Board Minutes 2021 February 16

Open Space Institute - U.S. Board Meeting Minutes, February 16, 2021

Present: Barry Owen, Myrianne Ouellette, April Jefferson, Karen J. Davis, Jake Yeager, Harold Shinsato

Began with a Moment of Silence followed by Check-ins

We celebrate State of Arizona's 109th Birthday (Thanks Jake!). Karen mentioned that New Mexico's birthday is almost the same.

April Jefferson's Induction

All voted in favor to add April to the board after her third consecutive monthly board meeting attendance.

Wrapping up 2021 Peace & High Performance

Karen reported we had almost had 80-90 at a time, and over a hundred each day. Almost half the attendees were from other countries, good chunk from Canada. Added dimension. The proceedings have gone out. Lots of phenomenal work that Suzanne Daigle pulled together creatively. Lucas Cioffi was a real gem for facilitating the technical side. Harold helped behind the scenes with registrations. Some real involvement by everyone in different ways. In terms of the dollars and cents, we have $2k after expenses are taken care of. Suggestion is that the money be a part of the OST Peace & High Performance in the future. When we get back on site at International House, there will be big expense. Other big thing related to that, is a potential video project related to the event. Suzanne Daigle is really beginning to focus on the video, and she has someone in mind and has backup people, and see what happens between now and the next meeting in terms of the cost.

Harold moved to reserve $10k. Motion passed unanimously. We also had a conversation about a website and branding upgrade.

Purpose Facilitation

We will schedule this next meeting, using Genuine Contact. Maybe invite the community. Shifting from Holding Space towards Opening Space.

Funding Proposal

Jake sent out a request for feedback to many in the OST community and gotfeedback. He shared the feedback as a set of slides. The overarching themes were:

• Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion. Look for more ways to include underserved and underrepresented.
• Simply. Had extracted the $ amount, but one person asked to simplify. If you are providing microgrants, application should be simpler.
• Networks + Initiatives. We are focusing on Individuals and organizations. We aren't including looser networks and initiatives that are not entities, which is common.
• Tax Implications. If we are sending grants oversees. Are there tax implications.
• More "Open Spacey" Models. Other models were shared, more slides about them. And they are more "open spacey", as our proposal is very standard. There are upsides and downsides. Maybe we can make a hybrid that makes.
  • Showed a graph with separate donors and separate grantors.
  • Crowdfunding + dialog - GoFundMe, Kickstarter, people put up posters and people fund them.
  • Giving Circle - The group decides together.
  • OST w/ funds available

Open Questions - Funding size amount? Funds available? How to prioritize proposals? Tax implications?

Next steps, subcommittee (April, Karen, Jake) review. Slim it down, have it focused. We can grow to something bigger.
This will all be influenced by the purpose. It will be influenced by working with Canada. It might take a couple sessions. Might be opening a can of worms. This will take three two hour sessions, and will be an ongoing project. We can't start in March because of the non-profit financial year ends then, which would prevent Myrianne's being able to contribute.

Movement to Nominate Harrison Owen for the Peace Prize

Is it a lot of work? Barry has some info and energy to support it. It has to do with educational institution doing the nominating. Had some discussions and he will put energy into it. Only certain people can nominate. Then need to be nominated by qualified individuals or institutions. Barry will dig into that. Myriane is happy to help after March/April. The nominations are due in October.

Future of Work Open Space - May

Last Future of Work 24 hour open space, the Institute was a sponsor. We were a promotional sponsor and shared the event with the members. The Future of Work is bringing multiple thought communities together, and is similar to Flourishing Futures. It is for 24 hours. It definitely has D. I. & E. involved. Every 4 hours another circle from different parts of the world facilitating. Will have Spanish, Japanese as well as English circles. With funds that were raised, gave honorariums to volunteer facilitators. For each circle two facilitators, one producer, one graphic recorder, and a scribe. For Spanish/English circle, the scribe will summarize. Normally financial sponsorship is $500. The OSI-US has often sponsored at $250 level. Harold moved, Barry seconded, motion passed unanimously to promotional and financial sponsor at $250.

Next Meeting

March 16th, 6-7:30pm.

We closed with checkouts.