More on tomorrow's conversation on organizational structure...

[Davis Taylor]

Hi All,

 

     A significant agenda item for our conversation tomorrow is Cooperative Maine's organizational structure. The purpose of this e-mail is to frame that discussion and offer some thoughts and possible discussion points.

 

     Over the weekend Ed distributed via Google documents a document that has both our latest thinking on the topic, plus what somewhat amounts to a history of other ideas we've kicked around in this regard. That document can be found at

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZ5vb1KW1NsHZDdjendmcl81MWZmMnI4cGZo&hl=en&invite=CJ3QkFk

(I had a bit of trouble accessing it from Ed's e-mail...but was able to get to it via www.docs.google.com )

 

By way of orientation, the top of the document has what represents a synthesis of what we've been discussing as far as organizational structure: several standing committees, several positions, and some processes. Note that

 

      -We have the three regular committees about which we've discussed already: ADMINISTRATION, COMMUNICATION, and RESOURCES. (Descriptions of committee functions follows the first "processes" section.)

 

  -Each of these committee has associated with it a coordinator; additional positions are general coordinator and volunteer coordinator

 

     -The document also proposes a STEERING committee...this committee could operation only for a time, while we're getting geared up, or could be a permanent committee...something to discuss tomorrow.

 

     -At first blush, this structure may appear to "leave a lot out." It is a fairly spare structure...which I think provides both an elegance and a durability. To illustrate, one might ask, for example, who has responsibility for helping those interested in forming a cooperative. That role, under my understanding of this structure, is Communications. In fact, Communications does most of the external functioning of the organization...if you think about it, Cooperative Maine is all about communicating to the rest of the world about cooperatives. The other committees can be seen as providing the mechanisms for keeping the organization "alive": Resources (nutrition), Administration (homeostasis), and Steering (direction, motivation, movement). Of course, there will still be a need for ad hoc and project-oriented committees. For tomorrow: does this approach make sense?

 

    So, just some thoughts and explanations for our conversation tomorrow.

 

Davis

   

   

[jsimpson]

You all are amazing!  I'm so grateful to have seen you in action.  If you leave out some things....meaning to keep the spare-ness and simplicity....then there is room for everyone to feel responsible .  That way, things can be shared or picked up in the most efficient and simple ways.

 

New times really do call for different structures...and the cooperative movement is still new enough to leave room for imagination...spaces....

---

From: Davis Taylor [mailto:davisf...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 12:47 PM
To: cooperat...@googlegroups.com; cooperat...@gmail.com
Subject: [Cooperative Maine] More on tomorrow's conversation on organizational structure...

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