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# 2020-04-22 CWCF <> Hypha call about Loomio

Time: Wednesday, April 22 @ 12:00-13:00
Location:
Attending: Kenzie, Kaye, Ben, Dawn

## Notes

### Intros

- Hypha
- Ben: currently in Spain. mostly work from home. software developmer, community organizer, decentralized web and digital infrastructure
- Dawn: in Toronto, project management, bg in design research, other gig is a PhD candidate at UofT, with some flexibility to wfh Hypha as a remote org, tiny apartment, some adjustments
- About Hypha met at Civic Tech Toronto, working on open source tech projects together, want to earn a livelihood doing these things, took time starting Hypha 1.5 year ago, incorp < 1 year, first worker coop we (ben) have been in aside from consumer co-operatives. Overlap of people who are intersted in "decentralized web" and co-operatives. Non share worker co-operative
- Kaye: how does the shared space work? share leads or experience?
- Dawn: we have different projects, more of a "shared experience"
- Ben: decentralized web camp: way to get people together to have shared conversations, rather than working on their own projects
- Hypha interested in creating those spaces for other networks. Hypha is also doing that for the members in our "virtual office"
- Kaye: IT/art focused worker coop - Eyemole, in BC: https://www.eyemole.io/about.html
- CWCF (Comms team: Kenzie, Kaye, Mattais (sp?))
- Kenzie: based in Calgary, communications and executive assistant, writing content for monthly newsletter, also part of various other projects, past efforts to engage members on loomio, 3 years as part of CWCF :)
- Kaye: MBA, never learned about worker coop format, heard from her son, took a course about this and then started at CWCF, what do you want to know :)
- Dawn: a member of CWCF, read about strategy, moderately familiar, read the newsletter!
- Kaye: read the strategy, that's pretty knowledged

### Background: CWCF using Loomio

- Kaye: very challenging to get people engaged, in general coops are busy ppl, small biz trying to survive
- annual conference is the effective space but also not enough time for ppl to connect, but not everyone can come, tried regional meetups
- conference delayed for 2020, will be in Vancouver 2021
- need a virtual AGM
- listserv didn't work out
- loomio came up from strategic plan developer, but worked poorly, own board didn't fully engage, after 1.5 year we are still trying
- combination of not knowing how to work the platform well and ppl being busy
- Dawn: how many members?
- Kaye: 45-59 members, with avg. 5 worker owners per member
- Dawn: has there been a departure in how you're thinking about member engagement recently?
- Kaye: thinking about biannual conference, and to engage more regional, but depends on regional rep who are also busy
- managed to drive around with Rita to visit as many members as possible, but difficult geographically
- in Winnepeg it's a little easier, many members are in there
- Dawn: member engagement linked to strategies around covid-19 response?
- Kaye: hope members will have connection
- hired lobby firm to work with local MPs
- some members are doing well, but others are not, want to share best practices within different sectors (geographically or by industry)
- Hazel doing virtual coffee on Zoom, won't hit everyone
- Ben:
- How do you see digital tools may help CWCF further its near-term strategy?
- Mention using using tools: zoom (good, couple years), loomio, mailing list, newsletter (400)
- Conference calls into webinars
- Have done limited surveying of members
- Hard to get members on phone / email
- How did you decide that Loomio may be an appropriate tool?
- Sounds like a co-op developer suggested it, used it through the strategy development procress
- What do you hope to accomplish with members over the digital sphere?
- Not make CWCF a bottleneck?
- Engagement with CWCF and with each other (e.g., build solidarity economy)
- Where do you see the friction points for members to onboard a digital tools?
- Dawn:
- animator role - e.g. like a forum, ppl constantly present to make sure ppl get answered
- technical role - make sure service stays up
- Kaye - social media person
- at Hypha we use a task tracker (github), video calls (jitsi), formal recording of decisions and discussions (loomio)
- some of the tools in loomio are valuable, especially voting
- however have moved more discussions to where the work happens (in our case the task tracker: Github)
- "getting ppl to come to a place and use that place" is hard
- Kaye: loomio, confusing :)
- very linear person, but loomio is anything but linear
- Kenzie: person at loomio, poll for ppl to have read the agenda, level of preparedness
- Dawn: e.g., their guide: https://blog.loomio.org/2020/03/19/remote-work-kit/
- Dawn: sat in at a virtual AGM, had to use the video tool, the tool allows voting
- Dawn: get ppl into loomio bc we are using it for the AGM
- e.g. Zoom call, virtual social, encouraging regional directors
- #todo:Dawn guide to virtual cocktail hours
- https://www.mishaglouberman.com/blog
- Some of the pain points:
- members busy running their own business
- regional directors schedule
- difficulty communicating with members
- geographic distribution
- Sounds like CWCF needs:
- virtual AGM
- virtual board meetings
- virtual access to expertise (e.g. coffee with the ED)
- sharing member best practices with remote / covid-19 work
- General observations about introducing new tools/services:
- Nobody wants to make a new account on anything (lose x% immediately)
- People may make an account, but they won't stay engaged (how often do you check some platform you registered to, think about email notifications)
- Can be barriers to entry: It requires some level of technical literacy to use and we may not assume that for the membership

### Engagement strategy

- Steps/ramp to build up to loomio (e.g., smaller engagement vibes)
- Tie this into AGM and board meetings (existing need)
- Publicize it on new website + newsletter
- Use link that makes it easier to join!

### Next steps

- hypha: send an email with these notes
- kaye:
- email connection to eyemole
- send link to loomio for hypha to join!
- send communications strategy (maybe implementation strategy?)
-cwcf <> hypha: have a co-work session on loomio specifics in next few weeks