GOAT Monthly Community Call, 19 April 2023
Date: April 23, 2023
Time: 9am PT, 12pm ET
Meeting Link: Social Co-op GOAT Gatherings room .
Calendar: Calendar – GOAT
Agenda
- How to run an unconference - upto 30 minute discussion
- Co-ops activity pt 2
- Poll open now for the next GOAT CO-OP meeting time
- Announcements:
- GOAT movie series watch party/discussion starts 4/28
Attendees
- …
Notes
Holly from Vermont Housing and Conservation Board is looking to put on an un-conference and would like to understand what kinds of groups this works for. Should they get a consultant? Where should they start?
Juliet - follow the GOSH un-conference format for the GOAT format. GOSH Framework for Running Community Events.pdf - Google Drive.
Approach from a community perspective.
Getting Started:
- Our Miro to plan the week: Miro | Online Whiteboard for Visual Collaboration
- Asked the question ‘why are we here?’ ‘What do you want to accomplish?’
- Days 2-5 were planned on Day 1
GOSH is more international and more people are from academic institutes.
The Un-conference structure was very similar to GOAT.
GOAT had some excitement around people leading and facilitating the sessions, whereas with GOSH people were more timid to lead a session.
GOSH was based on methods for un-conference that were created a long time ago.
Each session had 1 facilitator and 1 note taker. All topics and notes were documented on the forum, and the discussions continued there after the conference. Facilitators were told not to facilitate a topic you are passionate about, attend those sessions as an attendee. This way you can stay somewhat partial.
Attendee perspective - Great way to attend a conference. Facilitators need to be emotionally intelligent. Need to be ok with ambiguity. There is an urge to control things and come to a solution but need to be able to be ok with letting things go and move organically. Note taking ended up being extremely important. The aha moments were in the discussion. People were very present and engaged.
Only the first day was organized, after this the schedule was built together after we decided on topics.
Hats off - the conference is a series of components. Hats off (meaning take off your organizational hat) is a tool to put people in the mindset to create a community around similar values to bring them together as motivated individuals (this is the concept).
Wrap-up - we did a quick wrap because of Covid but we did an intentional closing session outside. Afterward we also captured feedback online.
Also important to create consensus around a few statements at the beginning. There is some pre-work on this to get it ready for the audience.
