Meetings and collective decision making

Meeting Roles and format

Meetings are opportunities for decision-making and communication between food co-op members. A successful meeting requires some forethought. This can be organised by assigning the various roles that a meeting requires at the previous meeting. The primary meeting roles at both co-ordinator and director meetings are:

Minute-taker (Secretary):

• Record minutes during meeting, including updating and creating action items.
• For coordinator meetings; print Announcements/ Reminders at end of meeting and place in diary
• Format and refine minutes before sending to Thoughtful Management and Directors e-list.
• Saves a copy in agreed location for records – e.g. drop box folder, Google drive.

Facilitator (Chair): 

• Go through minutes from last meeting to pull out
  • action items (from last week and those still pending from the week before)
  • any items we deferred until this week
  • any items that will need to get followed up on and discussed further this week.
• Collect new agenda items via email in the days before the meeting.
• Compile and send out the agenda to the management email list, including a reminder of who is down to do what roles for the meeting.
• Brings hard copies of agenda to meeting for other members to use, print double sided, and 2 to a page
• Facilitates the meeting, including acknowledgement of country, check-ins, action item updates and of course, agenda items.

Other Coordinator meeting roles

At co-ordinator meetings we also have the following roles:

Bulletin: Notes items to put in the bulletin from the meeting discussion. Writes bulletin items and sends them to the bulletin@thoughtfulfoods.org.au address to be included in the week’s bulletin.

Food: Prepares food for the meeting. This should always be vegan and will have additional requirements depending on the current collective – eg – sugar, gluten, peanut, garlic free.

Washing up: Washing up dishes and wiping down surfaces after the meeting.

Co-ordinators should make sure that when issues come up in the shop, they write them down in the diary, so that they can be put on the agenda for the meeting. Co-ordinators should also try to think of items it might be useful to put on the agenda, using resources such as the timeline and the How To Do Stuff Book, particularly in the area(s) covered by their role(s), and specific to their shift – so if you need more volunteers on a Wednesday morning, make sure you bring it up at the meeting!

Basic Agenda for Coordinator meetings

• Acknowledgement of Country
• Opening name circle with introduction and check in on how you feel/ what has been going on
• Confirmation of previous minutes * Go through previous weeks action items (quickly – coordinators/ directors should have updated them before meeting)
• Call for last minute agenda items, is any then added to end of agenda
• Standing agenda items:

1. Role updates
2. WHS
3. Food Safety
4. Roster
5. Finances
6. Vollie Requests

• General Business – previous weeks, new and last minute agenda items
• Allocate tasks. WHO is doing WHAT by WHEN
• Go through Announcements/ Reminders
• Set a date and location for the next meeting
• End meeting

Basic minutes should include:

• the agenda,
• list of tasks assigned,
• any proposals that were agreed to and
• a brief summary of any intense discussion or debate.

Collective decision-making

Below is a resource on collective decision-making:Collective Meetings – what you need to know

What is a collective?

A collective is a group of people working together towards a common goal. A collective is different from a club or committee in several ways:

• Collectives actively aim to avoid hierarchies of power or information. This does not happen on it’s own and requires conscious work.
• They are a form of participatory democracy in which every person’s opinion is given equal weight in decision making
• Collectives primarily make decisions by a consensus process
• Collectives usually have stated or unstated participants’ agreements that the group works within. These include challenging racist, sexist, and homophobic or classist statements and actions.
• Collectives are a political form of organising because they aim to break down power structures in society.

Participants Agreements [developed by Bill Moyer]

I agree:

• That I am entitled to my opinion and experience, regardless of whether others think it is right or wrong.
• That everyone else is entitled to his/her opinion and experience, regardless of whether I think it is right or wrong.
• To discuss, not argue.
• To listen to everyone’s opinions and experience without interrupting or arguing afterwards.
• To disclose my opinions and experience without trying to convince others that I am right.
• To share the group’s time equally.
• That I am 100% responsible for asking 100% of what I need, 100% of the time – and then negotiating.
• To use “I statements” eg. “When (something happens), I feel… and I would prefer that …
• That I will not disclose information that other participants disclose about themselves. (This is to make our gathering a safe space for people to speak openly)

We keep a progressive speaking list – meaning the speaking list may be edited to prioritise people who have not spoken before or to respond to power imbalances

We practice consensus decision making – this is a process of discussion and negotiation in which all participants viewpoints are considered and the final decision is unanimously accepted by the group.

So what’s with the hand signals?

We Do:	We Mean:
Reach one arm out in front of us	Can you add me to the speaking list
Point two parallel hands at the person who is speaking	I request to jump the speaking list in order to directly respond to this person
Twinkle (wiggle) our fingers pointing upwards (or click fingers)	We agree with or are excited by this idea
Make a letter C with out hands	Can you clarify what you are saying? (jumps speaking list)
Make a letter P with our hands	I have a suggestion to the facilitator to change the process of this meeting (jumps speaking list)