What kind of SoFA Member Development events do you want? What are your ideas? Let's discuss!

SoFA Currently has the upcoming Warm Data series, and Co-Working & IT Support sessions (see all member events here), as well as Communities of Practice in Ecosystems Circle and access to other SoFA classes and resources.

There are so many things to learn, and we recently clarified our commitment to Member Development and the follow 4 core areas of ongoing learning:

  1. governance structure and meeting processes
  2. work processes and work content (such as bookkeeping, marketing, etc)
  3. communication and interpersonal relationship
  4. the societal history of equality/inequality and its impacts, particularly on participation in sociocratic processes

What does that mean to you?
What would you like to see?
What are you up for helping create!?!

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I have a handful of ideas :stuck_out_tongue:

Book Clubs
I would love to see more book clubs! Especially clearly facilitated book clubs. I think facilitation really helps get the most out of the books.

Some ideas include:

Regular NVC Practice Groups (for members!)
This seems like an easy one! Perhaps even working on things which might be actually alive in our workspaces! It may be vulnerable, but probably really valuable, and it’s hard to make time for that in meetings.
I’d love to see this at least once a month, both as general practice and as a part of relational hygiene.

More Warm Data
I also enjoyed the Warm Data sessions, but would love to see them in smaller more spread out chunks of time, and also with more direct connection to SoFA’s specific contexts.

Writer’s Workshop!
It’s already happening! @hope.wilder and @eric.tolson are facilitating it - maybe ya’ll can share info about where and when?

Power Mapping
(This one got added after some discussion below!)
It seems this could be a great regular practice! I wonder how we might format something like this so it’s useful as a regular practice.

Member Resources
I think it’d be great to get this rolling. @pcarmona and @wendy.pearle in IT circle will be working on this with me, if you have ideas for what would be useful, let us know in it.circle@sociocracyforall.org :slight_smile:

What do you think?
I’m particularly curious to hear from folks in membership circle since member development is in Membership’s domain (@jerry.koch-gonzalez @Andrew.Grant @pcarmona @sofie.malm-3492 ), as well as folks from international circle (@nora.plaza @lea.shani @eric.tolson @hanna.fischer @phouben @kare.wangel @andreas.jonsson etc :slight_smile: - thie list goes on!), as I know what may be valuable across cultures can differ!

Note:
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¡Simplemente haga clic en el globo terráqueo en la parte inferior de la publicación para traducir!

Personally, I would love to be part of bookcircle(s) and and NVC practice space!!

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Yessss. I’d be all about those bookclubs, especially if it’s the Power Under or any of the intersectionality ones. This is really aligned with the things that social justice helping circle is likely to recommend to general circle soon. Our proposal to address power, in short is: talk about it more often! Have member gatherings on it.

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Unfortunately I’ve discovered that almost all of Kimberle Crenshaw’s books on intersectionality in particular are still pending release (even the ones which were supposed to have been published already). So not sure quite what we can get our hands on, but let’s see!

I’m curious about other good choices on intersectionality though, it’s a big area of interest for me.
I’ve read “Love’s not Colorblind” by Kevin Patterson which is a great book that features intersectionality, but is a bit specific.
“Can we all be feministis?” (editied by June Eric Udorie), a compilation of essays, and “black feminisim reimagined after intersectionality” by jennifer c. nash are two books I am preparing to read, but I’m not sure if they are a fit.

I really like power analysis and talking about power. It does seem like talking about these things is the best strategy. It’s applied in many contexts and I’ve found it useful in personal relationships (it’s specifically suggested in some intimate relating negotiation formats like this adaptation of the Safe(r) Sex Elevator Speech, “8 Steps to Creating Intimate Explorations You Love”).

Perhaps even a sort of power mapping for within SoFA would be good member development practice.

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Okay definitely gonna check out that Safer Sex Speech. I may also toss this one into the possibilities for book club: https://www.amazon.com.mx/Towards-Collective-Liberation-Anti-Racist-Organizing/dp/1604866543
How other’s have pitched it to me is that it’s great for people in more priviledged identities on how to navigate being allies.

I’ll just throw into the mix that I’d love to invite the author of Power Under, Steve Wineman, to talk with us, maybe after we read it together? (He and Jerry are friends.) Power over, power under, and trauma are big.

That’s probably off-topic but I read one of Steve’s novels, The Therapy Journal | IndieBound.org, and it was one of those books where you don’t eat or sleep until you’ve completed it. Recommended!

And since all of you are already on it: can we have a forum thread for book tips? Preferably split up in different genres
Cause there’s only so much time to have book clubs but a little more time to read individually!

And I’m going to start reading adrienne maree brown’s “holding change”- excited to see how the tools in it can be combined with sociocracy!

great idea @hanna.fischer :slight_smile:

Here’s a recommendation thread! Add general recommendations there!