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Proposal for PPO process and responsibilities
Submitted by Robin Canaday on April 15, 2006 - 10:37am
I have a specific idea of how we could organize our group activities. We already have working groups dedicated to certain areas of peak oil response, but I don't think the general group really understands how it all is supposed to work. I'd appreciate feedback on this proposal; I intend to integrate feedback from this site, then bring this proposal to the Council for further feedback and decision making.
A Proposal for PPO Process
My basic assumption in drafting this organizational process is that some people will enjoy coordinating projects and others would simply like to participate in projects they will enjoy. Each working group will coordinate projects within their areas of responsibility and attempt to recruit people into the projects that they coordinate. Projects don't even have to be coordinated by PPO members; a working group might refer someone to a project organized by another group (such as projects coordinated by Portland Permaculture Guild, etc.) A working group will be responsible for collecting data on local projects within their area of responsibility that help our cause.
I think each working group should assign one of their members to be a sort of representative or coordinator of that group, so that each working group will be represented at the General Meeting and at the PPO Council meeting. The job of the representative will be to keep the Council and general PPO members apprised of what their working group has been working on, and to coordinate with other working groups on cross-projects.
I believe that the Wednesday meetings should be focused on getting out the word about Peak Oil and recruitment into PPO working groups and projects. I propose that three of the Wednesdays every month be devoted to Outreach, with the second Wednesday being our General Meeting, and every fifth Wednesday being a local foods potluck and social gathering. At the General Meeting, each working group (except the Council WG) will take a table and discuss ongoing projects, take suggestions for new projects, and recruit new active members into the working group from the pool of gereral members. The Outreach WG will host a Peak Oil 101 table at the General Meeting for people who have just become interested in the topic of peak oil and aren't quite ready to become active in the organization yet. During the General Meeting, working groups can share the dates and times of their regular monthly meetings with general members who wish to become more involved with the working groups.
Since outreach will be doing alot of work in organizing most of the Wednesday meeting activities, I think we should figure out how to fund things they need to do their job, such as a projector, laptop and sound system. We need some good old fashioned fundraising efforts.
Working Group Responsibilities
This is an outline for divisions of responsibility within PPO. The reason we need to divide responsibility is so that each area of peak oil response can get personal attention. The only area I am unsure of responsibilities for is Neighborhoods. What is Neighborhoods supposed to be doing that isn't handled by another group? Perhaps Neighborhoods is a good group for general networking and informal connection building, and shouldn't be structured much at all.
Business/Council WG:
- Coordinate the General Meetings
- Establish overall goals and standards of behaviour
- Delegate new projects to appropriate working groups
- Create new working groups if needed
- Manage informational structures (IT)
- Check up on working group progress via working group reps
Outreach WG
- Coordinate 1st, 3rd and 4th Wednesday meetings
- Organize the Speaker's Bureau
- Create basic peak oil curriculum
- Draft scripts, speeches and marketing materials
- Be PPO voice to the media
Preparation WG:
- Preparation related projects
- Skills workshops, study groups and reading circles
- Networking with other organizations related to preparation
- Facilitate economic measures (investments, etc.)
- Create preparation library
- Resource inventories?
(Resource inventories would be lists of assets PPO members have available to them... such as garden space or equipment. It might help us coordinate our preparation effort immensely.)
Policy WG:
- Draft petitions and resolutions
- Be PPO voice to government organizations and business associations
- Handle regulatory conflicts with peak oil response
Neighborhoods WG:
- Coordinate with Neighborhood Associations (Policy?)
- Neighborhood resource inventories and tool libraries (Prep?)
- Canvassing/Talking to Neighbors (Outreach?)
- District oriented voting efforts (Policy?)
- Organize 5th Wednesday potlucks?
- Relocalization efforts (Prep?)
Please let me know what you all think about this... what could be added, changed or removed.
Robin Canaday
robincanaday@hotmail.com
ICQ 27717216
Our Current Structure
Robin - Thank you for the work and thought that went into this.
I think that what you wrote closely describes what we already have, except for how the Wednesdays are structured. The issue we have had is who will "staff" these working groups? For example, we have been talking about a speakers bureau for months, but no one has had the time to get it off the ground. No one got policy off the ground until Gene single handidly (working full time) did major wokr on it. The work you describe for the Outreach WG could be a full time job (40 hours a week) for at least one person, probably plus a few part timers (15-20 hours).
I personally believe that focusing only on outreach on Wednesdays is a potential dead end becasue once somone has gotten the understanding of PO, why should they continue to come weekly to hear more outreach? Also, if the SHTF suddenly then outreach will no longer be necessary and preperation will be what everyone will want to hear about.
These are just my opinions. Lets keep the discussion going. And I would encourage those that have opinions on this to first ask themselves how many hours a week they are willing to devote to this before they try to assign work to those who are already doing so much for the group.
Pam
Portland Permaculture Institute
A Post Carbon Outpost
Wednesdays
How many of our general members (those people who usually come to a handful of our Wednesday meetings, find nothing to do, and don't come back anymore) do you think know what our organizational structure is? I know I didn't know until I started attending the Council meetings. I don't think people tend to take action unless asked in very specific terms. We need to start asking people to act in very specific, limited terms. It's one thing to say "Help us organize this group" and another to ask "Can you come in at 2pm on Saturday to help fold flyers?" Once we start educating people on the projects we have going on and how they can help out specifically, it will be easier for them to progress into being more active in the organization, and possibly even taking leadership roles.
I think we should worry about SHTF when it does :P.
Having a standard format for Wednesdays will create less work, not more. I think we've been trying to mix two purposes for our Wednesdays meetings; I don't believe using them to make people aware of the basics of peak oil and trying to educate those who are convinced in needed skills are compatible goals for the same night. I see the Wednesday meetings as an orientation, a funnel, to direct concerned citizens into the working groups where they can get involved in specific projects in the areas they like. I can see a typical Wednesday meeting going something like this:
1. We are PPO, This is what we do and how we are organized.
2. Here is the relevant problem presentation (major focus of meeting)
2a. Possibly a speaker, movie etc., directed to address a newbie audience.
3. These are some of the projects our members are working on (list to be provided by other working groups, and edited for use by
outreach.) This leads into...
4. We need you to get involved, attend our general meeting where you can meet some of the people in our working groups and hear more specifics about the projects we are working on. (secondary focus of meeting.)
And of course, at the general meeting, people will be asked to participate in projects, be given meeting dates and times to participate, and probably stop attending Wednesday meetings (except maybe the general meeting.) But, isn't that what they're doing anyways? If our Wednesday meeting numbers start dropping, then perhaps we should switch to advertising only one orientation night per month.
If no one in outreach is willing to put together this outline/script, I'll do it. I'll need help from people who have done presentations already, however.
Robin Canaday
robincanaday@hotmail.com
ICQ 27717216
a couple points
I don't agree that we can worry about SHTF when it happens, and we could easily incorporate volunteering opertunities into the announcements at the beginning or end of the wednesday nights.
I agree that St. Francis is a collection point that could be put to much better use. However until a structure, a flow of people and speakers/events are proven then I don't see a need for outreach to take over 1st wednesday.
Just to be clear I'm glad you (Robin) are bringing up these points and am glad to see someone taking point. I do however need to say that structural changes need to be agreed upon at the council meeting.
cheers,
Jeremy
a couple points
Yes, it was my original plan to bring this to the council meeting. It seems like we never have time to go over all the details at those meetings, and have to start over again the following meeting. If I can get all the feedback here, it should be fairly simple to draft something that can be easily agreed upon at the meeting.
Robin Canaday
robincanaday@hotmail.com
ICQ 27717216
more thoughts...
Wow, you really have thought a lot about this! : ) I'd like to "volley back" to you from my perspective as a WORKING member of the preparedness working group. (Emphasis will be made clear!) I'm not saying I don't think we should change anything, just putting another point of view out there to consider.
There is a very small number of WORKING members in the prep group currently - an average of about 3 this year! With the 6 tasks on your list, that means we would each need to take on 2 new things on top of what we are already doing. Yikes! I am already feeling the singe of burnout the way things are right now. (Although I'm pleased that there appears to be some new interest in the group too.) Taking away the 1st Wednesdays from being a prep topic would ease that in a way, but it would necessitate that we secure a NEW venue every time we have anything to present to the group. (Since St Francis is only ours on Wednesdays.) THAT is actually a lot more work than it sounds. And people would have to choose how many meetings a week they want to go to. Not having it on a Wednesday will automatically lower the number of attendees 1/3 to 2/3 (based on my experience of many years with the permaculture guild) so the information will not get out to as many people and not be as productive of a use of our time spent to put it on. Right now I spend about 10 hours a month on JUST prep group stuff, not counting other PPO things I do like keep up with the website & email. I just don't have more time to put into it. There could be a way to change what it is that I'm doing, but I also LIKE what I'm doing. Some of the things listed for preparation are things I don't enjoy doing. How will we handle that? As a volunteer organization, we need to be responsive to the interests of the people who are willing to do more than just show up for meetings.
That's probably enough thoughts for now! As I said earlier, I don't want to reject any changes - I just want to make sure ALL the issues have been considered before we make them. Thanks for listening! Carla
Burnout.
The benefit of having a working group is that work is divided up within the group. No one person should have to do everything. What I'm trying to do by suggesting restructuring how we do Wednesday meetings is figure out how to recruit more people into working groups, and making Wednesdays more focused to a particular member involvement level by not trying to mix activities for new people with activities for people who have been attending meetings regularly. It doesn't matter to me if we devote our Wednesdays to Outreach in particular or divvy up the Wednesdays between various working groups. If no one thinks we need to devote our most of our meetings to Outreach, I do suggest that we use at least one of our Wednesdays for introduction to peak oil and PPO orientation exclusively, and use that meeting to refer people to other Wednesday meetings, project meetings or working group meetings.
I've been considering the amount of activity and interest PPO has been getting lately among our active and general members, and if things keep going this way everyone is going to be burned out and no one will be left to organize :P. I think we need a strategy to get people involved in the working groups so that we can spread out the work load. In the long run, getting people to advance beyond basic attendance will give all active members a lighter workload. Granted, it might take a little extra work to get it off the ground, but no one seems to notice that I've already volunteered to do some of that extra work.
Robin Canaday
robincanaday@hotmail.com
ICQ 27717216
resources and transition plans
The first thing I have to ask is where are the people, money and resources going to come from to do all of this? I'm in agreement that a lot of work needs to be done, but unless a transition plan is developed for this I see this as not really an option.
As for outreach taking over the 1st wednesday, I don't really see the value of this. The outreach group isn't that much more active then prep group. Don't get me wrong, I would love it if there was so much activity that the size of St. Francis was needed every wednesday.