Team/Committee reports

San coordinating reports.

No meeting between now and end of September - urgent decision process may be brought into play.  Folks should read up on how Urgent process is run.

Kai: READ YOUR EMAIL.  LISTEN TO YOUR ANSWERING MACHINE. :)

San: per: greg's equity member proposal.  normally 2 weeks from announcement - because he's going away - ALL members, by person, should contact the coordinating committee ASAP with their input.  Email, in person, or phone call.

Marketing

Focusing on publicizing the slideshow as a marketing event.  Laura and Mary have homework stuff for us - dwight asks where it is?  Cat will check.

Finance

Made our cash call!  Biggest cash call we've ever had.  (over $18,000).  Signed on folks still need to talk to the Finance team if they haven't done so yet.  Kai invites anyone in the group to talk to the finance team about the financial structure. During the 2nd meeting with Chris, there were many many questions that were asked of Chris that people should have known.  Check with the Finance team!

Cat suggests an 'intro meeting refresher' might be good for some folks to run through again.  Its been a while. 

Legal

Only the current lawyer stuff.

Website

Someone pointed out that the old minutes are still in the search engine.  Working on a way to purge it.  Dwight takes an action item for search update.

Membership goals.

Not usual definition of equity member – talking about someone who ahs actually reached                 5%.  At the moment 5 households have hit.

Sept of 2004 we need to have 23 households that have hit 5%.

If we stay on a year plan, we're not going to make this.  The only way we're going to do it is if we have 9 households right now to commit.

CR has recommended we raise our monthly thresholds.   CR recommends bringing us to                 their 5% in 3 months.  Cat thinks we can do it with 6 month windows.

Sarah: If we don't have land past this fall (things fall through) - yes, everything shifts off. 

Action item for cat - the contract shifts the timeframe if we don't get land. 

San and Sarah point out this is number of households, not just flat money amounts. 

Kai: "They want ½ the units SOLD by the threshold 1 year from now.  aka 'pre-sold'" Pre-qual question - needs to be done as soon as someone signs on as an equity member or very close to it.

John asks when the timeline starts: Answer: at the end of feasibility (2yrs)

San: we need a more concrete proposal - finance/coordinating?

Cat takes an action item for the propsal and canvassing financial information.

Dwight: this should go into the urgent decision queue.  Since its part of the CR contract. 

San: 3vs6 month question.  Sees going 6month now, 3 months in a bit.  Dwight agrees with San.  Gives current associates a chance to get into the 6mo schedule.

Cat agrees we could do 6 months, but CR has strongly stated doing 3 months.

Roxanne suggests a rollup.

Sarah: "What about the whole 'special arrangements' with the finance committee." Cat: yes, but within the current deadlines - and can't really count them until the payoff is complete.

Kai brings up its important to keep the cash flow up.  A 6 month rollup may strain the early cash flows.

Cat suggests allowing a '5% all at once' buyin.

Dwight brings up that the cash call process is not just a 'bring cash in when we need it' process.

San proposes that this discussion is exactly what finance and membership need to work out into their proposals, and the discussion should be taken out of the meeting.  Agreed.

San: Take into account a change of the unit size.

Equity member cap.

Raised initially by CR "We won't do a landsearch with more than 10 equity households"                 Cat: this cap is "until we secure land" - CR does not recommend a cap now.

Kai points out that we really haven't 'secured' land yet.  We haven't agreed totally on it, and feasibility has not been completed.  Cat: their experiences has been that the issue is getting a group to actually make an offer, and we have done that already (several times)

Cathy: how can we simultaneously be looking at capping equity memberships as well as ramping up our equity memberships to meet out timelines.

Kai: the timeline is from the time property is locked in - and are separate issues.  If we completed our land acquisition at the end of September, the cap would be completely off.

Cat: phrasing - "go with CR's proposal - from 'acquired site' to 'agreement to go ahead with a specific property' - e.g. , the same milestone for starting the timeline.

Kim brings up a concern about the psychological impact of telling a prospective equity member to "Wait!  Hold on until we make this important decision, then you can give us your money"

Kai: "I hear that." - Kai's concern is about what happens if we don't decide on land at the end of December - we would consider a cap if we don't have land by, say, end of October.

Kim’s concern is mostly about incoming new equity members.  She feels that if all  Associates became equity members now, we could still come to consensus.

Kai: Part of this is not having to use consensus blocking when a new household comes in and tries to pull us in another direction.

San: try to come up with phrasing regarding current associates being able to become equity members, but newcomers could not as part of the definition of the cap.

John: Were talking a cutoff date for instituting the cap? (Yes)

Greg: Points out that the feelings that were brought up were in place before (about holding the equity membership), but is okay with it now.  Mostly because I'm comfortable with the process now.  Just being clear because this is different from what I had said to Dwight and Kai.

Cat proposes:

We are implementing a temporary cap on equity memberships until the group has chosen a site exclusively and moves beyond feasibility.   Associates who have joined before 8/18/2002 are exempt from this cap.

 Passed.

-- break --

Rosa brings up that the equity members having an 'out of bounds' discussion about the equity members cap was a little bothersome - not a big issue, but imporant enough to bring up.

Kim talking about Landsite.

 Kim has talked with the agent about hte horse farm.  the agent is not very good at returning mail.  Supposed to be a meeting this last tuesday with the selectmen.  They didn't have a quorum, so they rescheduled for August 27th.  However, there is already discussion in town about it.  The name "MC" has not been mentioned.  The lawyer and the RE agent has agreed to keep our name out of hte loop.  Its in the maste prlanning board, newspapers, etc.

 There are rumors all over the town about what the town is going to do with it.  The attorney and the RE agent are 'cautiously optimistic'.  They're finalizing the 'first right of refusal' for MC.

 If Stow works out, the Selectmen will sponsor an article at the 'next town meeting' and then the town would vote on it.  With the major card we have with the underground river and the conservation land, we're in a good position.

 Greg asks about monitoring hte local paper online - roxanne 'townonline.com'.   Greg asks 'if we have to wait until next spring, we can't move ahead until then.' - Kim says that's the way it is.  Cat brings up that its not necessarily an issue - its mostly a 'we're making a plan'.

Cat - this is all part of the buildup plan.

Kim asks if the current process for kim working with CR has been okay?  Cat points out that we are contractually obligated to CR to have a weekly conference call.

Greg thinks that if a conference call can  happen, it should happen.

How to talk about the sites:

“We have an offer accepted on a site in maynard and are moving forward with feasibility on that site, but until we have a strong letter of support from the neighborhood coalition, we are continuing to pursue a number of other strong possibilities, including a site in Stow.”

Site workshop:

The site workshop is scheduled for the 13-15, slide show on Fridy night is both a marketing event and for everyone in the group to come to.  The weekend days are 9-5 - for that portion of the weekend there are homeport booklets to get from Mary and Laura out to the group - things like preferences on site and site design.  Someone could take on looking at the books and pointing out the chapters - Sarah.   Also audio. 

Joan - Is there any way that she can give her input ahead of time. - Yes.

Sarah - can we tape it?

Greg - how wil the kids be involved? San - Emma will be involved to some extent. 

Cathy - who is welcome to the workshop?  Signed on folks only

Cat: Request for a visual way for them to know who is anassociate vs who is an equity member.

Rick: Makes him grumpy - for him, in this matter why don't we make it so that the associates have equal weight

John: Why do they need that separation? Rosa: Equity member shave a strong way to say no but not a stronger yes  this is something we talked about in context of looking for land, and she suspects that they are looking for a way to make sure that equity members interests and priorities are given higher priority.

Greg: A way we can do it that might be easy if one group wears silly hats.

Cat: might be appropriate under these circumstances because we know who is who but they don't

Joan: concern about people who don't know us making value judgments on what we're saying.  But we don't know them - Cat: this is in part what we're hiring them to do

Kai: these are creative people, they will try to come up with ideas based on our input - it's important for them to weight the input, on the other hand, we've been doing things in a different way than they are used to - we can define a new way of doing things, and they can learn from us a new way of how associates are incorporated into the group.

John - uncomfortable with the status that this would put in in the meeting.  But, we can add weight to the suggestions of associates

Kim - this is a 2 day workshop - how much of this is us working through stuff in a consensus manner?  We work through a lot of stuff - Cat to find out.

Sarah - from a personal perspective - wants to join!  Was going to wait to announce.   Would hate to be put in the 'associate' category from the meeting even though she hasn't joined yet, didn't think there was any rush to join.

Roxanne - people who will take the weekend commitment are committed!

Rick - We trust are associates with a lot - let's trust their value judgments on this.  Why shouldn't they have a voice in this.

Rosa - more people expressing leaning away from identifying associates than leaning towards?

Joan - part of the the workshop

Logistics:  Food, babysitting, parking, etc - Central square location, parking is tricky.  Carpooling would be a good thing.  Roxanne will coordinate food, San will get with her about local restaurants.  Roxanne will do this on list.   San - two people on Saturday, Laurie for Sunday, may need another person?  Park at Alewife?  Need someone to meet Sal at the place beforehand.    Breakfast beforehand on your own.  Plan to arrive between 8:30 and 8:45

Rick announces he's stepping back from the group while school starts up again.  Will be around for socials

Empowerment discussion. - Rosa

How we handle recommendations of bringing folks to the group / CR recommendations, etc.  Its important to take into account the work that outside consultants an people within the group have - and allowing them to make the decisions in the best informed way they can.

San asides that the groups that are coming back with recommendations have to come back with enough information to let the group make a good decisions. 

Dave points out that the discomfort of this comes from the consensus model 'giving up some power' to the professionals and the committees - but we have to allow for that.  It gets unwieldy with large groups.

Greg points out this is the whole issue that came up with the Legal committee.

John agrees with the empowerment of the committees.

Sarah talks about placing herself on committees where they are showing interest of have the greatest mental energy invested.

General Meeting 9/29 is the next one.  Most likely the place in Whitney Place.  Judy wonders if we can have something in the middle.  Monday Sept 9th, Chris in town.  Chris can meet with subcommittees early in the visit, and everyone later in the visit.

Rosa Moving party - 8/28 - help appreciated.  Wednesday.  Drinks and the like.

Sarah - tie-dye party tis coming saturday August 24th.

Kim - drumlin farm outing?  October 5th?  1-5:30  Kim will followup.

Dave and Cat's renewal of vows on September 7th.

Kim says lets talk more about this after the workshop.

Poll for Pathways and/or Pioneer Valley - August 31st or Sept 21st or 22nd?  Mail sent to PV.

Site workshop follow-up 9/19 at Dwight and Steph’s.

Greg will scan Emma’s site layout.

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Last modified: August 23, 2002