Monday, June 2, 2025

Meraki Monday Jun 2 ZOOM

 

Meraki Monday June 2 on Zoom

Click here for a video recording of the meeting.
Click here for a summary of the meeting minutes created by Granola AI.

Attendees: Rebecca (ingatherer), Deb (facilitator), Mellen (timekeeper), Shelagh (vibe checker), Tasja (notetaker), Brian, Blair, Kiara, Marion

Meeting Format

  • Choose roles (Ingatherer, Facilitator, Timekeeper, Vibe Checker, Note Taker)
  • Ingathering
  • Briefly review How We Roll
  • Summarize previous meeting notes
  • Gather new agenda items
  • Set order and time for items
  • Attend to agenda items
  • Schedule future meeting(s)
  • Evaluation
  • Outgathering

Agenda

Dances 3x Month - Kari

June, July, Aug 10 - 12 at the Temple, although there's a chance it might change due to new Rabbi

Suggest that we tell people to check the website.

Agreed: Given the changes, Mellen will send weekly reminders for the summer and mention to check the calendar.

Dance Location Possibility - Kari

Possibility of dancing at Mechanics Hall. Lots has changed there recently. Kari has reached out to schedule a meeting to see the space and discuss possibility of rental. 

Lots of renovation has happened to return the space to the original 3000 sf, HVAC is planned, parking is not bad on Sun, garage across the street.

Marion: Was there last night and learned that the floor is not sprung. 

All: It's a lovely space, third floor with elevator, designed as a dance floor. Might not get the right size and sprung. Many of us have danced there before and love it.

Space committee will tour Mechanics Hall and talk about rental options and report back.

DJ Update - Mellen

DJs are working on a more formal training program to train more people at one time, rather than one at a time with scheduled training sessions, as well as a mentoring process like we have now. We have 3 - 4 people who have expressed interest. It would start in the fall. Will bring the proposal to Meraki soon.

Deb: Next DJ meeting will also consider asking for compensation for DJs as part of the proposal. We want group training so that people don't sign up and then bail. Proposal is that DJs-to-be would pay for this training to demonstrate their commitment and would get their investment back once they become a DJ, in some form.

Kiara: Is there a process for vetting DJs during the process? And also their ability to hold the space energetically?

Deb: Yes, but it's fallen on only some of the DJs. We need to share the load of vetting across more DJs so small group of DJs don't get burned out.

Kiara: I think we need to open up discussion about paying DJs more. We have to make it worth the DJs time because it takes so much time to put together a set.

Deb: We haven't had that discussion. There are also a lot of people who put in a lot of time to the organization as volunteers, so part of what DJs do could be considered volunteer, but thank you for brining that up.

Shelagh: How is it going with DJs in general?

Deb: Feeling really nice, and we now meet twice a month. What's harder is the training. We trained Dena, Keiki, and Sandra this year. But there have been others who haven't followed through. 

Kiara: Is there a chance to get Sage back? 

Deb: We've asked Sage to come back to the community first, but given their schedule, that might be hard.

Tasja: Let's update the website so the DJs are accurate. 

DJs will put forth a proposal for more formal DJ training.

Dance Collective Opportunity - Tasja

Tasja: At our Special Meraki meeting at Portland Community Squash, I spoke with Barrett of PCS about looking for a dance space. The very next day he was going to meet with Joe Porta, of Porta Real Estate about a property that Joe wants to offer at below market rental rates to a community organization in Bayside to help revitalize that area. He reached out to Barrett for ideas, and Barrett suggested a collective dance space! 

In 2 weeks, he pulled together about half the dance community in greater Portland to discuss the possibilities, including: Portland Ballet, who has been looking for a new space for a year, Casco Bay Movers, both Contra Dance groups, Latin, Mechanics Hall, African and Hip Hop, Circus, plus others who couldn't be there like Portland Swing and Afrobeats, Little House Dance. It was an amazing gathering that is just beginning to start networking to potentially collaborate on a space or multiple spaces, including creating a map of all dance groups in Maine to share information. 

Rebecca: Great to be with other dancers who are collaborative. What can we bring to this collaboration? What can we do to cross pollinate? Barrett is solid and amazing and has accomplished it with PCS. Let's hold loosely the next steps with this collaboration. 

Marion: Fabulous! There are lots of individual dance groups. What we don't have is the network of dancers. Would love to be part of it.

Rebecca: Planned Parenthood is supposed to be on the first floor of 190 Lancaster St. It could be so transformative for that area for the community. 

Kiara: An autoparts store is looking at 1037 Forest Ave, so it's good to think about community coming together to claim some space for dance. 

Tasja: Alex from Contra dance is an especially interesting person to have met at this meeting. His organization has a 501c3 whose missions is to Make Dance Happen around the state, and it's his full-time passion. Not just Contra but all dance. He came to see 1037 after the meeting at PCS on Friday and thought it had potential. He's a great person to collaborate with.

Anyone who is interested is invited to see 190 Lancaster St probably next Friday. 

Deb, Shelagh, Rebecca, Marion, Mellen would like to come from this group. Why not just invite everyone we invited to 1037? 

Tasja will invite people to see 190 Lancaster St when the invite comes and keep PCD informed as collective possibilities develop. Anyone from PCD is welcome to participate in this dance collective initiative. 

Special Meraki Meeting Feasibility Study Questions - Deb

At our last special Meraki, lots of questions on how to even proceed, let alone create a feasibility study. Was a feasibility study even acceptable? What if we don't form a committee but crowdsource questions and answers? 

Deb reads the intro of the document she and Claud AI prepared and walks us through it at a high level. (See link in Agenda)

Do we start using this document, and if so, how?

Reading through this document has value. It could be unifying to get people involved in understanding the process of what it would take to sublease, lease, or buy a space, alone or in collaboration with other groups. 

Marion: When I think of this as something PCD does, I say whoa! It feels most useful to think about how we might work with other organizations to create a collaborative dance space. 

Tasja: Does it still make sense to crowdsource answers that we originally intended at our last meeting?

Kiara: Let's put it out in the community and see who has interest and willingness to get involved. 

Deb: There are some areas that can be answered easily. Visioning committee has a meeting,  and we could address areas related to that. It's a good guiding document so when there is something put forth to consider, we can refer to these questions. 

Mellen: It's a good roadmap for when something comes up. Answer the questions we know now. I don't sense anyone's energy to form a committee to answer these questions. What would our minimum entry point be for leasing or buying a space? We have to have certain things in place before we proceed.

Tasja: We have 1037 as a case study, but I agree, I don't sense the energy in PCD in its current form. 

Rebecca: We don't have to do this all ourselves; we could be part of the larger collective. This is where the energy is. It feels like an alternative track to join a collective. I don't know how this document works for us.

Marion: It's an educational document, because no matter what we do, we'll need to be responsible for all these elements. It's like tensegrity in CI, where we all could collectively have this in our system.

Shelagh: The document represents the enthusiasm and curiosity that's been brought up by this process, yet I don't see the same enthusiasm in PCD, e.g., this meeting. After last meeting, I talked at length to Nate. It's impractical for PCD in its current form to take on any of these projects. DNE is the model, where another entity takes on the high-level questions, since we don't have the wisdom, expertise, or bandwidth within PCD. And yet, we needed to go through this process to see how big it actually is. 

Erin: It's worth reading, and the document speaks to the bigness of the project. None of this time or energy is wasted. It's opened these other doors, so thank you for the work that's been done to date. 

Deb: Appreciate that it's an educational document, and probably that's the best use. It's an indicator of all the possible things. What things need to be honed in on now? Let's add this conversation to the document. What are the next steps? 

Marion: It's an informational document for those who want to get up to speed. We don't have to act on it. 

Tasja: What if we share this document with the Dance Collective Opportunity group? 

Shelagh: Are Tasja and Kiara willing to continue to fill that role of liaison with the collective? 

Tasja: We've stirred the pot by presenting 1037 as an option. Maybe that's enough. And yet, it would be nice to have more support from the greater PCD community around all of this.

Rebecca: Appreciate the effort you've put out to get us where we are now. 

Kiara: It feels like we're at the trough of a wave. Let's not do any unnecessary work and wait for the wave to rise again. Happy to ride the wave.

Deb: I hear the desire for more interest in supporting this effort. I'd like to be a liason role for PCD. If we could have a group people who continue to support the collective dance opportunity, that would be great.

Marion: I'd be one of those people. 

Mellen: Kari and Jimmie have been interested. And I will see spaces when I'm available. 

Deb will update the PCD Space Feasibility Study document with this conversation and send it out to the people who came to last two Meraki meetings. This is a document for information only, not things to answer specifically. 

Discussion of Next Meraki Meeting

Jun 22 is only in 3 weeks, and we've had 2 heavy duty meetings within 2 weeks, so discussed shifting it to July 13. 

But what if we need Meraki input on Mechanics Hall or around Dance Collective or from Wiz? 

If we have the chance to test out Mechanics Hall, let's do it on June 29 when we don't currently have dance scheduled. And let's invite DJs, Wiz, regular Merakians like we did when we went to Mackworth Island. 

Rebecca will propose this to Kari, who left meeting early. 

Proposal is to have two options for next Meraki below.  

Next Meeting

OPTION 1: Sunday June 22nd In Person after dance

    if needed, by Kari re: Mechanics Hall, by Tasja for Dance Collective, or WIZ

OPTION 2: Sunday July 13 In Person after dance

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