Meraki Sunday Oct 13, 2024 In Person (After Dance)

Meraki Sunday Oct 13, 2024 After Dance

Attendees: Deb (facilitator), Kiara (ingatherer), Lily (timekeeper), Tasha (notes), Jamie (vibe checker), John, Lori, Steve, Kari, Jimmie, Tim, Andrew, Rebecca, Blair, Erin, Lily, Jon, Dev, Marion, Katharine, Sophie, Brandon

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

• Retreat committee update - Marion
• Officer recruitment - Deb
• Age policy - Dev
• PCD Vision Quest - Tasha 
• Annual meeting planning - John
• Community building events - Jess
• Carpooling - Rebecca

Retreat committee update - Marion

• Contract has been signed for the spring retreat at Oceanwood in Ocean Park (near OOB) April 25 - 27 
• Tentative retreat at Ferry Beach also scheduled October 24-26 just to hold the spot until we know about Oceanwood.
• Retreat committee discussed Deb's idea from last Meraki of some other kind of PCD gathering before the retreat. We agreed that as a committee we're not open to taking that on but welcome others in the community to make it happen! And we are happy to share venues.
• Click here for link to retreat venues we've investigated
  

Officer recruitment - Deb

• John: Because we are registered non-profit in the state of Maine, we are required to have board officers that meet on a regular basis. We use Meraki as our regular board meetings. 
• Deb: 
• At last Meraki, Kari encouraged us to have a somewhat more intentional process around nominating officers. We agreed that we would put something more intentional in place for 2025, but this year we would form a committee to reach out to members. 
• Deb (president), Tasha (secretary), Jamie (treasurer), and Marion have been speaking to members about becoming officers. Our criteria was have you attended Meraki meetings and/or are you involved in some other way in the organization. 
• We've identified someone who has stepped up to be President, namely Rebecca Booth. General YAYs all around!!!
• Jamie and Tasha are willing to stay in their respective roles as Treasurer and Secretary unless someone is willing/interested in step in.
• Shared leadership is more alive when more people step up!
• If you weren't approached, please reach out to one of us. 
• And if not this year, please consider for next year or beyond. Several of the people we reached out to were interested perhaps for another year.
• We also sent a letter to membership encouraging participation at whatever level. 

Age policy - Dev

Dev: Would like some background on the current age policy.

Kari: Some years ago we voted at Meraki to limit dancers to 18 years or older. The reason for this is that we've run into issues around safety on the dance floor and because many feel that this is our space for our dance, and adding young-uns would change that.

Tasha: In years past, we had a family dance in the past that someone in the community created under the auspices of PCD. [Ed: Marin Magat is the one who spearheaded that.]

Dev: Questioning more the requirement of not having people under age 18 on the premises. Age is an interested marker, so when we choose to exclude, I want to understand why. 

Rebecca: It used to be 14 but we raised it. Waldorf is not our space, it's a school. It's respectful of the space to not allow people unattended to have free access to the space. 

Mellen: We are renting the whole school, so access to the whole building by young people might risk our relationship with the school. Also, once we allow one person to bring their child, however well behaved, then it could grow into more of of an issue as others bring their children.  

Kari: Letting kids be alone outside is also a concern given our relationship with the school. 

Dev: Would like to add this to the agenda at a future meeting. 

Deb: You're welcome to create a proposal for Meraki to take up later. 

Action: 

• Deb will send Dev the letter that PCD devised describing our age policy.
• We will add age policy to the agenda for next Meraki.

PCD Vision Quest - Tasha

• Tasha:
• Tasha, Shelagh, Deb, Bryan, and Kiara have been brainstorming a long-term planning retreat, including Goals, Structure, and Topics. 
• We're broadly thinking about a half-day retreat sometime in the new year. 
• The general idea is to focus on where we are now and what we want PCD to look like in the near to long term. 
• Some ideas for topics are: community building, renting/buying a permanent dance space, inclusivity, all-ages dance, etc.
• There's been a tremendous effort put forward toward finding a permanent home for our dance by the Where Can We Dance Committee, which looked at 60+ sites in the greater Portland area, yet none of them met our needs for one reason or another. We give tremendous thanks to the committee for their count them three years of effort on behalf of PCD [Ed: post-COVID when we lost our space at Avant in Westbrook]. 
• So for now, we are at Waldorf, which is a wonderful space and yet it remains undersized for our growing community. 
• If you have thoughts on the goals, structure, and/or content of the vision quest, please reach out to Tasha. 
• If you feel excited to join said vision quest, please raise your hand. Most hands were raised. 

Q: Will this be a member-only event? 

Tasha: Membership is a pretty low bar (dance with us 5 times and request membership), so yes, it feels important to make this a member only event.

Jess: Let's have part of the vision quest be dancing! 

Action item: Tasha to share link to dance spaces we've explored.

Click here for link to dance spaces explored by the Where Can We Dance Committee

[Ed: Please reach out to if you have trouble accessing it.]

Annual meeting planning - John

John: Wanted to get this on the agenda to make sure we begin planning for our annual meeting, which happens Dec 15 after dance. 

Deb: For those of you who haven't been, this is where we pass the hat (literally) to our new board officers. And we often have a "data share" like financials and do crafts and other fun stuff.

Mellen: In the past, current officers have organized it. 

Tasha: Who is interested in helping to plan the annual meeting?

Marion, Tasha, Erin agreed to plan the annual meeting. 

Community Building Events - Jess

Mellen: Our weekend retreats can be a lot for people to take on, so maybe we could consider a day-long retreat. 

Erin: Wonders about small group potlucks. This would be more accessible for building connections with people than after dance on Sunday, which can feel intimidating. 

Deb: Let's have a quick brainstorming session! I just happened to have a white board. ;) 

Brainstorm:

Circle suppers

Authentic relating games

Touch and consent games

Sunday events when we don't have PCD dances 

Other kinds of movement offerings

Community sharing events

Head outdoors and hike and dance

Post-dance events

Potluck after dance

Plan a hike on the trails at the end of the school after dance

Night time dances

New year's eve dance

All night raves

Campfire bonfire

One day retreat

Fundraiser for a good cause

Dance-a-thon

Raves

Food drive

Costume dances

Prom night dance

[Ed: WOW, that's a pretty good list for five minutes of brainstorming!]

Deb: We don't have any events planned until April, so who would like to form a committee to make some stuff happen?

Emily, Sophie, Jess, Jamie, Jon, Dev, Kiara, Tasha, Katharine have agreed to be on a committee to make stuff happen. 

Tasha: I've been invited to be a community partner of Good Medicine and am hoping to involve people in the dance community as part of my membership. 

Tasha: If you need help with Mail Chimp (our tool for sending emails out to our membership/attendees, please reach out.) 

Kiara: What about planning something for Halloween?

Dena's dance will be a Halloween dance. Look for correspondence to announce this. 

Action: Committee will come back with proposals!

Carpooling

Rebecca: Isn't it a good idea? How would we enact it? 

Lori: There's an app for that. Would people want to put themselves on a map? Here's the date and destination. 

Mellen: Propose promoting the use of an app and then keep posting it with our email.

Brandon: There's a group I'm involved with that uses a spreadsheet.

Emily: We use a google sheet for going to Earth Dance.

Action

Rebecca will look into the app and how to move forward with the idea. 

Next Meeting

• Monday Nov 18 on Zoom

• Annual Meeting in Sunday Dec 15