Topic: GOAT Monthly Community Call
Date: March 15, 2023
Time: 9am-10am PT (12pm-1pm ET)
Meeting Link: Social Co-op GOAT Gatherings room .
Calendar: Calendar – GOAT
Agenda
- Creating a GOATy Co-op (request about 40 minutes by @paul121, @jgaehring, @3wordchant, @julietnpn). Please consider reviewing the following posts from GOAT 2022 as this will be an activity-based discussion:
a. Miro Board
b. Session: Coop Breakout Session / Cafe after hours Coop vision quest
c. Cooperative resources
- GOAT still not owner of digital ocean @gbathree
- Announcements:
a. Laurie is hosting a MOVIE NIGHT on March 17. The movie is Space Ship Earth. 3 Pacific / 6 Eastern. Calendar , meeting link tbd @laurieWayne
b. Forum is no longer prone to being flagged as spam! Thanks to @jgaehring @mstenta @3wordchant
- GOAT conference box, who wants it next?!
- … add your item here
Action Items
- Fill out the lettucemeet poll in the next couple days with your availability for the co-op follow-up call, we’ll decide on a date by end of week, @ me (jgaehring) if none of those times work.
- Keep adding to the Miro board if you think of stuff: names of coops, functions of a GOAT-y Co-op, more give/take items, etc.
- … anything else?
4 Likes
Just want to pin the spots in the Miro board where we can…
As @sudokita pointed out, really important to have a clearer idea of the functions of the GOAT-y Coop so we can ask the right questions if any coops agree to talk to us.
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GOATY Coop Work Session
03.15.2023
Facilitation: Juliet,Jamie, Calix, Paul
Scribe: Samuel
Google doc
Executive summary
Samuel gave a brief overview of how we arrived at this conversation, noting the after hours session and the coop blues conversation. The main themes were how to harness the enthusiasm of this community and how we might fill the gaps people might have in their own work with some kind of cooperative and pooling mechanism. The meeting was mostly conducted in Miro where participants engaged in a series of exercises. Jamie outlined the context for the meeting. Calix led a ‘know your coop’ exercise where people added coops that they knew. Juliet offered a ‘give and take’ session to determine what people needed and wanted from a coop. Paul facilitated a GOATY Coop exercise where people added goals and challenges they see with a cooperative/collaborative structure.
Following these exercises an informal conversation developed around how to order this process - ie) not putting the GOAT before the cart. A new panel was started for people to discuss specific functions that they wanted to see and how these might slot into different legal structures. The overall theme: Functions before structure.
Following the Miro exercises, Jamie shared a link to a Lettuce Meet poll to choose a time for a followup conversation to discuss next steps:
- Followup call - schedule here
- Decide on functions
- List of coop presenters based on functions
The group then discussed some fixes to the forum posts going to spam and the next destination for the GOAT box.
2 Likes
Excerpts and links from the meeting chat:
[08:53] Jamie (he/him): Miro | Online Whiteboard for Visual Collaboration
[09:07] Juliet: The notes from the break out cafe session at GOAT 2022 are here: Session: Coop Breakout Session / Cafe after hours Coop vision quest - #2 by samuejao
[09:25] Jamie (he/him): re: Connecting to Southern Hemisphere, I’m missing a session today that might be relevant to this, where GOAT was asked to join specifically, but joining part 2 next Mon (5am EST, ah!), dunno if others might be interested
[09:30] Jamie (he/him): maybe this is what Paul’s thinking, but I know “freelancer’s coop” is a category for corralling these kinds of admin tasks
[09:31] calix (they/them): Bus factor - Wikipedia
[09:33] Matt Noyes (he, Ute land): (A friend calls it the “rapture factor” - if that person were raptured, what would become of the project)
[09:38] Open Food Network USA: yes! and Matt Noyes who is here, is an awesome resource/friend of GOAT
[09:38] Genna: coops coming to talk about learnings from the process of starting a coop? things they wish they knew before they started the coop
[09:40] Ankita!: Can we ask everyone that is from a coop to share 1-2 functions that they think are worth sharing in a a minute?
[09:40] Matt Noyes (he, Ute land): happy to share info, ideas, resources when that feels helpful
[09:42] calix (they/them): We Are More Important Than The Work
[09:42] Genna: moving at the speed of trust
[09:42] Jamie (he/him): Follow-up meeting poll:
LettuceMeet - Easy Group Scheduling
[09:43] Michael DeChellis: Co-ops are really good at doing what GOAT already does - get common people together and see what happens - examples in 2 co-ops I’ve been recently exposed to here in Montana.
[09:44] Matt Noyes (he, Ute land): Definitely recommend this resource: How to Create a Solidarity Enterprise: Unit I | Grassroots Economic Organizing
[09:45] Matt Noyes (he, Ute land): zebras unite uses a hybrid: NPO + co-op structure for this reason
[09:46] Jamie (he/him): I recently learned in NY State worker coops CANNOT be a non-profit, but that is the only restriction here as I understand
[09:47] Genna: Cooperatives Program page from the Sustainable Economies Law Center. Building just and resilient economies through local ownership.
[09:48] Miguel Ochoa (UC Berkeley): non-profit requires more annual transparency (reporting, auditing), but donations are tax-deductible and qualify for foundation funding.
[09:48] Matt Noyes (he, Ute land): Better not to start from funding concerns, I think
[09:50] Ankita!: Solicit post-short term functions?
[09:51] Paul W: also just fun to learn about more coops, if they are willing to share, willing to learn 
[09:52] Juliet: 2023.03.15 - Community Call - Third Wednesday of Each Month @ 9am Pacific Time -
[09:58] Genna: Oh and sharing a new Quivira podcast episode with Dorn Cox talking about open ag and his new book with Courtney White (Down to Earth Podcast Episode 136 - Technology-assisted regeneration—a new vision for ecological agriculture)
[09:59] Ankita!: Thank you awesome facilitators!!!
[09:59] calix (they/them): thanks folks! 
[09:59] Miguel Ochoa (UC Berkeley): Thanks!
[09:59] Michael DeChellis: Thanks!!!
1 Like
Looks like Mon, Mar 27 at 1pm is the winner. Scheduled it and added it to the calendar.