July 2010

Meeting on July 20, 2010 (4:30 p.m.–6:10 p.m. ET)

Present: Doug Germann, Phelim McDermott, Suzanne Daigle, Harold Shinsato, Ed Laboy, Lisa Heft, Karen Davis
Absent: Peggy Holman, Christine Whitney Sanchez
Notestaker: Suzanne Daigle

Moment of Silence marked the beginning of our meeting

Regular informal check-in with each participant in the group updating each other on activities and events that we are each involved in.

1) Election and Confirmation of 2010-11 Officers

President: Lisa Heft
Vice President: Christine Whitney Sanchez
Treasurer: Harold Shinsato
Secretary: Suzanne Daigle

Deep appreciation to Peggy Holman for her commitment and dedicated work in the treasurer role and to Karen Davis as secretary. Both will be lending support to Harold and Suzanne as they assume their new roles.

2) On line Web presence and identity

Our initial discussions on web presence and identity surfaced a broader issue which is to revisit and explore the role of OSI US.   Getting greater clarity on our mission going forward will better inform the direction and actions we need to pursue not only on the above topic but also on the products or services we may decide to provide or the actions or projects we may wish to support.

Lisa, with support from Karen, recommended that it would be worth considering the feasibility of holding a face-to-face retreat format to explore these issues of identity and purpose. Our last face-to-face Board retreat was in November 2009.

Harold added however that we should not delay exploring the on-line web presence and identity and that we should start raising the questions that can guide the direction we could take – both in our web presence and also informing our exploration of the Board’s identity and role. Relative to web presence and identity, we will want to ultimately involve a broader community and also be looking at what a real Open Space social media platform could look like.

Phelim then added that we should also leverage what’s already out there commenting that it is positive that we have two major sites that people can go to including the traditional OS World site and the new Ning OS website which has already garnered a large membership following.

To get the conversations started between members of the Board, Phelim will create a mini workspace on his Basecamp account providing us an opportunity to post questions that we want to explore on this web topic and the place of the OS Institute US relative to it – done in the spirit and practice of Open Space.

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Items in the ‘BIN’:

1) On Line Web presence and identity; confirm the availability of the OSI URL (Harold, Suzanne)
2) Potential for strategic collaboration in open space community (Christine)
3) Annual meeting (all)
4) Ask letter follow-up (Peggy)
5) Loan support (Peggy)