Jan
18
Notes from 16 January 2008 DRUUMM Steering Cmte Conference Call
Present: Manish Mishra, Mel Hoover, Hope Johnson, Adam Robersmith, Robette Dias (taking notes), PaKou Her from Crossroads.
Proposed Agenda
Mtg with the UUA Board on Friday
General Assembly Security Issues
Interweave Requests for Letters of Support
DRUUMM Consultancy Process
Leadership Vacancies — no Treasurer at present
DRUUMM’s participation on the UUA Diversity on Ministry Team
Board Meeting–(VP1) Danielle DiBona may not be able to attend the Board meeting on Friday because of an illness in the family. We should still ask Adam to go on his own to represent us (Adam joined the call after this discussion took place and is planning to go the meeting). Manish will talk to Adam on Thursday to prep him for the Board meeting. We’d like him to say DRUUMM desires a deeper ongoing relationship with the Board and to propose some kind of social interaction at GA with more than just two of us. Manish will also ask him to raise the financial issues around the Capital Campaign we talked talked about on the last conference call. The notes for that were sent out earlier this evening to the Steering Cmte list serve. (Sorry for getting them to you all so belatedly).
GA Security Issues–GA this year is being held inside the US port security zone in Fort Lauderdale. This means you will need to have a government issued ID in order to get in to GA. This also means any undocumented folks who are part of the UU community will not be able to get in. Some young folks may not be able to get in either. The Planning Cmte is supposed to be working on that, meeting with groups that may be impacted by this. One thing they have devised so far is to have Chaplains present at each entrance to support folks and work through problems that may arise. The Planning Cmte also will address in plenary the painful reality of the high levels of security and the current situation in our country that makes it a reality. Some folks are proposing a second GA site where ID is not required to hold non-business events and worship. Adam has sent a letter to the UUA board outlining his concerns about the security issues and saying he will not attend GA because of them. (After we had this discussion Adam and Hope joined the call, Hope asked Adam if he would mind circulating his letter among us and he has agreed to do that. I think Hope will be sending it to the Steering Cmte list) .
DRUUMM’s official position on the security at Ga is that we see it as a problem and we (DRUUMM) need to be prepared to deal with it as a problem, but that we as an organization will not boycott GA because of it. When Manish talks to Adam on Thursday he will ask him not to let the Board engage him around this issue while he is there to represent DRUUMM’s concerns. But to invite the Board to engage him separately if they are interested in doing so during a time that is not DRUUMM’s time with the Board.
Interweave request–Recently in the UUA Board’s reorganization of UUA affiliate organization, most identity based affiliates lost their affiliate status. DRUUMM is one of the few (only?) to continue as an affiliate. As a result, several of these former affiliates have approached us to ask us what we did to maintain affiliate status. Since we didn’t actually do anything directly, Manish ahs been tlling people they should engage the Board with this question, not us. That the Board needs to explain their decision to folks and keep that dialogue open. Recently the Steering Cmte received a letter from Interweave (which he circulated on the list serve) asking DRUUMM for a letter of support for their application to regain affiliate status. Our decision is to not do this, that we don’t think we have a role mediating other groups relationships with the Board.
Our participation on the Diversity on Ministry Staff Team or DOMST–Chester (McCall) has been representing DRUUMM on DOMST for many years. In recent months, Chester doesn’t always know what has been going n in DRUUMM and what we have discussed on particular issues that concern our membership. This happened recently after the Annual Conference, which Chester was unable to attend. Sophia (Sofia Betancourt) on the other hand was at the Annual conference and so has the latest input from our constituents. At a recent DOMST meeting she was in the position to contradict Chester and state DRUUMM members actual thoughts on an issue. This puts her in the position of representing us, which is awkward for her as a UUA staff person and convener of DOMST and Chester in an awkward position as our official representative. The problem here is not with Chester but with our lack of a system that supports Chester’s participation in those meetings. Technically we have been invited to have two representatives at the table, but Chester is the only one who has consistently been available to do this. A question we raised was, “Is there financial support for a second person to go?” Having a DRUUMM representative attend in isolation is part of the problem.
How do we keep Chester (and anyone who would represent us at DOMST) in the loop about the current needs and concerns of ministers and seminarians? And how do we get feedback and debrief what happens at those meetings? We need more of an accountability structure. Two representatives of the Steering Cmte (Mel and Robette) were delegated to check in with Chester about his experience and begin to develop a plan to provide support and accountability for this position. And maybe even to find a second representative to attend those meetings.
Consultancy with Crossroads and DRUUMM reorganization–Crossroads has developed a survey questionnaire to use with DRUUMM members, Manish circulated it on the list serve. PaKou mentioned there may be additional information we want to collect that is not on this draft, for example we might want to collect, identifying/demographic information such as race/ethnicity, age, UUA district where participants live, whether they are professional or lay folks. While at the same time allowing people the option of completing the survey anonymously. The survey should be easy for people to complete, while at the same time asks pointed questions to try to get to heart of issues folks. The first two pages of the document provide background information to help set the context for the survey. Manish thinks the questions are fine, but worries because all require narrative responses, which in his congregational experience he has not seen good completion rates. In congregations hard to get people to answer 3-4 questions, will people really give the time to do the answers well? Hope suggested the invitation to complete the survey has to be carefully made and the context for it clear. Also people need a deadline and consistent appreciation and encouragement to complete it.
PaKou clarified that the survey was created with the idea the Steering Cmte would use it strategically. We would invite targeted individuals to participate. We would develop talking points to engage stake holders in the survey process, especially those who we have no other way to get their feedback, giving as many voices as possible the opportunity to transform DRUUMM for the next generation of its existence. This is not intended to be used as a general survey, Crossroads could create a second “buckshot” survey to use with just anyone if we think that would be useful.
As we talked it became increasingly clear the Steering Cmte has not thought out a strategy for data collection very well. We need to figure out how to identify our stake holders and hook them up in an appropriate way with our Crossroads consultant. Whether that’s to meet with them face to face, by phone or to use the survey. (We still need to communicate with the membership about the consulting process, for example by posting the contract on the website). The Steering Cmte needs to drive the consultancy process. Some of us need to think through this and to be the interface with Crossroads on a more regular basis. The monthly Steering Cmte conference call are not effective for doing this, it would be helpful to have more frequent touchstones both around connecting with stake holders and logistics for events (email and phone call would work here). We need a group of us to midwife the consulting process, to guide it and nudge it along. Mel and Robette agreed to convene this group. They will get the group working and report to the Steering Cmte via the list serve. We stayed on the phone after the rest of the Steering Cmte and have chosen two other DRUUMM members not on the Steering Cmte who we are going to invite to work with us.
Treasurer vacancy–Robette offered to take over the treasurer duties until a new treasurer can be found. She will contact Cathy Chang and work with her to transfer the necessary records and materials before our next call.
Next call 20 February 2007 at 9:30 PM eastern, 8:30 central, 6:30 pacific time
If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe to the RSS feed!
Comments
Leave a Reply