do decon memorial day weekend, salvage lumber, and do firewood. Bring safety glasses, gloves, shoes, crowbar, and a tin can.

The following weekend we¹ll have regular workparties starting. There¹s a lot of work to do. Do what you can to scrounge wood and hardware. Call Keith for contributions. Everyone come and work so that we can actually have booths. There¹s opportunities for everyone to work. Keith¹s office number is 998-4250. Call him if you have any materials to donate, or a line of materials.

8:52 ­ There will not be usual booth reports tonight.

4A had an article in the April fair family news. 4A in the village teaches people at the fair, coordinators included, how to make their own booths accessible. They do not provide attendant passes for other peoples¹ crews. 4A is not a conduit for people with alter-abilities to get into the fair.

Arts is unintelligible.

Health and healing has new people, eligibility is not about passes, it¹s about organizations that are eligible to receive passes. It¹s about the booth with their liason and coordinator how to distribute passes. Everyone in the community is included in eligibility.

We made it through. Unfair announcements and evals are going to go unrecorded because, to be honest, my eyes and brain are close to falling out of my head it¹s so crazy hot in here.

Community Village, April 2006
Percy facilitating, Samuel Rutledge recording minutes.

7:00 ­ Om

7:06 ­Introductions

7:12 ­ Agenda Review
Consensus Statement
Fair Announcements
Site report
WSD
benefit
construction
30th bday
Eligibility
booth breakdown
Booth report
Evaluation
Closing whatever is left

ADDING a short statement from Sue whenever there is time.

Reminder not to park in the other church parking lot.

7:15 ­ Consensus Statement ­ various people saying various things ­ the block is a heavy implement not to be used lightly. Discussion should happen over a long time, not a fast process. It¹s a way for everyone to respect everyone. Perhaps there should be workshops in consensus.

7:20 ­ Fair Announcements.
There will be no string cheese incident
The arch crew is looking for a volunteer with a masters in Archeology
Spoken word is looking for a videographer


7:25 ­ Sue on Camping
Next meeting when the eligibility forms are due, there will be a half page camping form. Fill it out the way it suggests, and all will be well. All forms back by june

7:26 ­ Site ­ erosion is troubling, planning process to increase booth and path space while respecting what Ma Nature wants is in the works (hopefully we¹ll get ourselves together before the river does. Also ­ we have leaning trees in the village, and we¹re on an archeologically significant site (RESPECT).

7:28 ­ Workshops and Demos. Laura is the new coordinator. Fill out the form and reserve space time and day. The official deadline for the Pit is may 1st. There¹s a little leeway, but the sooner is the better. It¹s good for all the booth coordinators to have a copy.

7:29 ­ Benefit. This will be 15 minutes tops. Daniel says; basically as of this moment we don¹t know. The theater is disputing the number of tickets sold, and the closing bill that was not followed through. The two people representing us with the McDonald are on vacation. The other part is that Kit has not made his contribution yet. There are three possibilities. 1) We lost $171 or so at most 2) We made $100 or so. 3) We come to a more balanced agreement on how many bodies were in the house. At the end of the evening, the McDonald told us that they had sold only 348 tickets. At the high end, we might have made several thousand dollars. It was a good time one way or the other. There is much confusion and many questions. There are few answers.

7:39 ­ Eligibility ­ the packets for eligibility will be given out tonight. They are also online.

7:40 ­ Construction. Tim and Keith. We¹re getting squared away. We have lots of work to do. Some of the booths that are slated for rebuilding will be contacted by Tim and Keith. Each booth has their own designs, they are designed by different people. It¹s important that we meet county/fair codes and guidelines. It will be a challenge. We probably don¹t have as much money that we would like. Backstage, Arts, and Doors need rebuilding. One thing that helps is to not have to buy materials. We are going to have to scrounge for 2xs and hardware. Free-cycle might be an option, but hauling is a tricky trick. Anyone with a pickup is going to need to give some time. Keith¹s phone numbers are home 484-7130, or office 998-4250. Workparties may start as early as memorial day weekend.

7:48 ­ 30th Birthday party ­ We want to se what we want to do or have. Do we want a party on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday? Do we want a band? Low key, or hotter? Do we want cake? Thirty years rules. Thursday night? We all make and eat spaghetti in the village green, with music? Band! Something all three nights? We can wear birthday hats (and birthday suits). Is there a band that might want to play? Of course, the whole band has to have passes? Skeeter¹s band, Perhaps a potlatch (giveaway circle)? PartyboobytraP is a good band, people think. A talent show. Anyone who wants to blow out candles should consult fire regulations first. We could have something small and meaningful as part of our opening ceremony. Many good ideas. Janet is coordinating. Call her with all of your ideas.

Tim is introducing the folks doing the majority of the hammering and sawing.

Intentional communities had several new people to get acuainted and update on requirements

Green earth had a potluck a few weeks ago to take care of business, and they[Œre going to do it again. Talking good stuff about booth redevelopment.

Youth Power are here ­ Talked about incorporating growing up youth who are now teens. Talked work party stuff, excited to chip in.

Lifelong learning ­ all is well. There are new people and not enough passes.

8:56 ­ Evaluation, unfair announcements, and closing. Please turn off your phones during meetings. The room is two long. We should double up into a littler circle.

Everyone should take responsibility to keep down the side talk.

It was a good meeting. Thanks for participation. Don¹t start getting it together to go until the whole booth breakdown has been organized.

Percy did a good job and projected well.

A lot of positivity. Good.

Community Village Meeting March 8, 2006
Lois Inman, Facilitator
Samuel Rutledge Recording

7:05 – Om (or, ohm as the case may be)

7:09 – Introductions

7:15 – Agenda Review

Statement from Sue – 2.5

Fair Announcements – 5

Consensus Statement

Benefit Report – 20

Site – 1

Construction – Drake – 10

Booth Breakdown – 45

Booth Reports – 10

Unfair announcements

Closing Circle

7:17 – Statement from Sue; Over the past year Sue has noticed that a lot of the energy generated in the meeting has felt not good. She was going to come in with bubbles, but was afraid that someone might take offense. She watched the Olympics and saw a commercial in which a woman walks out of her house, shuts her eyes and holds out her hand, and everyone else joins hands with her. Sure, it’s an ad for an insurance company – but it reminds us that we are all in this together. Before you throw out bad energy, please remember that we are all in this together.

7:20 – Fair announcements –

A web developer from PDX is volunteering to update the website with a searchable database of organizations.

If you need forms and things and don’t have online call Janet at 344-3770

Teresa and Riley had a baby boy – Riley junior January 28th

Lynn is looking for a display about people who started in the village and moved to other parts of the fair. If you know such people, we’d like their stories and photos. Also, write up your stories and e-mail them to Lynn. Always looking for pictures. Any fun, informative, and entertaining ideas welcome. LApsel@aol.com 338-9980. Non digital photos can be scanned.

This is the 30th year of the Village

7:26 – Consensus Statement –

We’re taking some time at each meeting to talk about consensus. We don’t make any decisions that not everyone supports. If anyone thinks that an idea is “of the devil” they can block it. But that should be a last resort. People can also stand aside, which alone doesn’t stop a proposal but if there are several stand asides the proposal won’t go through. As a group, we are greater than the sum of our parts, and we’re much more likely to work if we’re all on board.

7:29 – Benefit Report –

On April fools day doors at seven show at seven thirty there will be a show. Jorah LaFleur, Rev. Chumleigh (*who promises to be on his best behavior*) Samba Ja, President Brown, will play. We’ve surrendered it to spirit of the universe and enough people donated money for no financial obligation to the village should it be needed, we have a show. Big round of applause. Like Sue was saying, we are we and in our own realities. If you are part of a business and would like a large poster, take it. If you know someone who works in another part of the fair, if you can contact that person, call them. Fair phone tree. Pass around handbills. If you know a special place where one can go up take one. The more we can spread the information, the better. Don’t take more handbills than you need. If you are interested for a few events coming up at various venues to go and hand out handbills. There will be two ads in EW, info on NW Passage, News on KLCC, a bit on music matters. It might be possible to have PSAs on the various TV stations. If people have other ideas, good. We should also have several people handing out handbills at Saturday Market. Info and sales at the event; in the contract, the McDonald usually charges 20% of any sales. They’ll waive that. Someone needs to coordinate the infozone table. What will that entail? Who the hell knows. Danny Geeler, the voice of OCF is going to MC the event. If you are interested in preparing or soliciting donations for food for several dozen performers, please help out.

Frog says that the WOW Hall has an inexpensive poster service, but Daniel says that the service is not as reliable as it has been in the past and is too expensive. Sue is going to be doing a show in Roseburg. She offers her booth as a base of ops at Saturday Market on the 1st. Someone offers space at a booth at the PDX Sat. Mrkt. Are people from Harmony something going to work the show? We don’t know for sure. If we have the 30th village design for the TeeShirt, we could put them on table napkins. Someone offers a thing at Sat. Mrkt.

Autism Rocks is planning on selling Tee Shirts as well as having brochures and other things. Hope that someone volunteers to coordinate. Many org. in the village have tees for sale. Several hundred people, many of which aren’t OCF folk, will be at the show. Good opportunity. Two tables for sales. Are the tables just for goods from various organizations? Probably not – there doesn’t seem to be space. When you walk out of the theater, there could be tables by the stairs. Hopes are that there is balance between the various organizations in what they have on the tables. Multiple organizations getting multiple revenues versus one central space for everything. Measuring from last year – only one booth (Green Earth) has said that they want their own table.

If you don’t buy your ticket tonight, talk to Daniel about reduced rate tickets. Fasttix or the McDonald Theater are the only places to sell tickets. By way of contract, we can’t have a presale outlet other than Fasttix.

If groups are going to sell their Tees, what if we did a raffle, and each group put in tees and things as prizes?

Daniel’s VM is 912-6098. He lives out of range. Leave a message. If you get a fast busy signal, try again.

The fundraiser is primarily to raise dollars to rebuild the village. We produce no income and have no budget, but we’re in a 3 year process of rebuilding the village. Another part of the fundraiser is going to Rainforest Action Network.

There is a festival in Brownsville in August that might be a future benefit possibility. Amira, 541-488-5697

7:51 – Construction

We talked with David Tipton, who decided to step down as construction coordinator. What needs to be done is to reconstruct Doors, backstage, and Arts. There’s also Peace and Justice. There once was a loft over History. The job entails construction as well as organization. This last Monday was the fair board meeting where they revealed the capital budget stuff. Somewhere between 1000 and 1500 for our construction projects. The fair is in the Red this year, spending more than they are planning on taking in. Are we able to use lumber? Connections at bring. Keith will be working at this, and specializes in coordinating donations. Recycled lumber is great. Keith works weekends. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays there will be weekday work parties to take care of nitty gritty projects so that the heavy duty shit can go down on the weekends. Basically there are a whole lot of things that people could be doing if the carpenters work ahead of time. As we may know that the operational budget to put on the fair is more than a million $ a year. This is the first time David has heard of the Fair running in the red. A lot of the money goes to supply and feed the volunteers. If the portapotty rental is 40-50K $ and a lot of that has to do with people sneaking in.

8:00 – Site Report

30th anniversary for the village. Good news for some people is that a lot of the bamboo has been cut into three. The container has been thrown out. A few large ones still exist. We have 34 Bamboo

8:02 – Camping

Change! She finally finished unpacking and found some old mimeographed camping forms. At the next meeting there will be a half page form upon which you list your name, phone #, booth, and preferred camping options, and number of tents. This way Sue and Phil’s job is easier. Pharsyde is going to be easier because we don’t need to give the camp host as much of a list. The meadow is reserved for elders and the disabled.

8:04 – Booth Breakdown.

8:41 – Booth reports

Art booth discussed workshops and reconstruction

DOE expressed astonishment that the booth has not yet fallen over. Talked about role in regard to IT for the village. Talked about ideas of searchable directory. Sold some tickets.

The House – can you walk into the 8 without boots? Yes, in gym shoes. Come in Chickadee, arrow and lots are closed. If you come in, there are streams and rocks. But you don’t need boats or boots. It takes a lot of rain. If it rained a lot for several days in a row than it would flood.

Spirit booth talked about supporting each other, om circle, and the village meetings being on time. Very happy to be back together.

Info booth – five folks exchanged a lot of information, the only thing village wise was that in the 70s or 80s the village had a Thursday night potluck and a talent show. Thinking of planting a seed of a potluck with hor devours and a talent show Thursday night.

Intentional communities. Nine people turned out from several communities and orgs. with great energy. Booth was rebuilt recently, but will help and support other booths.

Rebecca and Melissa new co coordinators for Wild Edibles. Lichen dye display this year. Booth coord checklist for everything to get done because some things were missed last year.

Fruits and Nuts had four people. They had a really nice time.

Green Earth had 9 members with one new member settled on a date for their booth potluck. Discussed wrapup from decon last year. Terrific new booth and very grateful for support.

Areas – Half of us there. A few new folks in old slots, and a question raised – a number of people camp in the village and have passes not from the village, some of whom have not been to work parties or meetings. This might be somewhat uncomfortable. It would help everyone if these folks could come to at least one sort of meeting. Discussion next time.

Peace and Justice booth was small in competition with another booth. Talked about rebuilding the main part of their booth.

Little People – takes care of kids during fair. In the past couple of years there have been Little People kids in the parade, which is really fun, and if you want to join and or bring your kids, yeah!

Health and Healing – fundraiser, purchace of tickets, participation, ongoing issues. Thirtieth aniversary issues. Hard copy of dates and contact lists, workshop and demo coordination. Contact list given to booth coordinators in hard copy.

8:53 – closing, wrap up, evaluations

8:56 – Unfair announcements

Back to Your Home in Community Village

It was a long one, and a hard one, but we did it. Here are the minutes. This meeting went really fast, so I hope I did everyone justice.

Community Village Meeting, February 8, 2006
Michael Om Facilitating, Kimberly co-Facilitating

7:10 ­ announcement from Taylor ­ she will need help this year at work parties because she will be 35 weeks pregnant or so. Hooray!!!

7:11 ­ Introductions, Om, and a bit of thought about conflict resolution.

7:13 ­ Agenda Review
Fair Announcements 5 min
Skit on Consensus 15 min
Council Confirmation 10 min
Reports 10 total
Eq. Comm 2 min
Selling 1 min
Online
Benefit 15 min
Restaurant 15 min
Portland Link 5 min
Beyond Fair

7:18 ­ Fair Announcements

Magnolia, Janet¹s daughter, is getting married and having a baby. Hooray!!!!

7:19 ­ Consensus skit. The skit is designed to generate a discussion of what makes an appropriate block. Some of the questions that were raised; Is it possible for a block to not be appropriate, once we¹ve been through the process of addressing concerns? Who decides whether a block is in order, or how many stand asides constitute a de-facto block? How do we make sure concerns are addressed before we reach the point of blocking? Can we hold people accountable for offering alternatives? Can a personal issue be a legitimate block, and can mediation be used? Something should be voiced as a concern before it becomes a block. We are here to do the business of the village, not deal with personal stuff between members. We don¹t know if Bob had advance knowledge of the proposal. Disagreement and personal dislike can be separated. Consensus is a many and varied thing, blocking and its intention is many and varied. If you feel in your heart that whatever is before you is going to do significant harm to the group, your call is to block.

7:34 ­ Council confirmation ­ all of the people standing for council stand again.

Tim Mueller,
Karla
Paul
Dianne (by proxy of Sue)
David
Keith (by proxy of Janet)
Cheshire
Drake
Lois
Ben
Daniel

There is no discussion in order, therefore we consent to the whole council

7:38 ­ Construction; we have about four booths to build. We used to have a lot of somewhat carpenters. We used to scrounge and do it ourselves. Now that codes have changed, we have to buy new materials. It¹s up to booths and coordinators to come up with some kind of plan. There is a generic booth, and if a booth wants something better, they have to do it themselves. We could keep having benefits to support construction. It costs about $1,500 for a booth. The proposal already went into the fair for our capital improvements request. The booths that need rebuild; backstage, doors, history loft, arts booth, peace and justice booth. David Tipton hasn¹t communicated with us about doing head of construction. The fair should really support us more than they do in terms of construction.

7:50 ­ Site report, it¹s been flooded on and off. You still need a canoe to get to main stage. Last time David was there, no known damage to the village. Some of the bamboo is overdue for splitting. Phone number is on the paper, and email (fixit@efn.org) is good.

7:51 ­ Equity committee report. Diane and Lois trying to convene a long term equity committee for making pass allocations and food vouchers more equitable. Contact Dianne or Lois

7:52 ­ Selling report. There¹s been a committee going on for a while to find ways to raise funds for village nps, looking at the possibility of a booth outside of the village for sales. The progress at the moment is waiting for a response from the Fair about policy and opinion. They haven¹t returned calls. General call for people to join this committee. The peace and justice survey still exists.

7:54 ­ Benefit. Daniel has a lot of information to share about the alleged benefit that we may have on April fools day. We have the potential to have an amazing benefit, Jafa Lafour, Rev. Chumleigh, Samba Ja, Joules Graves, President Brown. The plan, until this point, was to hold the event at the McDonald theater. Last years event at cosmic was successful (400-500 people showed up and we made a few thousand dollars). We have about $1000 left over from that event. Last summer we talked to musicians who know what¹s up. Leslie (GM of OCF) offered praise, accolades, and offers of help. She offered at that point to contact Kesey enterprises to see if he would write the event off. The rate we were given was about $2000, half of what they normally charge, including advertising, production, ticket sales. About a 50% chance that this would fall through, and Leslie decided that she wanted the thing to maybe be a joint benefit for CV and culture jam. Part of the reason was to bridge the organizations to draw in more people. We need to raise close to $6000 to do our rebuilding, and there is a chance that we won¹t get any capital funds from the fair. When we learned that Leslie chose not to call Kesey, because of our existing partnerships, and because she thought it would not benefit the fair. She had to get off the phone. This was discouraging. Dianne offered to call Mr. Kesey, but he hasn¹t called back. The McDonald wants to sign a contract, but we can¹t guarantee. We¹ve already paid a deposit to have President Brown. Unless someone is willing to take the financial risk, we will not have the benefit as planned. Another venue is possible. There are only two places that may be open. Cosmic, and SEHS. Joules will not perform at Cosmic. Essentially, we have a construction crisis happening. There¹s no money, there¹s no space, and there¹s no way to rebuild all our booths. The total amount that we need covered is roughly $3,500. The WOW hall has raised their rates. There are risks to doing the full scale benefits. The WOW hall option is closed, says Daniel. The WOW hall will charge $1200-$1500. It¹s not much less than the McDonald. If a group of people can come together to guarantee the benefit, contact Daniel. If each person donated $50, we¹d have enough money. Advance tickets? Booth coordinators running a pledge drive? (((((Daniel ­ 912-6098))))) In order to make the McDonald benefit happen, we need $3,750 pledged to cover possible losses. The council meeting is on Tuesday. If we get pledges in that amount by then, we will go forward. There are concerns with this, as some people don¹t like the idea of individual village members taking that financial risk.

Shall council be empowered to go ahead with the benefit, should the village come forward with the deposits before the next council meeting?

Stand asides, 3
Block, 1 ­ if we don¹t come up with the money with this benefit, the village may be held liable for individuals¹ losses. Don¹t want the village to be liable for money.

Alternate wording; it¹s clear that community village is absolutely not liable for these loans, and encouraging the council to really step in on this process. No more money should be spent without a written contractŠ CV is not liable for any money, and the council should take a firm stand.

With the alternate wording, no stand asides or blocks.

8:32 - Restaurant ­ ((PLEASE NOTE: During much of this discussion, I found myself extremely confused, and was not entirely clear on what was going on or what was being discussed. As such, my notes may not reflect the intentions of those who were speaking 100%. I was doing my best).

Tim: There is a problem with our agreement with the restaurant that needs to be discussed. There is a situation with a lot of complicated history that is being skipped. Last winter, we opened applications for the restaurant. It¹s a three year cycle. We took applications for a new restaurant. The council decided that they wanted a profit sharing donation from the restaurant to defray construction costs. This practice had historical precedent. Holy Cow was the only company that applied, which some people understood to mean that they were going to share profits. The council has continued to negotiate with Holy Cow, with no decision. There was a situation where the original amount asked for was a 500 annual donation. We backed away, and decided that to go forward the restaurant would need to donate a specific amount of money by a specific amount of time, like May. There is not a specific amount or specific date on the table at this time. There was some miscommunication that happened as far as having used the word ³fee² and we don¹t want to talk about fees ­ we can¹t charge a booth a fee. Only the fair can do that. It¹s really uncomfortable.
Kathy: ³We¹re on a big semantic ocean² says Kathy. It¹s being used to disguise different things. It has been talked about outside of Kathy¹s presence on the council. Many things have been said. The restaurant, there is a long history that should be looked at. The restaurant has been in different hands. People have done it until they got tired, and passed it on. Several configurations. Holy Cow was different because they aren¹t a non-profit within the village. So, a new situation came in where there was a reaffirmation of the restaurant annually. That changed to every three years. Partly one of the confusions is that people are acting on different parts of information other people have different ideas about different agreements. There¹s no contract. There¹s never been anyone allowed to charge for a booth. When the village restaurant started, the booth was in terrible shape, and they put aside money to rebuild it with. It¹s probably the smallest restaurant in the fair (percentage wise), and the space is shrinking with the loss of the History loft. Some years the restaurant has given to the village, other years not. It wasn¹t every year. Some people felt like the years when there was no donation as an Œinfringement¹ ­ the restaurant being asked to commit to donations is something that Kathy is opposed to as a village member. This is a problem of role; is Holy Cow a member or a business, and is it community oriented, is it a part of the community? In the council meeting, Kathy said that she was comfortable making a donation as she was comfortable. It¹s not a specific amount but what we give from the heart. Anton says that they will give enough to keep the wheel of karma turning.

A long time ago, Sue remembers being on the committee when the Alpha Farm was done, there was an application process, and holy cow was picked. Her memory is that the restaurant, as part of the application, would donate some percentage (3%) of prophets. At some point a decision was made, probably written, it would be nice to find that history. We are a microcosm of what¹s going on in the world, and we have stress because there isn¹t enough money.

We agreed to have Holy Cow for three years, last year.

Daniel says that Janet brought a paper agreed upon in 1996 with an agreement to donate a specific percentage. There appeared to be some precedent of having something written.

Jennifer respects what Holy Cow said, and you can¹t force a donation.

If there was an agreement that can be construed as a contract, that¹s a fee and not a donation. That¹s not what we do.

A guy from Southern Oregon says that his booth has had an application in for several years to run a restaurant for his non-profit school. She¹s being put under pressure. He says that he runs a restaurant professionally. Non profit. He wants to have the restaurant.

Non profits have been told that we can¹t make money in the village, except the restaurant and the fruit booths. Holy Cow pays a fee to the fair.

The food booth and fruit booths are special in that they are the only booths in the village permitted to sell anything. It makes them part of the village but different.

Tim says that he knows that Kathy feels better. Following the council meeting on Monday, the council will feel comfortable if the restaurant pledges a specific amount of money by a specific time. An amount of their choosing. Tim says that this was very clear and in writing. Nobody was asking for a contract. We could end this business if Anton stands and pledges to donate Œwhat I can to keep the wheels of Karma turning.¹ As far as Tim is concerned, that would do it.

David Oaks says that Anton should be able to say whatever he wants to while sitting down. We have an issue with money because Non-Profits can¹t make money at the fair. Non-Profits have been put in the back of the bus at the OCF. Holy Cow is caught in the middle. If there could have been a time machine, Mind Freedom would have applied for the restaurant.

We have five minutes left. The sense of the meeting is that council and representatives have asked for a vocal commitment to give from the heart. Such a commitment has been made.

Kathy ­ to fix inaccuracies, they do pay a booth fee to the fair. As does coop fruit. It¹s sort of amazing that there is no donation asked for from coop fruit. Specific time and date is nice, and they were planning. Rain made it a bad year for money last year. In general is that specific date and time are not appropriate to ask for. A donation is a donation. This is not going to solve our financial problems.

Why don¹t we accept Anton¹s proposal and trust them to give from their heart which they do every year?

Janet; of we¹re going to accept this it¹s not a problem. She wants the restaurant to continue. The initial application, Village 5% or $210 from the initial app. That¹s where a lot of the confusion is coming from.

That¹s that.

8:59 ­ Portland. We¹ve been e-mailing, they¹re talking about April 29th at KBOO. It¹ll go out by e-mail. Several people have been requesting that we put our meetings online. Or that they can participate. They want to bring the subject up, not so we can do it next month. There are technical barriers to having online meetings, as well as process related barriers. Having an audio-recording of the meeting posted online in a non-interactive way could work. A solely online meeting could work technically. Having online people at the general meeting could be implausible. There are privacy issues. Everyone should have the right to not have their voice and likeness on the internet. Arthur: We are the community village. To be a community, you have to get together. If someone is too far away, that¹s too bad. People come from farther away from that. It might be easier for people from a distance to attend work parties than a 2 hour meeting on a weeknight. Perhaps low meeting attendance could be made up for with more work parties. Booth empowerments deals with that. Online meetings are dangerous because of what we say and surveillance. The reason that the booth empowerment thing happened is that the southern Oregon people almost got killed on the highway. The reason booth empowerment happened was ten years ago. That¹s why. Frog would like to say that there are people in the arts booth from out of state make meetings and work parties. It isn¹t southern Oregon that¹s talking about online meetings. They¹re talking about having meetings at the hospital. There¹s another person who has offered their house. We¹ve had some nice discussion. Booth empowerment allows us to bend our guidelines. Booth empowerment has nothing to do with eligibility, it has to do with who gets the passes once they¹re eligible. This was originally true, but it¹s possible for people to swap work parties and perhaps meetings. There is a 1 meeting before eligibility guideline. No ifs ands or buts. If somebody couldn¹t attend the two work parties, someone else could do an extra.

9:10 ­ Beyond Faire Announcements

Nude and erotica at newzone behind DAC. Th. Fr. Sa. 6 o¹clock. The group hell¹s belles, an all women¹s rock group doing AC/DC cover tunes. The 26th annual shy person¹s talent show March 6th 420 w 12th, knights of pythias hall. Sue ­ 4J wellness policy petition to get healthy food CPY mentors high need youth, big road race, 10th anaversery, team and individual partiuc Talk to bob abvout kittens if you are concerned about our discussion about resources, make sure you register and vote in the BOD elections in th fall.

Back to Your Home in Community Village

January 2006 Minutes
Community Village Meeting, Stardate 01.11.2006
Samuel Rutledge Recording

Percy facilitates ­

7:05pm ­ Meeting Called to Order, Agenda read

Introduction

Agenda Review

Consensus Training (10 minutes)

Fair Announcements (2 minutes)

Booth Sales Committee looking for Volunteers (call Tim at 521-7208 or
tim@gwproj.com) (no time)

Benefit Report (5 minutes or less)

Call for Council (10 minutes)

Green Space/Camping Equity needs committee members (6 minutes)

Evaluation

Closing Circle

Unfair Announcements

7:06 - Introductions took place, everyone introduced themselves and said their affiliation.

7:09 ­ Opening Circle

7:12 ­ Continued Introductions

7:15 ­ Agenda Review, again.

7:18 ­ Consensus Training Exercise ­ A committee brain-stormed ³what consensus is², there was a long list of things, some of which were true and others false. We went through the list and decided which was and wasn¹t true. We had quite a lot of fun with this exercise, and there was much laughter. Attached, please find the list.

7:30 ­ Fair Announcements.

Janet¹s internet is down for the next few days. You can still call with issues, but generally village web issues are on hold.

David: The Site flooded and to get into the 8 you had to take a canoe. There¹s no water on 13th, but is on the riverbank. Some shamans from the southwest are asking that on Friday those of us in the Northwest hold a glass of water and send them some. On postcards, the database was sort of messed up, so soon there will be postcards.

Some issues about parking for our new space at the Episcopal church. There are areas where parking is not allowed.

7:34 ­ Benefit Report, Daniel. The benefit is in partnership with Rainforest Action Network to benefit the old growth trees in the northwest. Our benefit will be at the McDonald Theater. Nothing is set in stone, but what is confirmed is that Joules Graves would like to open. A nationally recognized spoken word artist whose name we don¹t know is also confirmed. President Brown is one possibility for a headliner, another is Bill Croitsmanm (of the Grateful Dead) and Melvin Seals. The latter might cost more money than we have. Some other true fair flavor of entertainment is likely. $15 presale tickets, $20 at the door. There are a lot of booths to replace this year, thus the larger scale benefit. The thing is on April Fools Day, also opening day at Saturday Market. We don¹t know exactly how the profits will be split between CV and RAN. Questions still on the table about having village performers at the event, or about having booths tabling at the benefit.

7:41 ­ Introductions of Teguin and Zephyr.

7:42 ­ Call for Council. (my apologies for misspelled names)

- Ben Barrett, Coordinator of DOE for three years, shadowed last year. 342-1519, stircrazyben@gmail.com

- Keith Hershberger ­ 7th year in the village, co-coordinated areas last year. 484-7130, Cell 513-1238, quackerbacker1@msn.com

- Lois Inman, was on council last year, involved with Youth Booth, 4A 836-2670 linman@hotmail.com

- Karla, has been on council/in village/in faire since her kids were kids. 337-5319, she returns messages.

- Tim Mueller *(Nel standing in, he¹s with sick family) ­ Has been involved with faire for 6 years, has been booth coordinator for DOE, created and continues to produce the Theater of Change newsletter. Cell 521-7208

- Daniel, has been present in fair world for 12 or 13 years. Has co-coordinated Green Earth booth. For the past 3 years has been on council. Would prefer phone number not be on the list. Leave a message, and he¹ll get you back within 24 hours.

- Cheshire Mayersome, First year was 1980. Once coordinated for the Master Gardeners in the community house. Is with Wild Edibles. Work number. Leave a message ­ 683-6407 Home number 689-8189 cheshire_mayrsohn@or.blm.gov

- Paul Sass, on council past year. Previously Green Earth coordinator. Has been around six or seven years. 689-3709, leave a message.

- Drake Euwbank. Formerly of Doors of Expression, has been on council for seven years. The database, which he maintains, is 1,000 names and organizations of village related people. 736-0256

- Diane Albino, has been in the village since the late 1970s. Has been a coordinator, used to coordinate the stage, is on the elders committee and the OCF board. 933-2584

- David Hoffman, First faire was as a tourist in 1978. He decided not to get involved. In the mid 1980s he started working with the Master Gardeners. He¹s been on council for several years. home phone 484-9204 fixit@efn.org

Review of the process for standing for council ­ If you have a concern about a person who stood, it is your responsibility to contact them and try to work the issue out within one week. If you can¹t resolve it just the two of you, you need to get a facilitator. If, even with the facilitator, you can¹t resolve the issue, at that point you are free to block. But blocking is a really big deal, and not something to be taken lightly. If something is a personal issue and is not likely to affect the community as a whole, you probably should think really hard before blocking.

11 people stood for council, so there aren¹t more people standing.

Brief summary of what the council does and the role that it fulfills is called for. There is a piece of paperwork on the website, and also it will be passed out in the future. A brief summary is given. The council is a steering committee for the village. There is a council member assigned to liaison with each booth (sometimes more than one booth per council member) The council holds open meetings. It is a consensus based group, like the village. A lot of the decisions that are too broad to be handled by the whole village are delegated to the council. Every job that exists in the village has a council liaison. The council is considered Faire Staff ­ some of the decisions the council makes are made because the council is the body that deals with the fair itself. Six is too few council members. Thirteen is too many. Eleven, which is what we have, is a good number of people.

Outside of fair, it is the responsibility of the council to liaison with the faire. There is always a council person available at the faire. There are a large number of meetings (one a month for council, one for the village, plus work parties. There are several perks to being on council ­ passes, etcŠ) One cannot be both a booth coordinator and a council member simultaneously.

The shadow council is someone who doesn¹t want to be or hasn¹t time to be on council proper. These people show up to council meetings, they act as sort of junior members of council, but without the perks or as many responsibilities.

8:26 ­ Green space and camping, a number of booths sort ofŠ expandedŠ their camping areas. Phil and Sue are going to go around camping areas with booth coordinators before anyone sets up. It is important that our camping is centralized and low impact, and we need to keep our green space. We have a large impact which we try to minimize. Your regular camping spot might not be available this year. We¹re making the camping a little tighter. *(can we do that?)

The only list the Far Side camp host needs from the village is that for people who need to have a space made available for them. If you have friends in Far Side, and there is appropriate space for you, you don¹t need to be on any list. This makes things A WHOLE LOT EASIER.

We could make village high-rises, camp up instead of out (not like there is any out to go to).

8:36 ­ Equity issue pushed off to the next meeting. There is a summary in the TOC.

Some discussion ensued in regards to construction in the coming year. We need to start thinking about it.

8:40 ­ Evaluations

We generally think that Percy did a great job. Thanks to Lynn for finding the space. Thanks to Samuel (hey, that¹s me) for keeping time and taking minutes.

Unfair Announcements

On the back of the WOW Hall Notes ­ a benefit for orphaned and displaced children from Hurricane Katrina that Daniel is running. Clinton Fearon will perform with various guests. Tickets at STARGATE and the WOW HALL $15/$17

DIVA metamedia event sponsored by the UO and DIVA. Several universities and other organizations are collaborating to put together the event.

Sad news; Circle of Hands has stopped after 14 years. It was a hard decision, and it has left some people hard. But there mayŠ wink and whisperŠ be good things and new collaborations to come out of the closing.

Eugene Poetry Slam, January 14th, $5

CPY is having an event surrounding mentoring youth. www.goodrace.com 344-0833 (I hope that¹s right)

The next shy person¹s talent show is probably in March at the Knights of Pythias hall. Proceeds go to a non-profit to whom $200 might really mean something.

Sat. Jan 21 at Cosmic to benefit Amazon with Marimbas and a disco orchestra.

8:51 ­ Closing Circle.

Back to Your Home in Community Village

(Note from Samuel; I generally try to keep the village minutes short, but this was an active meeting with many ideas expressed. This is a pretty long set of minutes. I tried to cut them down as best I could while still expressing the ideas that came forth during the meeting, of which there were many.)

Community Village Meeting Minutes for November 9, 2005

SAFE, downtown Springfield, 7pm.

7:04 – OM Circle/welcome

7:08 – Blessing for Zephyr and Teguin, our newest village members.
- Everyone around the circle greeted and blessed the new littles.

7:14 – Taylor adds childcare space needs to agenda, and it is discussed.

Last year Taylor noticed that the Village was growing little people. We saw 88 kids at the meetings. 4 work-parties, 7 meetings. 82 hours worked by among official volunteers, over 100 if you count fill in volunteers. $161 in hat passing donations. $105 on snacks, $50 on passes, $6 for a first aid kit. We’ve already broken the November record for # of kids present. Given how many kids we have, (31 in May) and how few childcare providers are available (the kids work hard to be a community, the older kids help out with the littles) it is important that there is enough safe space available for the kids. It is important to Taylor that kids’ space needs are given equal consideration to adults’ space needs in considerations for the meeting place. The space at SAFE is , in Taylor’s estimation, not suitable for childcare. In January, the space will likely be filled to capacity. Thank-yous to Taylor abounded. Arthur suggest that the Village should provide a First Aid kit to Taylor for childcare.

7:21 – Agenda Review
-5 minutes for faire announcements
- consensus statement (David)
- Benefit Update, Daniel, 2 minutes
- OCF Vision Quest Report, Tim, 5 minutes
- Report on Camping Problems, Tabled
- Budget Report, 2 minutes
-Village Sales, 10 min
- meeting space - 10
- visioning – 10
- water – 2 minutes

7:24 – Fair Announcements
First Sunday of the month the veggies get together. Site will probably flood this year, which is good. Next Sunday, hay bales and sandbags to be placed. Meet at the warebarn. 1st Sunday of December.

Tim once had a long row of incence ceadars. Half are now the Health and Healing posts. The other half are on their way to the faire, but Tim needs help to get a 35 foot long log and some smaller ones to the site. Call 521-7208 soon.

Saturday December 3rd or Sunday December 4th (look in FFN), wreath making party on site. Last year someone brought a wreathmaking machine for making beautiful wreaths easily. At Alice’s.

7:28 – Consensus presentation
Trying to give a short description of consensus at each meeting rather than use consensus classes. A proposed statement was given for feedback. (Statement to be posted on CV Drum by Gardner David)

Last year family school had a consensus training, which Jain encourages everyone to attend. It is not free.

The statement should be edited and written by the community. We have an old consensus document which Janet feels should be used as a basis for the new one. Janet says she will post the old document on CV Drum.

The intent of the council was to make sure that everyone has a basic knowledge of what consensus is. There are perhaps some people who are participating in the process without knowing how the process is meant to work.

7:33 – Benefit Update
Saturday April Fools Day Village Dance at McDonald theater. Time up in the air Joint effort to rebuild 4 booths and benefit old growth campaigns with RainForrest Action Network. The idea is that each year one NonProfit from the village will share proceeds from the benefit.

7:35 – Vision Quest Update
From OCF Visioning process meeting. Talked of a survey from before and during faire. Nearly 4,000 respondants, incl. fairgoers. Meeting took the top six issues and talked about them. 70% of respondents said the fair was doing really good. 29% said just good. That’s 99%. Issues include; Better support artists and entertainers. Buy and preserve more wetlands. Create more events for senior and youth participation. Better and more information exchange between Faire Family and the Community. Increase the diversity of OCF community. Establish year round facility in town (educational facility, art showcase, etc…). These, obviously, amount to new Capital expenses from the fair. They were important issues in the survey. Dedication of Fair funds to these issues. The facilitator, Charlie Murphey, said “Intention determines life experiences, hope is born from hopeful solutions, the fair is a generator of hopeful solutions, a factory of hope.”

7:40 – Budget.
Carried $25 from last year, not counting benefit proceeds. Currently have $3,256 in the bank. 1200 and change from the benefit. Some of that was used for construction. The budget from the Fair is 1098 and change, which add up to the total in the bank. Anyone who wants more particulars should feel free to contact Karla. We will certainly spend the faire budget. The extra monies will be used for construction, and to pay for the new benefit.

The money that the fair gives us is way less than we give the fair for our passes. We shouldn’t have to pay. We decided to return to this issue at the end of the meeting. Karla points out that we have brought that issue to the fair. We determined that we would talk about it more. We’ll be proposing our new biannual budget for next year.

7:44 – Village Sales
Last year we talked about Non Profits in CV trying to generate some funds during the fair. Talk about having a booth space in the village for sales didn’t go well. Proposal to create a booth space outside of the village for CV Non Profit sales raised. Over CV Drum, four or five people responded to Tim to say that this would be important for their group. No one volunteered to join a committee with Tim. If nothing is happening by January meeting, Tim will let it lie, because he doesn’t think that one person should work on this alone.

Peace and Justice has been struggling for years to make some income for organizations. Many of the organizations in P&J have benefited from having items that people could donate for. There is a sentiment to keep the village non-commercial. P&J have been exploring ways for Non-Profits to sell or take donations for items that are non-juried or that are juried but sold to benefit non-profits. In a 2004 survey, there was considerable support for one or the other idea, and that such would be consistent with the vision of OCF as a whole. One drawback to juried items is that buttons and bumperstickers don’t fit, and these items not only raise funds but awareness. P&J had no items whatsoever this year and many people were disappointed.

As far as the committee to sell things outside of the village, a January deadline might be too soon. Some booths haven’t even met yet.

We have not been able to reach consensus w/in the village yet, so taking sales outside the village might be a really good idea. In the late 1980s, a non-profit group had a booth somewhere in the 8. That process exists within OCF (somewhere, no one really knows where – in the ether). The more groups that are involved in the decision making process, the better outcome.

All options are open for discussion, although having sales in the village is not probably worth discussion at this time.

Some food booths at the faire are fundraisers for non-profits.

CV is made up of non-profits and for-profits that make a positive contribution to society. Can for-profits sell in this booth, and if so, who get the profits? And who gets the prophets? Every organization needs money to operate. CV has to find a way to spread our goals, which involves money.

There can be donation jars out, but suggested donations amount to little other than a price. A committee to this effect can happen at any time.

Biggest hurdle; craft guidelines. Everything is very regulated. But, c’mon. People need “Kill Your TV” bumper-stickers.

It would be helpful if the village signed off on the need for such a thing somewhere at the faire.

Any inquiry being made to the faire should be made on the premise of “we are a group from the village” but not “we are the village” as the village hasn’t consensed on anything like this.

Meeting Place – 8:04
We’re thinking now that SAFE might not work as a meeting place. The Episcopal church across from the Pearl St. Ice Cream place, which has a large hall with chairs, plenty big, with a childcare room and a kitchen. $30 a night for the whole thing. More than happy to help us. Proposal that we go on with that.

Autism Rocks does a support group there. Tim says the people are very flexible and easygoing.

Parking issues might arise. But Lynn says there’s ample (or near ample) parking. There’s 16 or 17 spaces plus handicap, but there are various other lots in the area that belong to local businesses that will be closed while we meet.

Proposal would start in January. Why are we no longer in schools? No Westmoreland because Lane ESD employee needs 2b present. But why no schools; because we were priced out.

Why is this in the meeting? The council usually takes care of it. Why not just do it? This was brought up from the council because maybe people would feel like they had input that wouldn’t be heard.

Call for a postcard with meeting date/time/place (council will do it)

8:11 – Visioning
How to get people flowing through the village. Lawn theater to draw people in in engaging ways. Make wild assumptions about people and take them where they need to go. There’s a point there that’s dangerous. How offensive is it safe to be in the interests of drawing people in? That’s Ben’s idea for increasing circulation.

Not at all against path guerilla theater, but is there really not enough flow through the village? Last meeting there was discussion to this effect.

Janet can dress like a faerie and bring people in, and get a pass for it, which gives her pass back to the village. It’s a giggle faerie act. Sort of a town crier.

Can we get some little kids to hand out fliers at main gate with Village events good for a free hug and glitter?

Town Crier/Carnival Barker sort of mentality to draw people in so we can entertain and inform people while they are in line for the bathroom. More signage from Shady Grove.

We used to have a village jester/town crier. Brings up question of what we do with elders –

It’s generally too crowded. This has a lot to do with entertainment. A good band can paralyze the village. Sound enhancement makes it hard to talk to people. More flow; scale down events and make things less popular.

Suggestion that each booth come up with a coupon item to be given away. Free condom, bugless spray.

A little confused about circulation; does this mean more stuff happening? Some people like the Village as a mellow and chill place. The idea is to get people into the booths, they say. The bamboo maybe hides some of the booths. We should be aware of quantities of bamboo, not to hide the booth.

8:25 – Green Earth Booth extends deep thanks to Village, Council, Karla, for paying the cost of certified sustainably grown wood for new booth.

8:26 – Water
We have a new better filter good for 10,000 gallons of water which is 3x bypass and takes everything out of the water. Two spigots possible.

Everyone knows that the Village has the best water. We need drainage. The problem is that we can only make a hole 1 inch deep. These holes could be spread out and filled with sand to percolate the water into the ground. A boardwalk? This needs to be brought up with the faire.

There might be a possibility to build a device that refills the water back into the unfiltered water to be filtered again. This is probably not possible (health codes?)

8:30 – five more minutes back into pass equity.

We pay for passes, but we never used to pay. When the faire wanted to buy the land, the village decided that everyone would just pay five bucks. It’s just gone up since then. People in the village represent groups or provide services to the village. Some group reps get their passes paid for by the groups. Our info booth doesn’t get half the goods from the faire that others do.

There’s two ways of looking at this; 1) No one in the village should have to pay for a pass. 2) Booths that provide services (little people, youth power, information) shouldn’t have to pay for passes because the village workers do the same kind of job as Fair staff. Strong sense that charging for youth is wrong. It becomes a middle class or upper class opportunity. There are often people who can’t get on teen crew. CV should think about what they want to assert for.

Staff (people who get shirts) get their passes paid for (for the most part).

If we go to the faire and ask for free passes, the faire may come back with a reduced budget.

This is a more complex issue than we see. Various crews work different types of shifts, different numbers of hours. Some of the village, people don’t put in even four hours a day. So, in a sense many of us work less than other crews.

Our budget isn’t tied to our passes. The amount we receive has little to do than the amount we pay for passes (which amounts to about $10,000 counting all the passes we buy).

There are a couple of things that we can do. To discuss the issue of equitability is an endless loop that may get us nowhere. We need to get the fair to support the nonprofits of the CV in tangible ways to enhance the nonprofits. Why not donate some money to village nonprofits with JHVF. The committee talking about this should consider that approach. Take steps to convince the faire community at large that the village provides an essential service to the fair.

There are glaring inequities throughout the faire. We could be working toward equity.

We are a service organization, a working model of consensus, and a family. What we’re providing is education and a working model. Committee should find a way to approach the fair to find a reduced fee for everyone or something like that. The faire does feed us in the staff kitchen but the lines are long.

Our passes cost less than other passes that are paid for (vendors, seniors, etc…) In the guidelines it says that after such and such a date your pass price doubles if you make changes, which we don’t have. We get a pretty sweet deal. The fair looks at it like cost recovery for all their outflows. Want to know what’s going on? Go to the budget committee meetings.

8:56 – An evaluation of the meeting
Thanks to Jen Lin for facilitating, and to Drake for the space.

8:57 – Singing.

Community Village General Meeting Minutes Oct 12, 2005
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The Community Village meeting started with a potluck at 6:30. We started a bit late with eating at 7pm and generally chatted until about 7:30. Then we started our meeting. In attendance were Paul, David, Tim, Sue, Lois, Janet, Ben, and Bob. Shortly after the meeting started Diane and Richard appeared, and then later Jennefer and Steve appeared with two very polite children. Sue was the meeting facilitator and Planet Bubbles took the minutes.
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Fair and related announcements. Be sure and check out the Vision Quest the fair is doing. You need to pre register. You can do that online at the fair’s back door web site pages, or call the office if you’re not online. It’s Oct 30, from 10am to 2pm at the Laurel Wood Golf Course. Chaone has not had her baby yet but may by the time you read this. Jair will be playing at the WOW Hall on the 13th. On the 23rd Cozmic Pizza will be hosting a mental health fundraiser. The Witches Ball doors open at 7pm on Oct. 31st at the WOW Hall. Circle of Hands will carry Kind Tree greeting cards. The Master Gardeners will have a bulb sale on the 15th. All these dates are in October.
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1.One person mentioned that people not online are still not getting the messages about where and when for meeting times. Since most coordinators are emailed, it’s up to the coordinators to get that message out to people not online via phone. It’s also up to council members who are liaisons to coordinators who are not online to get in touch via phone. If you don’t have a phone, then it’s up to you to get in contact.
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2.Tim had handouts of the Village Vision Process, also referred to as the VVP. It can also be found on the village web site. On one side is the How can we have community all year? At this meeting we are fulfilling the Meeting ideas: Potluck before the meeting. On the other side of the document is the How do we wanna look? section. It has a done section and a low priority section. It also has a Stuff to Do soon section. We worked on the More circulation inside village part. A very free form of ideas came from the floor. Some were, move the stage, more shade, move the people, go out in the crowd on the eight and get more people interested in our activists groups, have skits or street theater to draw attention, get more youth involved, make more signs, more bamboo, more stuff in Peach Pit, more places to sit down, a theme such as plant your ass in the CV garden, extra benches for the stage area, more pillows, Burma Shave type signs. We felt that moving the stage is not possible at this time. We consensed on More Signs and Benches and On the Path skits or similar stuff to pull people in. The reason to pull more people into the village is so that the booths will be able to outreach more. We decided we needed more signs by the outhouses and the hallway to the village, and the front of the village. We decided that we need more Village signs that are eye level in front of the village near the info/resturant/Peace’n’Justice booths. We decided that we want to direct construction to build us more and easier to move benches so they can be stored between acts. This will free space so people can move thru the village as well.
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3.We talked about Consensus Training. We all fell the need to have people know what consensus and our CV flavor of it is, especially people who don’t attend many meetings or otherwise involve themselves. Some people in the village have no idea how we are governed. Some people did not like that fact that in years past we paid for training and very few showed up. We debated other ways to give out our consensus. We consensed on that in the early months, Dec and Jan, someone will give a short talk or skit on the idea of consensus for 15 min with maybe a Q&A section included. We will have a hand out on our flavor of it from our old documents, the longer version. We will publish the shorter version of it here. In the other monthly meetings we will take turns giving a short 5 to 10 minute version of consensus as practiced in the village. It will also be in these minutes. We will make sure it’s on the web site.
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The short version from our documents on Consensus is:*
Every One Shares a Piece of the Turth. The Village practices full Consensus. A person may "stand aside" if they do not entirely agree with the group's decision but feel the issue is minor, or if they feel they do not know enough of the issue, or for other reasons. A person may "block" if they feel the decision will be a major mistake. One person's block stops the process. Depending on the issue and the number of people present, a number of stand asides can equal a block.
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4.As the fair expands many people feel the need to have a Village Fundraising booth in another area of the fair. There would be a lot of kinks to work out including, how the money would be taken care of, would the fair operations/board/craft committee approve, and would the Village or the non-profits profit or would both profit from it and what of this might we share via the Jill H. fund, and can we give away money on our own. We did not agree that we want this, but we did consensus that it was ok to investigate it and see how it might work. A committee will form of interested people, with Tim (5217208 or tim@kindtree.org) as the contact person. The committee will find out the questions and answers about it and bring us a plan or report on the investigation for our next meeting.
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5.Some camping problems were discussed. Behind the Stage area to Shady Grove and a bit further has always been both a camping space with a big green space around the back and sides of it full of green undergrowth. Over time this has changed. Some of it has been taken up by a booth on the path near Shady Grove and Shady Grove expansion. Some of it has been taken up by village expansion. This is caused by our children/grandchildren growing up and needing more space and the fact that we don’t have as much loft space as we used to, and because as we age we need more space. It makes sneaking in easier. It makes us able to see thru the space that used to be dense forest. One of the problems is that some of these people who are cutting into this area are people who rarely or never come to meetings. Another problem is that teens are often not supervised. How do we deal with green space vs. growth? The Village directed the council to put this on the council agenda and bring it back to the village. We also consensed that; There is currently a Teen Safety Rap in the village Yurt at 7pm on Thurs. that could include camping tudes in the future. Who sponsors this so we can get in touch? Also coordinators should be giving out this information to all the people in their area or booth.
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The next council meeting will be at the regular date, Tue, Oct 18th at Tim’s. Please contact the village phone or email for the address.
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The village meeting ended with hugs at about 9pm.

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