Home - Minutes - General resources - Steering group activities (pdf) - Evolution to hub
Friends Meeting House – Jesus Lane; 11th January
Present: Anna (chair); James S (presenter), Martin (secretary), James T, Nicola, Nicky, Maggie, Bev, Corinna, Jono, Nigel, Iain, Jacky, Pippa, Ceri, Daniel
Notes written by Martin with a few amendments from Anna. Let us know if you'd like to amend anything else.
The meeting was called to discuss the proposal to dissolve the Steering Group and form a Hub to coordinate decision making and activities for Transition Cambridge.
Discussion was held on which model should be followed: the current Steering Group (offering central coordination and decision making, with topic groups making independent decisions in relation to their activities) or a Hub (peripheral decision making by the groups, not clear yet what aspects of decision making would be taken by the hub).
In response to a question about the reasons for evolving Nicky mentioned size of the whole group and potential burn out for the Steering Group members. Nicky felt that the steering group had reached a decision that they couldn't continue because they were tired. They have been talking about it for some time now, and are pleased to have finally organised a meeting to get the process started.
Daniel expressed a view that if the current model works then don’t try to fix it. He posed the question of what 3 things are not happening now?
James T suggested that we include more people in the Steering Group to open it up and be more inclusive.
Ceri explained that there was an increasing amount of work to do and both Anna and Nicky supported this by confirming that the Group was becoming exhausted and could not carry on.
The move to a Hub was proposed in the TT Handbook and we should not stray from this model. We should not expect huge disagreements in the future that would require a strong central organization. Daniel questioned whether we should change just because the Handbook says so. James S replied that the steering group could continue if necessary (i.e. it wasn't 100% final that the steering group had to dissolve).
Jacky cited the request of input into the EEDA regional Plan where we could have commented on more that just the food issues had there been an effective way of including all other groups in the preparation. The hub approach would have helped with this.
Daniel said we should not change just because it is hard and that the Handbook says that we should.
Maggie said that dissolving the Steering Group would make TC more open and easier for the community to connect with as the organization would not be so centralized.
The discussion moved on to raising more practical points of how any such group should operate.
Nicola suggested that meeting only once per month would not be enough for timely coordination. Corrina questioned if there needed to be 2 representatives from each sub-group? Ceri supported the proposal of two from each group as then neither could push their own agenda.
James S stressed that not much would change and that it should not be considered to be a one off major change. Decisions will be made when they need to be made.
Maggie welcomed the prospect of more cross fertilization.
James T and Daniel stressed that they thought that it was a significant change and should only be done after careful thought and assessing the alternatives.
Iain said that face-to-face contact is important so we do need a physical forum (as opposed to an electronic one).
Jono reminded the meeting that the Steering Group currently does more than awareness raising so we do need to maintain a decision making forum.
Nicola pointed out that there were shared resources and we need to facilitate the use of these through for instance an office or central storage place. It was suggested that the proposed new admin group could manage this.
Jackie wondered if the change could be unsettling for the wider community in that the current leadership will have disbanded with a consequent risk to the future of TC. We currently have visible structure and whatever replaces it must be visible and transparent. In response, Nicky said that we could maintain a list of contacts on the website.
Ceri was concerned that the Hub may not meet regularly – we need to ensure that it happens. Anna agreed and said there was a need to appoint a secretary etc for the Hub.
In response to Pippa's question about members with multi-group membership, Iain suggested they should speak only for the Group that they were nominated by.
Jono pointed out that the Steering Group could hold the hand of the Hub until it was up and running to ease the transition.
Maggie stressed the importance of continuity of ideas and that we should not lose this.
Nicola suggested that the Steering Group should list their responsibilities so we can decide how best to cover them all. Anna agreed to write out what the steering group do currently. Iain agreed to look up examples from other groups that show how this might work.
After two votes to gauge the interest in pursuing the proposal it was agreed that further discussion was required and we would meet again on Monday 18th January at 7.30 in CB2 cafe cellar. Anna will confirm this and list in the Bulletin - (actually she will e-mail everyone with the info).
The Meeting closed and was followed by a showing of the “In Transition Film”.