The heart of the fair!
January 2009 Minutes
Hey family. The minutes this month were too long and got bounced from the CV Drum. Janet, can you please approve them so they go out in a timely manner and people can get contact info for the new council? Thanks. Here are the minutes in this blog post. See if you can spot the hidden Dylan lyrics.
Village Meeting, January 2009
First official meeting of the 2009 village. Attendance around 50 at the beginning.
Introductions. Everyone went around and said who they are and what they do in the village or what they hope to do.
Agenda review, 7:21
Intro
Fair announcement
Consensus
Site
Beloved community
Construction
New members
Community website
Online meetings
Probation and restaurant feedback
Stand for council
Unfair announcements
Fair announcements 7:22 – Restaurant feedback forms are still available at this meeting, this is the last chance to submit feedback through this official channel.
Consensus Rap 7:24 – Some new items that don’t usually find their way into the rap tonight. We don’t vote. Instead we make decisions by agreement of the whole group. We don’t have a dictator. Groups that use consensus, or where consensus is used effectively are groups that are highly motivated, have members who are trained in consensus, or have a strong affinity. Consensus was used by the Quakers. Also used by Food not Bombs, and used by some online forums and projects like Wikipedia (where this information came from). Three common hand signals used in consensus; One is twinkling, a way to say ‘I agree’ with your hands by stretching your fingers all out and wiggling them (this kind of looks like Jazz Hands!). Second, if you feel very strongly about something being not good or against your values, or want to nonverbally express strong disagreemet, you can raise a fist or cross two fists. A gesture to indicate a point of process is to make a tee with your hands, like the ‘time out’ signal. Also, in consensus blocking is an absolute last resort. You don’t block out of simple disagreement, but out of a strong feeling that the decision that is about to be taken is going to seriously harm the community.
Site report: 7:29. The site is walkable with ankle high boots. It only floods when there’s a lot of heavy rain for a long time. Knee high boots are not needed at this time. Certain areas (toad hollow) needs hip waders.
There are many compost piles. There is a pile for straw and hay, one for the garden. Also there is one from main camp and the food booths and it’s well monitored and high grade with very little garbage. The other stuff is the path recycling from the kiosks. It has a lot of trash. It’ll compost, but only in a high commercial heat level pile. We’re being allowed to store it in a neighbor’s barn. Every two weeks one person turns it and another hoses it down with a bobcat. It’s getting damned hot. It’s steaming, growing grey mold, 134 degrees even during the cold snap in December.
Some of the booths came in with coconut fiber mats which got put in the compost, and it wasn’t composting. It separated the compost and kept the bacteria from interacting. We’ve pulled that out and the compost is now in better shape. This statement is being made to remind us that trash is a big issue at the fair, and we have to sift and sort it by hand. You don’t want someone else picking through your garbage, right? So pack it out. You are a waste warrior.
Construction 7:33 – Lifelong learning needs attention to the structure, especially the upper part, this year. Fruit booth may need some seriously major work. We’re getting a lot of wood from a friend of the village. We have some other booths needing very small repairs.
Each booth should have a construction coordinator, even if no work is needed on the booth, so that there’s someone to talk to and plan with.
Everyone needs to participate in work parties. Some of us love construction types of work, others don’t. That said, we all need to chip in what we can.
We’re requesting money from the fair for capital improvements, and we’ll see what happens.
There are questions about construction hierarchy and it isn’t a straight line. There are several people in the hierarchy of Fair construction. A brother states that in the past we have had our own process for interfacing with the fair through a village wide construction coordinator which hasn’t always been followed, and information seems to come from many channels.
New Members – 7:39 – starting this year, we’re going to get the room a little early to go through all the raps for new members so that the long time members of the community don’t have to keep doing the raps. The first through third years in the village will come to the early meeting, and the fourth years will eventually run the rap meeting.
Website 7:41 – We have a new website for the village. It’s a social networking site. It’s
communityvillage.ning.com
Everyone gets their own page. Every booth can have its own page. It’s a good, fun networking tool. You can share pictures. You can share music, videos. Satellite groups could make their own pages.
Online Meeting 7:44 There has been some talk about putting the village meetings online in some form or another. This could be text, video, or audio. Any of these things is technically possible, but there is some question of whether or not we even want to go there. The question is put to the village; How do you feel about having an online meeting?
A sister asks does doing this preclude other options for village meetings for people who live far away? It does not, it is just one project.
A sister says that this discussion seems to mirror a discussion at the Fair board level. The board is going back and forth about whether to put their meetings online. Could we open the door to the board webcasting their meetings? Could we stumble in the ways they predict and prove that webcasting does not work?
A brother says that the community village is a community of activists, and the purpose of us getting together is getting to network about our activism. We have a 2 meeting requirement as a commitment to our community. Being present and part of the community is the most important part of this, same with the work-party requirement. Allowing people from far away to participate would expand that community, as long as the online meetings didn’t count toward meeting participation for the meeting requirement.
A brother suggests that we could add to this; we could make a podcast ((editorial note; a podcast is a file that could be downloaded after the meeting, rather than just a real time stream that could be listened to during the meeting)) Also, maybe we could use this to share with outside folks what a consensus meeting actually looks like.
A sister says it’s a wonderful idea, and that we can work through the problems that might come up. She says a person shouldn’t be able to stand aside or block from remote locations.
A sister says that the board is a legal entity, so those issues are different. The people online with the elders are kind of both there and not there, just their voice is there. This is kind of weird. The sister says she doesn’t mind us broadcasting our meeting, but she says that we’re a physical community, not an online community.
A sister says, and she’s adamant about not wanting fair board meetings broadcast online. We sometimes say things that point toward illegality, and we want to be mindful of what we put out because we don’t want to raise any beacons or red flags with those who would seek to take our fair away from us. It would be really cool for some of our satellite folks about participating, which would be great, but it would take consciousness on our part about what we say because by broadcasting we create a record.
A brother says he supports all ideas, and concepts to communicate. The brother says that it shouldn’t take the place of attending a meeting for eligibility requirements, because we are a physical community. The brother supports a text or audio stream. If it’s online, it’s online, so there’s no way to make a site totally secure from strangers. The brother would not like to see video.
A sister says it’s a double edged sword. It’s good for people from out of town to be able to be involved. It doesn’t work for booth breakdown time (you can’t get enough microphones to monitor that), it’s hard to sing along, and you can’t hold hands online. Some concerns as far as they way technology is eliminating human contact and reduces us to images, flat, with no flesh.
A brother says they'll stone you when you're at the breakfast table. They'll stone you when you are young and able. They'll stone you when you're trying to make a buck. They'll stone you and then they'll say good luck. Tell you what, I would not feel so all alone. Everybody must get stoned.
A brother raises several issues; potential issues of broadcasting, ie what are the implications of people being able to see or hear us. Second, issues of the feasibility of participation, can someone with virtual participation actually participate with the awkwardness of understanding tone when it’s read from text. The third issue is regards to credit for having come to a meeting toward eligibility.
A sister says that she is concerned that we’re doing a lot of driving to have members from far away come to meetings in Eugene. Also says that she understands the concerns that are raised by other brothers and sisters about lack of contact. The sister thinks we might allow one of the two meetings for eligibility to be online but still require one in the flesh meeting. Another suggestion is additional satellite meetings. The raps could be done at the satellite meetings or online.
A brother says he wasn’t sure how he felt, but now having heard about the sister who said that technology is eliminating human contact, he is clear that he does not like the idea of online meetings.
A sister says she loves the idea of people driving less. She says that she telecommutes to meetings for work a lot. It’s better for the planet when people telecommute. She likes the idea of one online meeting counting and the other having to be physical.
A sister says that, despite the fact that she doesn’t have e-mail, she’s for it because it would help some people stay involved even though they can’t come to all of our meetings. We could maybe reach out a little and try for a short time.
A brother says despite how it’s really important for other people outside the meeting space to be involved, maybe it’s better not to have the minute taker broadcasting the minutes in real time without edits.
To wrap up Janet says that we will, eventually, come back with a proposal to see if it’s something people like.
Restaurant probation 8:07 – Last year we chose Park Street Café to be our new restaurant. Their first year was on probation, and after the probation year if they pass, they get two more years before they come up for another review. Feedback forms have gone out to the community and some have come back. We will now have a discussion. The restaurant does want to come back. If Park Street does not come back, Global Services foundation will step in to be the new restaurant without further need to discuss.
We will frame our comments as concerns rather than criticisms. There is a strong bias in the direction of consensus – whether everyone has to consense that they stay or that they go. Usually we ask things in the positive. The question is stated, Does Park Street Café pass their probationary period?
A brother asks just in case, how many stand asides would block a decision? This leads to a long discussion, with some people saying that it’s two or three, others saying that it’s the facilitator’s job do decide on the sense of the meeting. We end up deciding that it’s more important to discuss the restaurant than to discuss process.
A brother says The Park Street Café spent a lot of money, time, labor, and love. They stepped up to the plate, and it wasn’t perfect but they did a darned good job. It’s not an easy job to run a restaurant at the fair, and they overcame a lot of obstacles.
A brother says that he came to the construction parties and watched the restaurant go together. Watching it come together was fun. They had the spirit of the village.
A sister says the restaurant invested a lot in time and money and work. They ought to be able to come back a few times to use the restaurant they built.
A brother says they were his first choice. That they did a good job, and they’ll do better next year.
A sister says that she had two bad experiences with the restaurant, was short changed, was overcharged, and was not treated as well as she expected by the restaurant.
A brother says that the restaurant is normally approved on a three year basis. Passing probation this year means they’re approved for two more years.
A sister says that she would be willing to give them more time. She says that because she knows a lot of people in the village, a lot of people come to her with their complaints, and she got a lot of complaints from villagers about the restaurant. People were upset about bad service, rude camping behavior, and items being dropped from the menu after the restaurant was approved,
A sister says she appreciates the hard work the restaurant did. One thing the sister experienced herself and people with children said; they were looking forward to the menu items that kids would like, and the Mac and Cheese had onions and some of the kid items weren’t as kid friendly as they could be. The sister says she offers this as a piece of creative feedback.
A brother has a question for the restaurant; what did they learn from last year and what would they do different?
They say they will try to streamline the menu. Many things were more work than they needed to be. The mashed potato pancakes slowed down the line a lot, they were more time than expected. They will be streamlining things. When slow menu items bogged them down, they made other mistakes (the cheeses sauce wasn’t meant to have onions, for example.)
A sister says she always hesitates to say anything that isn’t positive, and she appreciates all the work the restaurant did. The restaurant didn’t really serve the community well. It made the fair more difficult not to have a restaurant that had vegetarian food with protein at a reasonable price. Getting protein brought the price out of reach. The Cow used to have a fair special where you could get a small portion but all the food groups for less money. Regarding the mac and cheese – the person who spoke with the sister wouldn’t go check as to whether the cheese was renetless and was not polite. Also not open as late as Holy Cow used to be. The sister says that she heard similar complaints from others.
A brother says that he’s a special ed teacher, whenever there’s feedback, constructive or otherwise, he likes to give three positives to each negative. The overall concern about the restaurant was that it wasn’t a community member, but a business. It also wasn’t the brother’s first choice for a menu. Also, it may not have been a clear communication as to why the menu changed. There was feedback that the things that were removed happened after the fact. The restaurant offered common food. The service was good. The price was high. The brother said he would stand aside to the decision.
A sister says that, having been on the tasting committee, the food was her favorite. The prices were the lowest. She didn’t eat most of the food. She’d like to see people write this feedback down for the restaurant.
A brother asks what concrete steps would be taken to streamline the process?
A brother from the restaurant says that there are no answers yet because they’ve only had one meeting.
A sister says that the coffee was expensive, the food was expensive, and the food was common, the sorts of things we make at home. The sister says that she hardly used the restaurant at all.
A brother says it’s time to call the discussion to a close. We have a job to do tonight. Should we continue with park street, or should we fall back to Global Services? The brother suggests that we give the restaurant an opportunity to tell us why we should pass their probation and let them keep going.
A sister appreciates the free hot water.
The brother from the restaurant wants to take all this feedback so that he can address it. He says he is not really prepared to answer any of these questions. He didn’t get our concerns in advance. He really wants to go for it again, and this year he feels that it won’t be as overwhelming than last year. They only had from March forward to get ready.
Another brother from the restaurant is thankful for the feedback. All the complaints are things that could be fixed. They aren’t things that can’t be overcome. This perspective can be helpful to focus the restaurant crew for the coming year. Let’s get things dialed in.
PROPOSED: Since there is a lot of constructive feedback, can we consent tonight to a one year probation which would be outside of the traditional agreement, for the sake of moving forward and to give the restaurant time to address the feedback they got.
four stand asides
1 – A brother would prefer to consense that they failed, not that they passed.
2 – a sister was overcharged, shortchanged, and treated rudely. She says she wasn’t apologized to
3 – a sister says there were so many complaints and problems, and she doesn’t think they will be addressed, and the idea of one year was to see how it went.
4 - A sister stands aside with her reason not stated
Call for consensus.
One Block because four stand asides is not consensus.
A sister says we are not ready to call for consensus, there are many people who have not spoken who want to speak. We’re not ready to come to consensus.
Keith, who has talked with the Fair’s Food Committee about their rules, says if we don’t come to consensus tonight, Global Services will be the new restaurant tomorrow because of what the food committee says. Because January is traditionally when we make our restaurant decisions, we need to make a decision tonight. We can’t table this for next month.
A brother says we shouldn’t be micromanaging someone’s block.
The brother who blocked will set his block aside. But he says that he was blocking because we were pushing this through without listening to people.
A sister says she would like to see a different proposal; can we have the restaurant for one more year with the acknowledgement that they were really worried about money and at oaks them to rower prices.
The first brother to stand aside rescinds his stand aside.
Another brother blocks for the same reason as the first brother who blocked, because there are too many stand asides and he doesn’t feel we’ve reached consensus.
A brother says a block is meant to be because the decision we’re making is detrimental to this community as a whole, and he doesn’t see the blocks happening here fitting that description. We’re not in a position when our community is going to be torn apart. The restaurant was in a bad situation this year. They said they will do better next year.
PROPOSED: We form a committee willing to work with the restaurant for a second year, or have the council form this committee, to help the restaurant to solve these problems before next year and in doing so, allow a second year of probation.
No stand asides
No blocks
CONSENSED
((Editors note: There was a lot of cross talk and impassioned discussion through the whole latter part of the discussion of the restaurant. Most of it dealt with process, how many stand asides constitute a block, and whether or not we needed to make a decision at that exact moment. I was unable to capture most of the discussion because it was moving so fast, with many people speaking out of order. I believe I caught the gist of the discussion, and I know for certain that I captured all the proposals, all the stand asides, and all the blocks))
Call for council 8:52 – Who wants to stand for council. The process for council confirmation is this; people who want to serve on council stand in January. They give out their contact information. If someone has a concern about the person standing for council, they need to bring that concern to that person within the next week to express their concern and try to work it out. If they can’t work it out in the next week, they need to bring their concern to the next council meeting where it will be addressed. If it is still not addressed, they may block that person from sitting on council for the coming year. If a person does not follow this process, they are not permitted to block a council person from sitting on council. The next council meeting is at Tim’s house. I didn’t catch the time and date because it was late and I’d been typing for a long time. Someone, please post the information to the list. Tim’s house is at; 2096 ½ Arthur Street
Who Stood::
Keith Herschberger quackerbacker1@msn.com cell 513-1238
Tim Mueller 521-7208 tim@gwproj.com
Paul Sass 541-689-3709
Daniel Gave a voicemail number which he asked not to be posted online. One of the other people listed here can give you the number.
Lois 836-2670
Ben Barrett 729-3130 stircrazyben@gmail.com
Nathan Greene 338-7827 spuddygreene@yahoo.com
Dianne Albino 933-2584
Karla Caudel 337-5319 kjcaudel@hotmail.com
Janet Tarver 344-3770 planetbubblesuniverse@yahoo.com
Jennefer Harper 359-8111 jenneferh2000@yahoo.com
David Hoffman 484-9204 fixit@efn.org
Village Meeting, January 2009
First official meeting of the 2009 village. Attendance around 50 at the beginning.
Introductions. Everyone went around and said who they are and what they do in the village or what they hope to do.
Agenda review, 7:21
Intro
Fair announcement
Consensus
Site
Beloved community
Construction
New members
Community website
Online meetings
Probation and restaurant feedback
Stand for council
Unfair announcements
Fair announcements 7:22 – Restaurant feedback forms are still available at this meeting, this is the last chance to submit feedback through this official channel.
Consensus Rap 7:24 – Some new items that don’t usually find their way into the rap tonight. We don’t vote. Instead we make decisions by agreement of the whole group. We don’t have a dictator. Groups that use consensus, or where consensus is used effectively are groups that are highly motivated, have members who are trained in consensus, or have a strong affinity. Consensus was used by the Quakers. Also used by Food not Bombs, and used by some online forums and projects like Wikipedia (where this information came from). Three common hand signals used in consensus; One is twinkling, a way to say ‘I agree’ with your hands by stretching your fingers all out and wiggling them (this kind of looks like Jazz Hands!). Second, if you feel very strongly about something being not good or against your values, or want to nonverbally express strong disagreemet, you can raise a fist or cross two fists. A gesture to indicate a point of process is to make a tee with your hands, like the ‘time out’ signal. Also, in consensus blocking is an absolute last resort. You don’t block out of simple disagreement, but out of a strong feeling that the decision that is about to be taken is going to seriously harm the community.
Site report: 7:29. The site is walkable with ankle high boots. It only floods when there’s a lot of heavy rain for a long time. Knee high boots are not needed at this time. Certain areas (toad hollow) needs hip waders.
There are many compost piles. There is a pile for straw and hay, one for the garden. Also there is one from main camp and the food booths and it’s well monitored and high grade with very little garbage. The other stuff is the path recycling from the kiosks. It has a lot of trash. It’ll compost, but only in a high commercial heat level pile. We’re being allowed to store it in a neighbor’s barn. Every two weeks one person turns it and another hoses it down with a bobcat. It’s getting damned hot. It’s steaming, growing grey mold, 134 degrees even during the cold snap in December.
Some of the booths came in with coconut fiber mats which got put in the compost, and it wasn’t composting. It separated the compost and kept the bacteria from interacting. We’ve pulled that out and the compost is now in better shape. This statement is being made to remind us that trash is a big issue at the fair, and we have to sift and sort it by hand. You don’t want someone else picking through your garbage, right? So pack it out. You are a waste warrior.
Construction 7:33 – Lifelong learning needs attention to the structure, especially the upper part, this year. Fruit booth may need some seriously major work. We’re getting a lot of wood from a friend of the village. We have some other booths needing very small repairs.
Each booth should have a construction coordinator, even if no work is needed on the booth, so that there’s someone to talk to and plan with.
Everyone needs to participate in work parties. Some of us love construction types of work, others don’t. That said, we all need to chip in what we can.
We’re requesting money from the fair for capital improvements, and we’ll see what happens.
There are questions about construction hierarchy and it isn’t a straight line. There are several people in the hierarchy of Fair construction. A brother states that in the past we have had our own process for interfacing with the fair through a village wide construction coordinator which hasn’t always been followed, and information seems to come from many channels.
New Members – 7:39 – starting this year, we’re going to get the room a little early to go through all the raps for new members so that the long time members of the community don’t have to keep doing the raps. The first through third years in the village will come to the early meeting, and the fourth years will eventually run the rap meeting.
Website 7:41 – We have a new website for the village. It’s a social networking site. It’s
communityvillage.ning.com
Everyone gets their own page. Every booth can have its own page. It’s a good, fun networking tool. You can share pictures. You can share music, videos. Satellite groups could make their own pages.
Online Meeting 7:44 There has been some talk about putting the village meetings online in some form or another. This could be text, video, or audio. Any of these things is technically possible, but there is some question of whether or not we even want to go there. The question is put to the village; How do you feel about having an online meeting?
A sister asks does doing this preclude other options for village meetings for people who live far away? It does not, it is just one project.
A sister says that this discussion seems to mirror a discussion at the Fair board level. The board is going back and forth about whether to put their meetings online. Could we open the door to the board webcasting their meetings? Could we stumble in the ways they predict and prove that webcasting does not work?
A brother says that the community village is a community of activists, and the purpose of us getting together is getting to network about our activism. We have a 2 meeting requirement as a commitment to our community. Being present and part of the community is the most important part of this, same with the work-party requirement. Allowing people from far away to participate would expand that community, as long as the online meetings didn’t count toward meeting participation for the meeting requirement.
A brother suggests that we could add to this; we could make a podcast ((editorial note; a podcast is a file that could be downloaded after the meeting, rather than just a real time stream that could be listened to during the meeting)) Also, maybe we could use this to share with outside folks what a consensus meeting actually looks like.
A sister says it’s a wonderful idea, and that we can work through the problems that might come up. She says a person shouldn’t be able to stand aside or block from remote locations.
A sister says that the board is a legal entity, so those issues are different. The people online with the elders are kind of both there and not there, just their voice is there. This is kind of weird. The sister says she doesn’t mind us broadcasting our meeting, but she says that we’re a physical community, not an online community.
A sister says, and she’s adamant about not wanting fair board meetings broadcast online. We sometimes say things that point toward illegality, and we want to be mindful of what we put out because we don’t want to raise any beacons or red flags with those who would seek to take our fair away from us. It would be really cool for some of our satellite folks about participating, which would be great, but it would take consciousness on our part about what we say because by broadcasting we create a record.
A brother says he supports all ideas, and concepts to communicate. The brother says that it shouldn’t take the place of attending a meeting for eligibility requirements, because we are a physical community. The brother supports a text or audio stream. If it’s online, it’s online, so there’s no way to make a site totally secure from strangers. The brother would not like to see video.
A sister says it’s a double edged sword. It’s good for people from out of town to be able to be involved. It doesn’t work for booth breakdown time (you can’t get enough microphones to monitor that), it’s hard to sing along, and you can’t hold hands online. Some concerns as far as they way technology is eliminating human contact and reduces us to images, flat, with no flesh.
A brother says they'll stone you when you're at the breakfast table. They'll stone you when you are young and able. They'll stone you when you're trying to make a buck. They'll stone you and then they'll say good luck. Tell you what, I would not feel so all alone. Everybody must get stoned.
A brother raises several issues; potential issues of broadcasting, ie what are the implications of people being able to see or hear us. Second, issues of the feasibility of participation, can someone with virtual participation actually participate with the awkwardness of understanding tone when it’s read from text. The third issue is regards to credit for having come to a meeting toward eligibility.
A sister says that she is concerned that we’re doing a lot of driving to have members from far away come to meetings in Eugene. Also says that she understands the concerns that are raised by other brothers and sisters about lack of contact. The sister thinks we might allow one of the two meetings for eligibility to be online but still require one in the flesh meeting. Another suggestion is additional satellite meetings. The raps could be done at the satellite meetings or online.
A brother says he wasn’t sure how he felt, but now having heard about the sister who said that technology is eliminating human contact, he is clear that he does not like the idea of online meetings.
A sister says she loves the idea of people driving less. She says that she telecommutes to meetings for work a lot. It’s better for the planet when people telecommute. She likes the idea of one online meeting counting and the other having to be physical.
A sister says that, despite the fact that she doesn’t have e-mail, she’s for it because it would help some people stay involved even though they can’t come to all of our meetings. We could maybe reach out a little and try for a short time.
A brother says despite how it’s really important for other people outside the meeting space to be involved, maybe it’s better not to have the minute taker broadcasting the minutes in real time without edits.
To wrap up Janet says that we will, eventually, come back with a proposal to see if it’s something people like.
Restaurant probation 8:07 – Last year we chose Park Street Café to be our new restaurant. Their first year was on probation, and after the probation year if they pass, they get two more years before they come up for another review. Feedback forms have gone out to the community and some have come back. We will now have a discussion. The restaurant does want to come back. If Park Street does not come back, Global Services foundation will step in to be the new restaurant without further need to discuss.
We will frame our comments as concerns rather than criticisms. There is a strong bias in the direction of consensus – whether everyone has to consense that they stay or that they go. Usually we ask things in the positive. The question is stated, Does Park Street Café pass their probationary period?
A brother asks just in case, how many stand asides would block a decision? This leads to a long discussion, with some people saying that it’s two or three, others saying that it’s the facilitator’s job do decide on the sense of the meeting. We end up deciding that it’s more important to discuss the restaurant than to discuss process.
A brother says The Park Street Café spent a lot of money, time, labor, and love. They stepped up to the plate, and it wasn’t perfect but they did a darned good job. It’s not an easy job to run a restaurant at the fair, and they overcame a lot of obstacles.
A brother says that he came to the construction parties and watched the restaurant go together. Watching it come together was fun. They had the spirit of the village.
A sister says the restaurant invested a lot in time and money and work. They ought to be able to come back a few times to use the restaurant they built.
A brother says they were his first choice. That they did a good job, and they’ll do better next year.
A sister says that she had two bad experiences with the restaurant, was short changed, was overcharged, and was not treated as well as she expected by the restaurant.
A brother says that the restaurant is normally approved on a three year basis. Passing probation this year means they’re approved for two more years.
A sister says that she would be willing to give them more time. She says that because she knows a lot of people in the village, a lot of people come to her with their complaints, and she got a lot of complaints from villagers about the restaurant. People were upset about bad service, rude camping behavior, and items being dropped from the menu after the restaurant was approved,
A sister says she appreciates the hard work the restaurant did. One thing the sister experienced herself and people with children said; they were looking forward to the menu items that kids would like, and the Mac and Cheese had onions and some of the kid items weren’t as kid friendly as they could be. The sister says she offers this as a piece of creative feedback.
A brother has a question for the restaurant; what did they learn from last year and what would they do different?
They say they will try to streamline the menu. Many things were more work than they needed to be. The mashed potato pancakes slowed down the line a lot, they were more time than expected. They will be streamlining things. When slow menu items bogged them down, they made other mistakes (the cheeses sauce wasn’t meant to have onions, for example.)
A sister says she always hesitates to say anything that isn’t positive, and she appreciates all the work the restaurant did. The restaurant didn’t really serve the community well. It made the fair more difficult not to have a restaurant that had vegetarian food with protein at a reasonable price. Getting protein brought the price out of reach. The Cow used to have a fair special where you could get a small portion but all the food groups for less money. Regarding the mac and cheese – the person who spoke with the sister wouldn’t go check as to whether the cheese was renetless and was not polite. Also not open as late as Holy Cow used to be. The sister says that she heard similar complaints from others.
A brother says that he’s a special ed teacher, whenever there’s feedback, constructive or otherwise, he likes to give three positives to each negative. The overall concern about the restaurant was that it wasn’t a community member, but a business. It also wasn’t the brother’s first choice for a menu. Also, it may not have been a clear communication as to why the menu changed. There was feedback that the things that were removed happened after the fact. The restaurant offered common food. The service was good. The price was high. The brother said he would stand aside to the decision.
A sister says that, having been on the tasting committee, the food was her favorite. The prices were the lowest. She didn’t eat most of the food. She’d like to see people write this feedback down for the restaurant.
A brother asks what concrete steps would be taken to streamline the process?
A brother from the restaurant says that there are no answers yet because they’ve only had one meeting.
A sister says that the coffee was expensive, the food was expensive, and the food was common, the sorts of things we make at home. The sister says that she hardly used the restaurant at all.
A brother says it’s time to call the discussion to a close. We have a job to do tonight. Should we continue with park street, or should we fall back to Global Services? The brother suggests that we give the restaurant an opportunity to tell us why we should pass their probation and let them keep going.
A sister appreciates the free hot water.
The brother from the restaurant wants to take all this feedback so that he can address it. He says he is not really prepared to answer any of these questions. He didn’t get our concerns in advance. He really wants to go for it again, and this year he feels that it won’t be as overwhelming than last year. They only had from March forward to get ready.
Another brother from the restaurant is thankful for the feedback. All the complaints are things that could be fixed. They aren’t things that can’t be overcome. This perspective can be helpful to focus the restaurant crew for the coming year. Let’s get things dialed in.
PROPOSED: Since there is a lot of constructive feedback, can we consent tonight to a one year probation which would be outside of the traditional agreement, for the sake of moving forward and to give the restaurant time to address the feedback they got.
four stand asides
1 – A brother would prefer to consense that they failed, not that they passed.
2 – a sister was overcharged, shortchanged, and treated rudely. She says she wasn’t apologized to
3 – a sister says there were so many complaints and problems, and she doesn’t think they will be addressed, and the idea of one year was to see how it went.
4 - A sister stands aside with her reason not stated
Call for consensus.
One Block because four stand asides is not consensus.
A sister says we are not ready to call for consensus, there are many people who have not spoken who want to speak. We’re not ready to come to consensus.
Keith, who has talked with the Fair’s Food Committee about their rules, says if we don’t come to consensus tonight, Global Services will be the new restaurant tomorrow because of what the food committee says. Because January is traditionally when we make our restaurant decisions, we need to make a decision tonight. We can’t table this for next month.
A brother says we shouldn’t be micromanaging someone’s block.
The brother who blocked will set his block aside. But he says that he was blocking because we were pushing this through without listening to people.
A sister says she would like to see a different proposal; can we have the restaurant for one more year with the acknowledgement that they were really worried about money and at oaks them to rower prices.
The first brother to stand aside rescinds his stand aside.
Another brother blocks for the same reason as the first brother who blocked, because there are too many stand asides and he doesn’t feel we’ve reached consensus.
A brother says a block is meant to be because the decision we’re making is detrimental to this community as a whole, and he doesn’t see the blocks happening here fitting that description. We’re not in a position when our community is going to be torn apart. The restaurant was in a bad situation this year. They said they will do better next year.
PROPOSED: We form a committee willing to work with the restaurant for a second year, or have the council form this committee, to help the restaurant to solve these problems before next year and in doing so, allow a second year of probation.
No stand asides
No blocks
CONSENSED
((Editors note: There was a lot of cross talk and impassioned discussion through the whole latter part of the discussion of the restaurant. Most of it dealt with process, how many stand asides constitute a block, and whether or not we needed to make a decision at that exact moment. I was unable to capture most of the discussion because it was moving so fast, with many people speaking out of order. I believe I caught the gist of the discussion, and I know for certain that I captured all the proposals, all the stand asides, and all the blocks))
Call for council 8:52 – Who wants to stand for council. The process for council confirmation is this; people who want to serve on council stand in January. They give out their contact information. If someone has a concern about the person standing for council, they need to bring that concern to that person within the next week to express their concern and try to work it out. If they can’t work it out in the next week, they need to bring their concern to the next council meeting where it will be addressed. If it is still not addressed, they may block that person from sitting on council for the coming year. If a person does not follow this process, they are not permitted to block a council person from sitting on council. The next council meeting is at Tim’s house. I didn’t catch the time and date because it was late and I’d been typing for a long time. Someone, please post the information to the list. Tim’s house is at; 2096 ½ Arthur Street
Who Stood::
Keith Herschberger quackerbacker1@msn.com cell 513-1238
Tim Mueller 521-7208 tim@gwproj.com
Paul Sass 541-689-3709
Daniel Gave a voicemail number which he asked not to be posted online. One of the other people listed here can give you the number.
Lois 836-2670
Ben Barrett 729-3130 stircrazyben@gmail.com
Nathan Greene 338-7827 spuddygreene@yahoo.com
Dianne Albino 933-2584
Karla Caudel 337-5319 kjcaudel@hotmail.com
Janet Tarver 344-3770 planetbubblesuniverse@yahoo.com
Jennefer Harper 359-8111 jenneferh2000@yahoo.com
David Hoffman 484-9204 fixit@efn.org
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