Alex, Leigh and Trinlay met on October 29 to continue fleshing out ideas around Bhumisparsha’s organizational restructuring. The summary notes below include:

A. Possible ways to streamline our current sociocratic circle model

B. Two structural models reviewed today

C. Updates to proposed process of ratification of a new structure

In addition, anyone who wishes may watch the meeting in full ( about 90 minutes - use Passcode: 4#gCLE7+ )

A. Possible ways to streamline our current sociocratic model

In discussion about how we might rework and hybridize our sociocratic circles model, some possible ideas that we talked about could be:

Employing several part time positions to staff needed roles
Keeping the general and mission circles, but clarifying and streamlining
- Mission circle to oversee- budget, major policy decisions, structural decisions
- General Circle would be mostly paid staff overseeing the day-to-day

Position of General Coordinator (linking Mission and General Circles) to be revised - opens up allocation of resources for other paid positions.

Inclusion of Conflict resolution space run by Bhumisparsha Chaplains and volunteer Community Ethics Project (CEP) members - this could be funded by CEP budget

B) Two structural models offered for review and consideration.

Ms. Brenda Collins Organizational structure: Possible Organizational Structure.docx
Takeaways--

A more traditional management/organizational structure highlights who reports to who and uses the position of managers/ supervisors to streamline communications and decisions between departments. Establishing clear and efficient lines of communication.
Includes lamas as permanent members of the board.
We wondered, in what ways can these mechanisms be used in combination with our current circle model, which more strongly emphasizes collaborative and discursive space, but in which lines of communication/accountability are less clear?

Questions—

Lamas are proposed to be the Board of Directors in this proposal. Is this a viable way to work the positions of the teachers into our organizational structure? Do they want this?
How many positions are paid in this model? (Note: just two: an Operations Manager and current Teacher-Student Liaison)
Is a volunteer coordinator role viable as an unpaid position? Could some or all volunteer coordination fall to the coordinators of each circle or committee?
How does this model interact with some of the existing groups (like Resources circle) not included in the model?

Discussion —

What would effective and appropriate structures of accountability and oversight look like, in particular for paid staff?

One idea is that paid coordinators would function as “bottomliners” rather than “overseers,” for the collaborative work of the circle. Do they then hold responsibility for managing volunteers within their circle?
Who would the circle coordinators be accountable to? Who supports them? Who do they go to with concerns, or who can others go to with concerns about them? (27:32)

2. Alex’s revised circle model Organizational Structure Proposal 2021: Alex

Takeaways —

Look at separate advisory roles for Lamas outside of the Mission circle. In this proposal, the lamas would link 1) to the Mission circle through Mission circle President and 2) to the Practice circle through Student Teacher Liaison.
Create a permanent Community Ethics circle to make space for CEP, Conflict Resolution processes and other operations coming out of CEP.
Move fundraising from under the direction of Mission circle to the Resources Circle alongside Tech.
Looking at the two models, there is a need to bring together our circles model (which shows group functions and overlapping domains) with a structure which identifies the roles of our paid personnel (lines of communication and accountability).

Questions —

Where is the role of paid staff in this model? This proposal would see paid staff as linking members of circle connecting to General Circle, including the possibility of a payed coordinator for the Community Ethics circle, and the Student Teacher Liaison as the payed coordinator for the Practice Circle
What building blocks can we put in place and move forward with in terms of paid positions in our organizational structure?

C) Notes/ update to process of ratification of a new structure:

We discussed tweaking a proposal we had taken to the joint Mission/General circle group around the community process for adopting our new structure. The original proposal was (in addition to these public blog posts throughout):

Step 0: Trinlay/Alex/Leigh take all the feedback and ideas from the earlier General/Mission joint meeting, plus Ms. Brenda's ideas, plus anyone else's, and synthesize a draft structure proposal.
Step 1: Run this draft proposal by the Lamas to be sure it reflects their needs and desires. Tweak as needed.
Step 2: Share the new proposal with everyone who has served in a circle (past or present members of General, Mission, Tools/Resources, Fundraising, Community Ethics) to check for consent and objections. Where there are true objections, try to integrate/tweak the proposal so all who are weighing in can get to a place of "I can live with this enough to try it!"
Step 3: Post this same proposal on the website/blog for the community to see.
Step 4: Hold an open community meeting, in which we describe the proposal and process to-date, and seek any comments, questions, concerns. This will not be a decision-making meeting, but informational/consultational, and to surface any major concern missed.
Step 5: Hold a community ratification of the proposal (with some threshold to pass, TBD)

We received some feedback that this process would take a proposed structure to the

Lamas too soon, without ensuring enough input from circle members. We also learned that Lama Rod would be on retreat all of November. So we changed the process proposal for more feedback earlier in the process:

Step 1: Trinlay, Alex, Leigh draft an initial structure proposal, based on all feedback so far. Share it publicly on the news/blog and with circle members (includes lamas). (Nov)

Step 2: Seek feedback from past/present circle members on the draft asynchronously and, with scheduled meetings to publicly address any key issues tha have been identified in the recorded meetings with Trinlay, Alex, Leigh. (The wider community can continue to give feedback via the blog) (mid-late Nov)

Step 3: Trinlay, Alex, Leigh meet with the Lamas to ensure that the current proposal meets their needs/desires; identify any needed changes. (early Dec)
Step 4: Tweak the draft based on feedback received in Steps 2 and 3. (early Dec)
Step 5: Put the new proposal to past/present circle members (including lamas) for a vote to surface consent or objections. Where there are objections, attempt to tweak the proposal again to get everyone to a place of consent, if possible. (mid Dec)
Step 6: Hold an open community meeting, in which we describe the proposal and process to-date, and seek any comments, questions, concerns. This will not be a decision-making meeting, but informational/consultational, and to surface any major concern missed.
Step 7: Hold a community ratification of the proposal (with some threshold to pass, TBD)

Our recorded meeting ended there. Comments encouraged below.