Meraki Sunday July 11 After Dance

  

Meraki Monday June 11 on Zoom

Attendees: John B (notetaker), Mellen, Brian (Facilitator), Lori (vibe check), Lindy (ingatherer), Deb G (timekeeper), Kari, Blair, Marion, Shelagh, Juliette, Kiara, Katharine

Attendees: (ingatherer), (facilitator), (timekeeper), (vibe checker), (notetaker), 

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

• DJ thing - Deb
• Mechanics Hall Update - Kari
• DJ Update - Deb
• Dance Collective Opportunity - Deb et al
• Special Meraki Meeting Feasibility Study Questions - Deb
• PCD Sponsored Workshops - Jason
• Dance number updates - Brian

Meeting

Special DJ proposal: (Deb) Acquire DJ table cloth. Proposal approved.

DJ Update (Deb):

We want a more collective, structured way to introduce new DJs. Experience of people being interested; takes a lot of time to train new DJs, and then they may fizzle out. Idea: DJs pay to be trained; they will get that back if they become a DJ. Mellen: We have about 4 or 5 people who are interested.

Dance Collective Opportunity (Shelagh)

Grew out of momentum of finding a new dance space. Tasja and others met with a group of dance orgs that Barrett of PCS (Portland Community Squash) held. 190 Lancaster (near Bayside bowl) was a place visited on Friday; several PCDers met there to check out the space. Other dance orgs were represented. 2nd and 3rd floors: contiguous 12,000 feet, other smaller spaces. Don't have numbers about the cost of that space.

Marion: Next steps: wish list to be developed by the Portland Ballet representative, then compare with other orgs to see if there are common requirements. Also, evaluate by architect.

Deb: This is informally a globular group that isn't PCD or Meraki officially, but a group of PCDers with strong interest allied with PCD. Not official PCD business, but it's about looking for spaces.

Juliette: Is the proposal to rent, or lease with build-out? Shelagh: Most likely is that some other organization that builds out the space. (Temple Beth El isn't a permanent long-term solution because of the floor and scheduling shifts during the school year.)

Katharine: Don't know if it was already on their radar, but has been talking to Creative Portland (arts council). They're supposed to be representing all arts in Portland, and should know about this, but it's only two people. Deb: Good to get that information over to Tasja, who's a good gatherer of this kind of information. Katharine: They've got their fingers on the pulse of the dance community.

Deb: Coming away from the meeting and comparing notes with Mellen, they thought the space was impossible. The space requires extensive changes; at the same time our collective thought was that if we keep coming to these meetings and participating, eventually something would come together. Marion: PCD is not in a vacuum. We're part of a larger dance/arts community. Important energy to be reaching out now.

Jason: Who's going to get that info to Tasja? Katharine will communicate with her.

Feasibility Study (Deb):

So many questions and energy developed in meetings about potential new spaces and how we / do we expand. Lots of energy connected to the discussions; it would be crazy if we didn't harness the energy around those discussions. Deb created a page document (PCD Space Feasibility Study Questions) regarding the larger process of evaluating options. It's a guidebook. Wants people to know about it because if anyone gets involved with questions about new space, this document is important to review.

Kiara: There's also an offering in that document to research questions that are raised therein. If people are moved to contribute, add to that document if you have info/input. Document is sitting there waiting, ready to go.

Katharine: Link available? John: yes, the link is in the Meraki announcement and notes.

Dance Workshops (Jason):

PCD as an organization has never done anything but dance. Would PCD consider holding workshops specifically that reflect the values we want to maintain, for the purposes of keeping core values alive in the culture we want to maintain. Idea to incentivize newer dancers. Would PCD consider such possibilities to branch out beyond just dance. John: PCD in the past has taken the decision not to partner with other groups, but that decision could be reviewed.

Kiara: There is precedence; we did breakout groups at Avant regarding safety, consent. (Others remembered these.) A phrase like "workshopping" would be important to bring in outside members.

Juliette: What's the impetus for wanting to do that? Jason: Impetus is: we're growing, whether we want to or not, but how do we maintain the culture? Juliette: That's a different discussion than "should we do workshops?" There are different ways to communicate values, like on website (Jason: cards are an example). Goal: investigate multiple ways to maintain the culture.

Kari: A term that came to me was educating about the culture. Did we never sponsor Nege or Moti? Answer: No.

Blair: We had committee meetings around membership in the spring. Some of the possibilities are necessities going forward, like asking members to take a greater role, even require certain things for membership. (Greeting, breakdown, etc.) There's an overlap between membership participation and culture.

Deb: There's also a visioning committee that's been meeting quietly. Also been looking into the larger topics, of which this is one. Will meet again in September.

Shelagh: Wants to give context. John proposed circle up after warmup. Group didn't like that idea, and Lori developed the pamphlet in part as response.

Katharine: If visioning committee is open to other people, I'd like to participate. Had the experience with a new person she checked in with, but that person didn't come to closing circle.

Kiara: Do we want to do a temperature check for the visioning committee around what topics we want to put energy into. There's a certain amount of energy around this idea of culture and how to inform dancers about it. As members of visioning committee: is this a priority? How do you feel about a group read on this topic?

Mellen: Appreciate Juliette bringing this up; we've been discussing this for some time. Appreciate if Juliette is willing to contribute to the visioning committee.

John: Letting newcomers know about closing circle hasn't been done consistently or well. Kari: Greeters have a lot to do.

Brian: Summarizing the discussion, the Vision committee is open for input. Meraki is where we bring community feedback into the work of the committee.

Deb: Visioning committee has a huge swath of possible things to consider. Question of how to choose (which we can't do today). If we choose to emphasize culture, we'll not be able to take up other things.

Brian: What are we taking a temperature check on? As far as visioning committee working on workshop or other methodology for working on culture.

Shelagh: Original charter of visioning committee was to figure out how we're going to collect community input. Not necessarily to make proposals, or decide where to go, but collect input.

Juliette: Is PCD's vision based on community input, or does Meraki decide for the group?

Brian: Meraki is the current mechanism to gather input.

Brian: regarding temperature check: Does the visioning committee consider culture as a priority over other topics? Deb suggested cold to hot with level of hand. Others: measure with thumbs up or down graded in-between.

Brian: temperature check on the work the visioning committee is doing towards some kind of workshop or method regarding culture. Is it a priority? 9 thumbs up, 3 sideways, 2 "warm" (partway up). No downs.

Dance attendance (Brian):

We've been collecting numbers on how many come in the door, gathered by a clicker, count at closing circle, and cash/Venmo payments.

                Closing    Door

Date    Clicker  Circle  Proceeds

May 4     102      70      $832

May 11     98      58      $747

June 1     86      64      $675 

June 8     71      65      $666

June 22    70      57      $845

July 13    85      56      $700

   

Steady decline from May. Is it seasonal or a trend?

Jason: Super valuable. Are we doing this ongoing? Brian: It's a lot of work, but yes, we're planning to continue.

Lindy: When did we switch to mornings? June 8, a sharp decrease.

Lori: We can't compare seasonality with schedule change

Katharine: Could we have 2 greeters? Or maybe there's a Wiz person to address.

Deb: We've had many iterations of this, and it seems like we need to revisit.

Blair: This is a possible area for increased participation through membership requirement: Have you done your greeting?

Jason: Burnout is on our radar. Definitely one of the nuggets we have to look at.

Brian: Doesn't mind doing it some, but can't do it every time. Sophie covered it today.

Blair: Beck is also contributing, and I've stepped in.

Mellen: Having been part of this for 13 years, there's always a summer lull, and always a boost in fall/winter. Lest people think we're going down the tubes or something, summer is always like this (lighter attendance).

Katharine: More slow floor stuff available with fewer folks.

Kari: Regarding Wiz burnout, we're having a meeting soon, and there's going to be a change coming up for the fall.

Marion: Where does reinvigorating fit in? We want people to be more involved, how do we address that?

Jason: Overlap with culture, and Blair: a membership committee. We're on a pause currently. We gauged 80 as a good number.

Lori: If our check-in period was very compressed, greeting, counting, like "This is the 15 minutes we have to check in, then we start" then if you leave early, you leave early, but we're here for the whole thing because it's a whole thing.

Kari: we did talk about requiring volunteering for membership.

Brian: this is a valuable conversation that we could put on the next Meraki meeting. Hard to nail down single things for visioning: the committee has a lot to discuss/consider.

Kiara: Is the membership committee to the point where they could introduce specific proposals? Blair: There can be a membership meeting; my experience was that there was no interest.

Deb: 2 issues: There is interest in membership, and then: who's willing to make sure that happens?

Kari: Discussed that there would be no volunteer monitoring; it would be on the honor system.

Jason: Put together a wish list for membership. 

Shelagh: Where are we, and what is our time? (Over time) We were discussing membership numbers, and has expanded to further discussion.

Brian: There wasn't no interest, but it's a hard conversation. Blair, your work is appreciated, as is all volunteer work. Bring it forward into: how can we become volunteer-centric? because we're all volunteering.

Mechanic's Hall (MH) (Kari):

MH has fallen apart for several reasons. No final answer from them, but several logistics concerned (greeter's table, AC, parking, street people). Taking so long for them to get back to us. It's not dead, but we've heard nothing from them. I think they want us, but we don't fit their mold. They wanted us for 2 dances/month, but we wanted 3, and there were other hitches.

Katharine: MH is an org I'm part of, had a meeting with program director Katie. They're going through a lot of restructuring; got huge grant money, planning on AC, etc. Like a lot of other orgs, they're re-visioning themselves. They are a tremendous organization.

Evaluation (group, comments unreported here.)

Jason: Assuming Fall retreat not happening. Mellen: Is that right? They gave me dates. Brian: Sorry, not on the agenda. Let's discuss next time.

Next meeting (after discussion): Tuesday September 9 7-9 PM in person at Kari and Jimmie's

Lindy: Outgathering

Meeting adjourned