Caretaking Council Minutes August 2023
All members of the Honey Locust Sangha Caretaking Council (CTC) were present at a Zoom meeting August 20, meeting on the third Sundays of each month: Patrice Watson (facilitator), Mike McMahon, Mark Watson, Mike McGann, Tina Ray, Dave Watts, Jim Cox and Juanita Rice (notetaker). We followed our usual sweet ceremony of a reading of the "Prayer" for harmony and understanding in our discussions and then sat quietly together for a few minutes.
Agenda Item 1. Treasury update. The current balance is $5369 (PayPal, $974, US Bank, $4395). This
is just slightly up from July balance.
Agenda Item 2. Update on the Newcomers study group: how is it going? Anything else we can do to help? The requested CTC attendees so far have been Juanita, Dave and Patrice. The next meetings are September 7 and 21. Mark sent out a schedule of Oldtimers delegated for each. Writing notes on topics discussed didn't help next "team" know what to expect and so we cancelled that idea. We are all agreed that we want to support the newcomers in this project and hope it will be useful for them. We want to do anything we can to support their initiative, but what would that be?
We speculated about ways to be useful but realized we needed their thoughts and ideas about it so we delegated Mark and Dave to speak with them and mutually assess and communicate. We will try to clarify that us "Oldies" don't claim to be experts or teachers and that their own thoughts and questions are more important for discussion than anything we can bring.
Agenda Item 3. Further thoughts on using sangha resources to help members with childcare costs?
In discussing the general question of what the sangha does with Dana donations we had been very happy last month to learn how many people had scholarships to the May residential retreat. The proposed uses of Dana/treasury are articulated in the "Dana email" regularly sent out via email by Patrice. A suggestion was made that we could also offer parents for whom sangha attendance was made difficult by the challenge of childcare some financial support/ "scholarships" for childcare. This would be done with the intention of enabling diversity of age and family relationships and financial strictures. Mark and Tina will meet to figure out how or if that could be feasible and helpful with clear parameters since it would entail cash paid out, unlike the relative simplicity of offering retreat fee reductions. Talking specifically with several sangha members who do deal with the issue should help us figure it out.
Agenda Item 4. Sangha Monday night meetings: comments on the current format and suggestions for improvements. We have changed some things to improve the sound within the Yoga Path - how has it gone? Other ideas?
Everyone agreed that "we're getting pretty good at this." Jim and Dave have done wonders to make the setup smooth and quick, to solve various previous problems. Occasionally there is random feedback or delay but not major problem and seems to be related to wi-fi signal strength. Several people who often attend via Zoom reaffirmed that seeing people's faces and hearing them
Introduce themselves is very important to feeling like a "united" sangha. Grateful kudos for Jim's solving of various speaker, microphone, hearing-assist issues and Dave's smooth setup of the phone/wifi/ computer coordination, and Mark's help with the tv. Our adaptations over the past several months have really succeeded in reaching a high level of satisfaction with the Hybrid meetings.
Agenda Item 5. Training update from Gina.
For technical reasons we need to establish our Zoom links with Honey Locust Sangha email instead of using Gina's email. Jim and Mark have a dedicated email address (or two) and password and Jim will send it to her. In the future if there is a snafu setting up hybrid system, whoever is setting up can use that for confirmation of account (instead of trying to call Gina for that i.d.).
Making someone on Zoom a Co-host when Gina is absent: this will be something covered in a Zoom training to be scheduled by Gina, about an hour long, to be able to cancel someone's screen share or mute a microphone, for instance. Patrice will be able to provide information for those who use phone or other device.
Among other Zoom technicalities:
i. Suggest Zoom attendees use“raise hand” feature for bowing in.
ii. Turning Original Sound ON so singing and bell can be heard (this has been going well).
iii. Maybe making a reminder list or card for whoever is setting up Zoom in Yoga Path
Agenda Item 6. Hybrid CTC meetings: for future CTC meetings when only one or two people cannot come in person, should the meeting will be a hybrid with others in person at the Yoga Path? It was persuasively suggested that hybrid meeting would be less inclusive for someone already burdened by time and distance. It was also proposed by Mike McMahon that in-person meetings should be somewhat alternated between Omaha and Lincoln and this was approved. Lincoln members Gina and Juanita indicated gratitude.
TABLED: Agenda Item 7. Update from the retreat committee on new teacher resources, opening to diverse viewpoints, and other opportunities, to expand our understanding of the practice.
All members of the Honey Locust Sangha Caretaking Council (CTC) were present at a Zoom meeting August 20, meeting on the third Sundays of each month: Patrice Watson (facilitator), Mike McMahon, Mark Watson, Mike McGann, Tina Ray, Dave Watts, Jim Cox and Juanita Rice (notetaker). We followed our usual sweet ceremony of a reading of the "Prayer" for harmony and understanding in our discussions and then sat quietly together for a few minutes.
Agenda Item 1. Treasury update. The current balance is $5369 (PayPal, $974, US Bank, $4395). This
is just slightly up from July balance.
Agenda Item 2. Update on the Newcomers study group: how is it going? Anything else we can do to help? The requested CTC attendees so far have been Juanita, Dave and Patrice. The next meetings are September 7 and 21. Mark sent out a schedule of Oldtimers delegated for each. Writing notes on topics discussed didn't help next "team" know what to expect and so we cancelled that idea. We are all agreed that we want to support the newcomers in this project and hope it will be useful for them. We want to do anything we can to support their initiative, but what would that be?
We speculated about ways to be useful but realized we needed their thoughts and ideas about it so we delegated Mark and Dave to speak with them and mutually assess and communicate. We will try to clarify that us "Oldies" don't claim to be experts or teachers and that their own thoughts and questions are more important for discussion than anything we can bring.
Agenda Item 3. Further thoughts on using sangha resources to help members with childcare costs?
In discussing the general question of what the sangha does with Dana donations we had been very happy last month to learn how many people had scholarships to the May residential retreat. The proposed uses of Dana/treasury are articulated in the "Dana email" regularly sent out via email by Patrice. A suggestion was made that we could also offer parents for whom sangha attendance was made difficult by the challenge of childcare some financial support/ "scholarships" for childcare. This would be done with the intention of enabling diversity of age and family relationships and financial strictures. Mark and Tina will meet to figure out how or if that could be feasible and helpful with clear parameters since it would entail cash paid out, unlike the relative simplicity of offering retreat fee reductions. Talking specifically with several sangha members who do deal with the issue should help us figure it out.
Agenda Item 4. Sangha Monday night meetings: comments on the current format and suggestions for improvements. We have changed some things to improve the sound within the Yoga Path - how has it gone? Other ideas?
Everyone agreed that "we're getting pretty good at this." Jim and Dave have done wonders to make the setup smooth and quick, to solve various previous problems. Occasionally there is random feedback or delay but not major problem and seems to be related to wi-fi signal strength. Several people who often attend via Zoom reaffirmed that seeing people's faces and hearing them
Introduce themselves is very important to feeling like a "united" sangha. Grateful kudos for Jim's solving of various speaker, microphone, hearing-assist issues and Dave's smooth setup of the phone/wifi/ computer coordination, and Mark's help with the tv. Our adaptations over the past several months have really succeeded in reaching a high level of satisfaction with the Hybrid meetings.
Agenda Item 5. Training update from Gina.
For technical reasons we need to establish our Zoom links with Honey Locust Sangha email instead of using Gina's email. Jim and Mark have a dedicated email address (or two) and password and Jim will send it to her. In the future if there is a snafu setting up hybrid system, whoever is setting up can use that for confirmation of account (instead of trying to call Gina for that i.d.).
Making someone on Zoom a Co-host when Gina is absent: this will be something covered in a Zoom training to be scheduled by Gina, about an hour long, to be able to cancel someone's screen share or mute a microphone, for instance. Patrice will be able to provide information for those who use phone or other device.
Among other Zoom technicalities:
i. Suggest Zoom attendees use“raise hand” feature for bowing in.
ii. Turning Original Sound ON so singing and bell can be heard (this has been going well).
iii. Maybe making a reminder list or card for whoever is setting up Zoom in Yoga Path
Agenda Item 6. Hybrid CTC meetings: for future CTC meetings when only one or two people cannot come in person, should the meeting will be a hybrid with others in person at the Yoga Path? It was persuasively suggested that hybrid meeting would be less inclusive for someone already burdened by time and distance. It was also proposed by Mike McMahon that in-person meetings should be somewhat alternated between Omaha and Lincoln and this was approved. Lincoln members Gina and Juanita indicated gratitude.
TABLED: Agenda Item 7. Update from the retreat committee on new teacher resources, opening to diverse viewpoints, and other opportunities, to expand our understanding of the practice.