Dear Friends,

As one of the members who volunteered on the “Project Management” committee, I am attaching our agenda and “worksheet” for your review.

Our next General Meeting is Sunday, January 6th from 1-4:30pm at my house (see address below).  This will include a 2 1/2 hour working meeting and a social hour afterwards for those who can stay.

Agenda (see below)

* Based on your input, I have typed up the attached agenda with suggested time allocated for each item.  As you can see, it’s a very full agenda and we would need to extend our working portion of the meeting by 30 min.

* If you have a significant change to the agenda, please let me know by Wed. so that I can revise and send out to the group. (I will be away later in the week).

Worksheet (see attachment)

* To help us stay on track with the agenda (time and topic-wise), I am suggesting we review the attached worksheet which includes the topics and questions that will be raised at our meeting. No, it’s not homework (!) but hopefully knowing what we will discuss in advance will make our meeting run more efficiently.

Visiting Members

* Thanks to all those who gave suggestions, it appears that the majority does see value in having visiting members attend a portion of the meeting.  Janine’s suggestion to group the agenda items will help us balance our meeting needs as well as give the visiting members a good sense of who we are to make an informed decision.  I think you will see that the majority of visiting members will have significant contributions to add should they decide to join our group. I am also attaching a brief statement of each visitor (these are written in my words, not theirs…though we might want to request a brief bio in the future).

* Visiting members are invited to attend from 2:30-4:30pm given how the agenda is structured.  They will join us when we discuss how each member can contribute.  We will invite them to add their comments after our group has finished (to give them time to be thoughtful with their responses).

Our family looks forward to starting the new year off with you.  See you soon.

AGENDA for Eco-Village General Meeting

Volunteers needed:

• Snacks
• Time Keeper for      meeting
• Lead agenda item      #1-6
• Lead agenda item      #7
• Lead agenda      items #8-9
• Lead agenda      items #10
• Anyone know of a      babysitter?  There will be 8-10      children in attendance. Sitter needed from 1-3:30pm.

AGENDA ITEMS

Housekeeping Items (45 min) – Open to current members only.

1)        Fun activity to start off meeting such as reading a verse together, other ideas? (5 min)

2)        Celebrate our successful Holiday Bazaar! (1 min).

3)        Make a decision on funds from Holiday Bazaar (10 min).

4)        Vote to have a standing meeting time (5 min) For example, first Sunday afternoon each month.  Solicit suggested times at the meeting but complete the process via email post-meeting.

5)        Ideas for generating Seed Money. Bring your top idea. (10 min).

6)        Process for visiting/prospective members (15 min).

Current Topics (45 min) – Open to current members only.

7)        Assess commitment level of each member (e.g., time, effort, etc). What prevents each of us from fully engaging and committing? Timeline for firm commitment? (45 min)

Current Topics (60 min) – Open to current and visiting members.

Visiting Members arrive at 2:30pm 

8)        Introductions – simply state your name and those of family members (15 min).

9)        Determine where our group’s competencies lie.  What contributions can each member make immediately and in the longer term? (40 min)

10)     Vote on having a working weekend in order to work on tasks in sub-groups (5 min). The hope is that this type of meeting will give us the springboard to move forward as a unified team as well as complete some tasks and milestones in a relatively short period of time.

Proposed Topics for Working Weekend

• Complete mission and vision statements.
• Determine our core values
• Draft governing principles.
• * How best to build trust among members.
• Establish membership policy.
• Determine benchmarks
• Create timeline for task completion.
• Identify key factors that will determine our success.
• “Pulse check” – how are we doing meeting our goals and objectives?

11) Next Steps: Sign up for committee

Social Hour (3:30-4:30pm)

Janine has offered to help register anyone who is not yet on our yahoo group during the social hour.

~END~

Please come prepared to answer the following questions.

1. How would you like the remaining funds from the holiday bazaar disbursed? (for example: sponsor a second family, donate to a Sandy charity, etc).
2. What day/time do you suggest as the standing time for our monthly meetings?  Write down your top three preferences.
   1. _________________
   2. _________________
   3. _________________
3. What is your #1 idea for getting seed money?
4. What are your ideas for how we should incorporate visiting/new members?
5. What is your commitment level at this time?  What keeps you from fully committing?
6. What can you contribute to the group immediately and longer term?
7. At the present time, I am able to commit to _________, ___________, _________.
8. In the future, I see myself as ________________ in the eco-village.
9. Do you wish to have a working weekend? Yes/No.
10. Which committee/task will you contribute to in order to move the group forward?

Have you signed up for our yahoo group yet?  If not, please see Janine during our social hour to register.

See you on January 6^th at 1pm!