# Kumara Welcome Pod 1 - Reflections

Content:
- Winterfest Context
- Podding as a Transitional Experience
- Pod Patterns as an Avenue for Co-creating a Collective Onboarding Experience
- Lessons for Welcome Pods

## Winterfest Context
Following the 2023 [Winterfest gathering](https://opencollective.com/enspiral-winterfest-australia#category-ABOUT), there was interest from those newly-arriving to Enspiral in joining. In response, a couple of members from the [Kumara Node](https://heymichal.gitbook.io/enspiral-handbook-2023/nodes/kumara) Cultivation Working Group) facilitated an asynchronous chat for those interested, and raised awareness of the process among existing members.

<img src="https://hackmd.io/_uploads/r1nKPs_zT.png" width="60%" >

Within this context, one of these newly-arriving folk expressed interest in a participating in a pod and, following additional expressions of interest, took the initiative of posting a call in the Winterfest general chat for anyone wanting to join an 'onboarding pod'.

<img src="https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJBsvjufT.png" width="40%" >

Following further asynch discussion, a pod formed with 6 people interested in becoming members of the Kumara Enspiral Node *(Logan, Emma, Kiri, Jen, Hermes, and Teq)* along with one existing member *(Richie)* who hosted the space to co-create these initial stages of sharing the start of our respective pathways into Enspiral.

The formation of this Welcome Pod was informed by patterns [outlined in the Enspiral Handbook](https://handbook.enspiral.com/guides/pods#forming-a-pod). Following the **retrospective** element of these patterns, we share this account of the resulting Kumara Node Welcome Pod with the aim of reflecting on the processes we went through together to highlight our learnings. In doing so, we also hope our experience can provide an example of how podding offers one possible avenue for onboarding into Enspiral's dynamic human ecosystem.

To begin we outline how we navigated the transitional experience of moving in, through, and out of a Welcome Pod during the early days of the newly-forming Kumara node. Building on this, we explore how these reflections reflect existing pod patterns and outlines some potential lessons for further experiments in forming Welcome Pods to co-create a collective experience of arriving into the Enspiral network.

## Podding as a Transitional Experience
One way to view our onboarding pod is as a transitional space for people to orient themselves within the potentially overwhelming space of possibilities when arriving into Enspiral. Reflecting this, we begin by describing this podding experiences using Nancy Schlossberg's (1981) meta-model which distils transitions into three stages: moving in; moving through; and moving out.

(Schlossberg, 1981)

### Moving in

The Pod was called for Winterfest attendees interested in joining Enspiral as a member. This meant most of the welcome pod were 'newly arriving' (potential) Enspiral members.

Structurally, there was a request for a 'host' participant, being an existing Enspiral member. Richie joined the pod to take the host role; bringing the combined benefits of being an Enspiral Member and also as a familiar face to all attendees as Richie was also at Winterfest.

An invitation to join a dedicated group chat, assisted people to opt-in. And the chat channel was used to help define that this was a four sessions commitment on Fridays.

### Moving through

This pod was explicitly framed around Welcoming and Onboarding new members.
As such the pod acted as a bridge as participants moved from being non-members into being members.

During the pod, everyone was in essence 'somewhat members'.

Analogies and stories around journey's seemed to work well in the pod as did conversations around navigating being in familiar and unfamiliar places.

#### The forest analogy

Richie shared an analogy of arriving to Enspiral could be thought of as similar to arriving into a national park or state forest.

While there are common attractions many people may get to (events like Summerfest), it's worth imagining that people are arriving from different directions through different entrances, very much affecting the terrain, path and experience they have as they arrive.

The group really enjoyed what was called the 'forest analogy' and the analogy was extended, including a desire to travel via canoe with other pod attendees once they entered the park.

While there may be major attractions that we eventually arrive at, each of us could be entering the ecosystem/park from different directions, then very much shifting our arrival journey.

Map of Belair National Park, SA Department for Environment and Water

#### Special Guests added so much

The inclusion of the 'special guest Enspiral member' worked well and we asked each guest 'What is Enspiral?' and 'What was your arriving journey into Enspiral?'.

The sharing of these two stories by each existing member helped the attendees understand:

- Enspiral as an human ecosystem can be very different to different people
- Enspiral has changed significantly over time, affecting the arriving journey
- Different people arrive with their own expectations, goals and desires for what Enspiral might offer them.

Hearing from four Enspiral members over the course of the four sessions, including explicit stories of tensions and confusions on arrival, helped attendees to reflect on and understand their own journey of arrival through the lens of those that had come before.

#### Logistics
The energy in session 1 and 2 seemed much more focused on "What is Enspiral" and "How does this group work?" and "Why are you involved?".

In session three there was a very clear desire to have answered a list of explicit questions;
- How actually do I join, where is the form, what does it ask?
- How is membership paid, how much, when?
- What if I come across this scenario, or have this need.

Richie fielded practical questions in session three and shared links to specific areas within the handbook as part of this section. Richie also made it clear that he was a host within the pod but not the authority or person responsible for attendees arrival.

In advance of the final session a formal invitation to join was made by Richie. The invitation was intended to help give certainty as to how to step forward without lingering ambiguity.

> Enspiral Membership Invitation
>
>Dear
>
>Thank you for attending Enspiral Winterfest as well as our experimental welcome pod.
Us Enspiral folk would like to offer you a complimentary 3 months membership to Enspiral.
>
>It comes, as we've been discussing, with all the things that you want to help make it and furthers our collective intention to have "more people working on stuff that matters".
>
>At the three month mark you'll be given the opportunity to start a monthly contribution to stay on.
>
>Our network agreements are all open at handbook.enspiral.com, please be aware of the persona conduct agreement specifically (https://handbook.enspiral.com/agreements/personal_conduct)
>
>What we need to get you started is your name (Prefered Given & Family) and the primary email address you want to use for enspiral related correspondance & logins.
>Once I have those details I'll trigger an email to you from our Enspiral systems to invite you into our digital platforms.
>
>Warm regards
>
>Richie on behalf of Enspiral Kumara Node

*Note from Richie: I whipped this up as I sensed the attendees wanted a 'proper invite'. I am sure it could be improved. For future readers there is currently no actual requirement to provide written invitation at the time of writing.*

### Moving out

The final session felt different. The group was moving out and the collective understanding that this was our last pod together was palpable.

This final session naturally felt like a space of reflection and celebration.

Attendees were invited, within the context that they were moving out of this process, to gather ideas into a [retro board](https://easyretro.io/publicboard/wG61nl2jZwg9fk47O5bxuCplMEH3/b29e9520-4c54-4207-af51-87d62875b6f7). We set a time and some music and we all had around 10 minutes to add to the board and reflect on the process thus far.

## Pod Patterns as an Avenue for Co-creating a Collective Onboarding Experience

The guidance offered by the Enspiral Handbook for [forming a pod](https://handbook.enspiral.com/guides/pods#forming-a-pod) highlights the intentional collaborative processes involved:

> A pod is formed by a few people coming together around an intention and some principles. An initial invitation is made by a caller, who also coordinates the first video call or meeting. The invitation will often come with the seed of an intention. It could also suggest a format that the group may choose to follow, or some principles and rituals to use through their calls.


### A free-format pod
While the potential for forming various types of pods was raised during Winterfest, the invitation from a 'caller' was a crucial moment for forming our Welcome Pod. In our reflections, multiple people noted that that it was particularly powerful that our caller was newly-arriving to Enspiral and, at the time, not yet a member.

As an onboarding pod, it was also important for us to have an existing member hold space and help us co-create the **format** we wanted for this pod. We decided on a **cycle** of four, ninety minute sessions with a ~weekly **cadence**, with each session building on the previous through an emergent agenda.

Along the way, three other other existing members joined for specific sessions to share with us stories from their own experiences in navigating their way when newly-arriving within Enspiral. As already mentioned, these stories proved to be an incredibly valuable element to this format of our pod.

### Enspirally ways we held space
We also practiced podding **principles** and **rituals** throughout our sessions. For instance, following an acknowledgement of country and an opening of the circle, our first session included forming shared norms, clarifying boundaries, and setting our intentions for the following sessions. We also clarified our various roles within the pod, and agreed on a process for sharing what we learn to the broader network.

Another of the **principles** we adopted was an emergent collaborative approach to hosting. While our host provided a light structure as the stable existing member perspective throughout our sessions, we also drew on the opportunity of having many people in the room who were confident facilitators to play with the sense of 'wobbling forward' that facilitators often deal with without discussing. Reflecting this principle, one of the **ritual** that emerged during our sessions was the practice of collectively choosing a prompt for reflection each time we opened and closed our sessions.

### Navigating onboarding expectations
For our first major onboarding activity, we decided to use a 'popcorn' approach to each respond to two questions specific to our intentions of co-creating our pod and collectivising our initial experiences of joining Enspiral:
- What are our expectations of Enspiral?
- What are our expectations of this pod?

This 'popcorn' approach involved us each taking some time to reflect on the two questions, and write out a response. At the end of our first session, we all released our responses into the chat at the same time. These responses were then collected by one of the participants and summarised for the group to revisit in the next session.

Our expectations of Enspiral were varied, with the themes highlighting three broad perspectives:
> - A view of Enspiral as an ecosystem of dynamic human relationships, including a changing collection of people hosting gatherings, overlapping collections of people who initiate various experiments in livelihood practices, and an even broader collection of people who periodically attend events or participate in more sporadic ways.
> - A view of Enspiral as an opportunity to share information and resources, to find and offer support for specific projects, and to build a web of peer support.
> - A view of Enspiral as a collection of emergent and convergent experiments in making change in the world by working on stuff that matters.

Complementing these perspectives of Enspiral, our expectations of the Pod highlighted hopes for:
> - A taste of the Enspiral experience - including an opportunity to co-create a space to practice Enspirally ways of being in relationship with people.
> - A better understanding of Enspiral and how it operates and learn from the different perspectives of existing members.
> - A little community of care to support entering the broader network by "building the on-boarding plane while we fly it".

We continued to return to these themes throughout our sessions as we reflected on the experiences shared by existing Enspiral members. Along the way, it felt like there was a gradual shift in emphasis away from hopes that Enspiral will provide us something, and towards an appreciation for the messy openness of Enspiral as it evolves over time. For example, one of our session 4 discussions focused on how we are each responsible for navigating the degree to which we are best able to participate in helping shape the future of Enspiral.

## Lessons for Welcome Pods
Another key activity was our retrospective. For this activity we each reflected on our experiences in the Welcome Pod as an on-boarding pathway into Enspiral, and simultaneously [shared our responses](https://easyretro.io/publicboard/wG61nl2jZwg9fk47O5bxuCplMEH3/b29e9520-4c54-4207-af51-87d62875b6f7) to four questions:
*What went well? What didn't go well? What have I learned? What still puzzles me?*
<img src="https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SJOCOIMm6.png" width="80%" >

This activity was valuable in itself, providing a space for both appreciation and questioning, and also a gentle step towards the **ritual** closing circle. Additionally, our reflections suggest some potential lessons to further iterations on this approach.

One of the most obvious lessons was the value of having a familiar host to consistently "hold space, offering a light structure and sense of connection to the greater Enspiral Network" while providing support and context for navigating the ambiguous transition from potential-member to member.

Another major lesson was the value of a potential-member taking the initiative to call the pod (within the context of having support from existing members to help build on Enspiral patterns to shape the pod format). This was a powerful demonstration of initative and willingness to contribute to co-creating an onboarding experience (rather than potential member consuming a neatly packaged onboarding *service* provided by existing members).

Building on this, the participants who showed up embraced an open space approach of co-creating an emergent agenda. Combined with the consistency of a familiar host and our collaborative facilitation practices, this open space contributed to both a "sense of autonomy and care, balancing the do-ocracy with light facilitation"; a valuable foundation for participating in the opt-in collaborative culture cultivated within Ensprial.

As already mentioned, the varied experiences shared by visiting members were also appreciated a lot! These different perspectives also helped to reinforce the Enspiral advice to [newcomers](https://handbook.enspiral.com/guides/newcomers), including 'every experience of Enspiral is different', 'leave your expectations at the door', and 'give it time'.

With these reflections in mind, characteristics of our onboarding experience worth repeating include:
- For people arriving to Enspiral via a gathering, to have node members lightly facilitate them to call or join an emerging pod as an pathway towards becoming an Enspiral contributer.
- Forming a 'Welcome Pod' with an existing Enspiral member as 'host' and a small group of people newly-arriving to Enspiral from a shared context (Winterfest), and then inviting a series of less-familiar existing members to 'visit' for one session each.
- Supporting an open-space approach to the format of each Welcome Pod as an opportunity for co-creating a collaborative onboarding experience.

Our reflections also highlights that finding the most recently updated resources can be difficult for newly arriving members and, relatedly, a clear 'invitation ritual' could be valuable. Suggestions for how this difficulty might be eased through future Welcome Pod experiments included:
- Collecting a 'host toolkit' of the most recent overviews of Enspiral practices (examples include the [Enspiral map](https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_laEjVqQ=/) and Enspiral Handbook entries for [Newcommers](https://handbook.enspiral.com/guides/newcomers), [Onboarding and Offboarding](https://handbook.enspiral.com/guides/ops_processes), and [Comms Guidelines](https://handbook.enspiral.com/guides/comms_guidelines)).
- Having clear moment when participants formally receive their invitations to the various Enspiral tools (e.g., participatory decision-making processes on [Loomio](https://www.loomio.com/), open-budgeting practices on [Cobudget](https://cobudget.com/), choosing an appropriate financial contribution to the [Enspiral Foundation](https://welcome.enspiral.com/), joining into relevant Slack channels). For example, this might be a fixed timing-based step (e.g. at the end of session 3, to provide more of an opportunity to debrief together about navigating the various processes), or be something that happens when the host feels like the group energy shifts has reliably shifted from 'sampling a demo' to 'we're in!'.

Overall, participating in a pod as part of the Kumara Node welcome process has felt like a relatively gentle pathway through the transitional ambiguity of shifting from a (prospective) friend to an (invited) contributor within the Enspiral Network. We look forward to seeing it adapted for future experiments with Welcome Pods.

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Created for: Enspiral Kumara Node (2023)
Attribution: Written, in collaboration with [Richie Khoo](https://hachyderm.io/@richiekhoo), by [E. T. Smith](https://hackmd.io/@Teq/Bio) on unceded lands of the [Wurundjeri people](https://www.wurundjeri.com.au/) of the Kulin Nation.
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