Log Keeping team operational meetings [2025]

nathalie.szycher · January 21, 2025, 5:06pm

Backlog (incomplete)

GH tags for badges/ badges on forum
Review Google Workspaces Best Practices
Review sharing options for Google Docs for people outside the org (and maybe even without google account?) - archive
How does IT circle understand the Google Workspace Best Practices? Idea: Renaming and moving from ‘Documentation’ to ‘Policies’
offer GH training - did outreach reply?
visit circles after their meeting
Expand department circle audit for op roles
Forum engagement
Communication strategy
Google Groups
- What to do with obsolete groups? E.g. permacultura@sociocracyforall.org merged into Movimientos regenerativos
- Do we create Google Groups on request, or automatically when a circle is newly created?
how many circle information meta data do we want to have in our circle minutes?
rename groups on forum - Network Member
update header on our forum
network member google group structure for new membership model

Waiting for network model

how do we display CoP in our org diagram?
review Help Desk Directory (logkeeping/ IT support)
schedule next training (see notes 06-27)
circle role holder orientation

12-09 meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 45 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting:

Agenda formation

peerdom access for Adam
- onboarding as Network member almost completed
- give him a full seat in peerdom
- downgrade Audrée’s accesss and add Adam
- done!
- John follows up with Adam and Audrée
state of our co-working
- Nathalie moved out of log keeping role
- Nathalie membership coordinator
- sense of overlap between membership coordinator & log keeper
- continue as co-workings
- two aspects
  - operational overlap
  - social and motivational
- membership & log-keeping co-working
  - invite (staff) members
  - join any time
  - kind of office hours
  - call it office hours
  - 90min, check-in, check-out, no mid-point check-in
  - Dec 19th and Jan 2nd and go from there, maybe weekly
  - 14 UTC
    - set up calendar event
    - John does all the communication by Friday
  - could also reduce email communication
working members google group
- postpone to first office hours
- interface question on onboarding new members e.g. who is adding to google drive
could work on membership dashboard too

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09-30 meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 45 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting:

Agenda formation & notes

review asana task
hours for log keeping
- does it need the log keeping support role?
- amount of work for 2 people
- being more agile in our work, take more decision, efficient and faster
- enjoyed thinking through questions
- more operational focus
- budget concerns
- seeking feedback, some conversations might happen in IT circle meeting instead
- best practices around roles and circles
- sounds fine
- direct collaboration between John and Nathalie has been nice
- hand-off main log keeper role? John been holding role for a long time. More rotation healthy?
- […]
- IT circle meeting
  - focus log keeping work on log keeper
  - move Nathalie away from log keeping
  - also focus on stability over ‘a new big project’ // not get into the way of what is happening in website

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09-16 meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 45 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting:

Agenda formation & notes

brief reports on website circle and membership coordinator role
peerdom/ network/ Sopra on the map - update
- governance and org structure questions
- see what peerdom has to offer
how do we encourage circles to keep their circle information up to date?
- comparative view of different circle
- how do we get notified about changes?
  - join CSC meeting and present log keeping team and ways to reach us
  - provide updating and training
  - how well trained are our secretaries
    - secretary CoP?
    - technical meeting for members? some kind of oppertunity to gather role holders and talk about e.g. Google Workspace
- updates on policies?
- broader sociocracy platform?
  - platforms like loomio or karrot are not necessarily sociocratic, but more ‘all in one’
  - when is the time to think about tool changes?
- how can I know that the version on peerdom is up-to-date?
  - review periods on policies
  - how well is our sociocracy practice
  - what other pieces are in place? software could provide prompts when creating policies
  - all our current structures are rather socially motivated
- is peerdom part of the policy manual?
  - circle information are policies
  - confusing to use the policy manual as a broader term and mean both the forum space and peerdom
  - policy manual: space in forum
- next steps
  - talk to Thomas about visiting CSC and introducing log keeping 10min [Nathalie]

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09-02 meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 30 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting:

Agenda formation & notes

topics to bring to IT circle
- offboarding flow
  - SoFA email addresses in GH when network member no longer qualifies to have this email
  - reporting about catch-all email monitoring
  - what to do with old google groups? what to do when the name of the group changes?
  - who is monitoring the exit survey?
  - removing test accounts in WP and GH related to no longer active SoFA email addresses -concerns?
  - Potential additions to offboarding flow
- log keeper offers a proposal and send it to IT circle members
  - bring to meeting if there is no reaction
last IT circle meeting
- primary connection to IT circle via logkeeping and leader roles for Nathalie
- IT Circle: support; IT leadership (including documentation & training); log keeping
website circle work check-in
- in coworking tomorrow, not log keeping anyway
support around membership work
- no request at the moment

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08-05 meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 30 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting:

Agenda formation & notes

offboarding
- review template https://app.asana.com/1/1118314702235176/project/1200426367244284/task/1201547775952733?focus=true
- John willing to help with this work? yes!
  - what would the workflow be
  - what type of membership does this offboarding cover?
  - do we have anything to add from a log keeping perspective?
  - properly cleaning up Pame’s offboarding?
- What do we do with a Groundhogg record that corresponds to a SoFAN email address after we de-activate that email address? (Backlog for IT Circle?)
- Should offboarding tasks be considered IT support tasks (and thus could come up in ITSU)?
  - Maybe if we have specific technical questions about them?
  - Nathalie: I think they should be added in general.
cleaning up Pame’s IT circle offboarding
- “paperwork” for this is done (and in a separate Asana task card)
- auto responder email address: what are the details of this?
side question: who monitors the catch-all email address? A, Nathalie: Samara & CJ, in their respective roles
- John: might be good to get more regular reporting on this
To-do, John: follow-up about re-activating apps (Drafts, Directory) in Peerdom
- Peerdom learnings doc

Open questions about offboarding

When suspending a user, will all emails end up in admin@ now?
https://admin.google.com/ac/groups/00z337ya4cd0d3o How to deal with old groups? Save emails/ information somewhere?
Who is monitoring the exit survey?
Remove all +test accounts in WP/GH?

Potential additions to offboarding flow

remove all email aliases on SoFA email
change email address of GH contact/ merge
change email address of forum user/ merge
remove from peerdom

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benefit from reviewing our backlog, particularly thinking about audits

07-22 meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 45 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting:

Agenda formation

more general co-working today
- flows not running on staging server - Nathalie hand in support request to John
- IT meeting preperation

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07-08 meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 45 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting:

Agenda formation

peerdom
- bringing SoPra in
  - linking question, split between DU, Communties
  - colour coding?
  - start working and bring back questions when they arise
- scope? show whole network or only SoFA non-profit?
  - yes, show whole network!
  - concern about gaining access to structure of DU’s (theoretical concern)
  - do members of the org need to be members of a circle?
    - I think don’t
    - members on peerdom = network members
  - maintain membership record of network members in peerdom?
  - GH remains main source!
  - import/ export of member list?
  - sso options - have’t explored that for now
  - no action at this point, but might come back to these topics
- answer for support email?
  - may 21 John send email
  - Nathan briely responded June 3
  - time for follow-up!
  - John will do → task on IT circle Kanban (asana black hole)
- review history? follow-up on terms that are due?
  - quality ensurance?
  - not doing that in the moment
  - but might review what happened once I get to SoPra work
- colors?
  - are we happy with how it looks?
  - Nathalie seems to be in charge now
  - could do changes!
  - maybe ask commons circle for feedback
forum coworking
- set up time!
- aim for co-working tomorrow

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05-27 meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 45 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting:

Agenda formation

forum moderation ideas
- there is a public topic on the forum, mentioning a specific instance of a conflict (not general)
- scope of conversation - who should be involved?
- if not established together: transfer topic to scope that feels good for us (SoFAN/ log keeping)
- could lead into a moderation policy
- forum has been wildly un-moderated in the past
- acknowledge our power in the space (SoFA non-profit)
flexible co-working time
- being approached
- share ideas and talk more about implementation
- send message, see if their available
- sometimes constrained by time in an operational meeting
- work when excitement comes, co-working like in an office
- how much in advance? find out and try
- put on backlog if we don’t make it or schedule something
- open to try things! reach out more.

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05-13 meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 45 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting: May 27th 1400 UTC

Agenda formation

conflict engagement
policy manual improvements
- use chat on staging server

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04-22 meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 45 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements:
- updated forum software
Next meeting: May 13th, 45min from now on

Agenda formation

merge log keeper and IT support roles
- support
  - Respond to support requests from SoFA Members and clients in a timely and helpful manner
  - Resolve issues directly or escalate them to the Web and IT Administrators
  - Handle IT Support Requests as per the IT Support Kanban Usage Policy
- logkeeper support
  - Responding to SoFA Member and community support requests
  - Support Log Keeper with various tasks including: maintaining circle updates, maintaining Google Drive File organization and permissions
  - Perform IT administrative tasks
- assign a person a role that fit the work that they were doing
- are they distinct roles? could merge and then have a focus point
- conversation around roles as 1-person circles and not so work oriented, some ideas there for the future (and questions)
- Nathalie will continue (re-) working IT circle support roles
policy manual improvements
- installed plugins on main forum instance, not activated yet
- interested in category docs plugin and enable for policy manual
- how to organize the policy manual category?
- review roles and see which ones are not in peerdom
- how can we navigate information best? user experience!
- idea: make two categories (policies & documentation)
- idea: disable preview of topics, custom landing page
- continue conversation in co-working

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04-01 meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 60 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting:

Agenda formation

policy manual
- do in improvements on current setup
  - design
  - structure/ checking the content - how does it align with the network?
  - use of plugins? documentation one
- how do we prioritise these?
  - discuss circle summaries
    - moved roles out
    - proposal: also move circle summaries out
    - agreed!
    - archive, tag, point to peerdom, update how-to document - Nathalie
  - discuss structure
    - role description subcategory
    - change action item to use Archive feature
    - Deleting a category - Site Management - Discourse Meta
    - Understanding closed, unlisted, and archived topics - Site Management - Discourse Meta
  - discuss plugin
    - Documentation - Discourse Meta
    - Discourse Docs - Plugin - Discourse Meta
    - Discourse Doc Categories - Plugin - Discourse Meta
    - excited to play with this!
    - update staging server and install plugin there
backlog review

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was a useful meeting!
very happy to keep working on this in co-working or other times
how do we encourage staff members to take advantage of this?
discourse is a lovely piece of software!
focuse on staff members feels good and doable!

03-21 meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 30 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting: see agenda

Agenda formation

scheduling
- 1400 on Tuesdays now, next time 1h to have more time to discuss policy manual and maybe do backlog review

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03-04 meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 30 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting:

Agenda formation

merge request
- John asking a few questions
- feedback? it is an expensive process, could re-evaluate GH merge feature, also error-prone, but worked fine with given documentation
policy manual
- solicit more feedback
- unhappy with current situation
- is it alive? is the forum the right space? is it helpful for circles? where to store ‘mini policies’?
- duality of the forum (public/ private) (publishing/ discussion)
- aspect of documentation and history
- IT circle has policies in the policy manual
- biggest issues are cultural within SoFAN
- still excited about forum/ discourse technology
- it seems there is more engagement with peerdom then the policy manual
  - more guiding in peerdom?
- next: what do we imagine? how to make it more alive?
- continue in next log keeping meeting

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02-18 meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 30 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting:

Agenda formation

enabling chat in forum [R]
- task done
- CJ replied: forum chat could fulfill need that slack is filling, slack might not be fulfilling our needs, moving could be fine
- action item from restorative circle: using chat more for quick feedback, transitioning to forum could be fine (Audrée)
- John still excited about this work (and action item came quickly)
how to get tasks done? what’s blocking?
- not every task can be exciting
- attention split
- amount of tasks - how to get ahead of things?
- concern to post under each topic and bump it all up, flooding front page?
- Nathalie will reflect on her task management
- sometimes it lacks the initial clarity to get into doing
- question often asking myself: is it really important?
next project after peerdom? having a “design processs”?ideas
- clean up work/ audits
- chat
- policy manual - improvements/ design: what’s the next iteration?
- → policy manual sounds like a good one! get started in next meeting
look at backlog

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01-29 meeting @ co-working

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 30 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting:

Agenda formation

deal with role sub-category in policy manual
- proposal: come up with template response, respond to each role description in the legacy policy manual
- agreed!
- Nathalie will do
encourage role descriptions on peerdom - how?
- start at our home circle - IT! (Nathalie still has action item around this)
- spread out from there
enable chat on forum
- I want to do it! (John)
- some hesitance around roll-out - is it just another tool we offer but nobody knows?
- still just do it?
- talk to infrastucture and IT?
- more exploration around chat-tools and how they could integrate with SoFA
- doesn’t seem like a log keeping decision, more IT circle domain - or website? checking domain statements
- get input from @cj.oreilly (sys admin) and decide with them [John]

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01-21 meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 30 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting:

Agenda formation

operational pieces from IT circle conversation 2024-10-21 role descriptions in peerdom
- review documentation and workflow
  - where?
  - https://forums.sociocracyforall.org/t/how-to-use-the-sofa-policy-manual/972
  - can’t think of other places
  - update [Nathalie]!
- deal with role sub-category in policy manual
  - archive?
  - transfer role descriptions?
  - proposal: come up with template response, respond to each role description in the legacy policy manual
  - change name of category to archived
  - stop referring to role descriptions on forum
  - continue in coworking tomorrow
- encourage role descriptions on peerdom
  - how?
enable chat on forum

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XX-XX meeting

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Admin

Attendance: John, Nathalie
- Secretary: Nathalie
- Facilitator: John
Duration: 30 min
Minutes from last time:
Announcements: none
Next meeting: