Sangha Meeting Notes — November 14

November 19, 2021

Topic: New community group to provide social and care support

Comments and questions:
– Need a team to organize and lead social events and support groups.
– A community life team. Wholesome activities and caring for one another.It’s going to take a team.
– Provide personal support.
– Boundaries for caring are tricky.
– Call it Community Life. Community life group as a working title indicates a group of point people. People to contact depending on the activity.
– Looking for a group of people who can develop the intentions and procedures
– The care system is working well spontaneously. Corral the process we already have. Past attempts to organize this haven’t taken off. Need people with energy to stay with it.
– It might be intimidating for someone to take on the whole thing, even as a team.
– Do we want to organize this? Or is it working as is?
– Spontaneous thing may seem like it’s working, but with the helping aspect, you get called upon a lot if you’ve shown an interest.
– How are we going to help people unless they ask for help?
– Cultivate new participants.
– Give Community LIfe a seat at the Working Groups Coordinators table
– Not a good role for a brand new volunteer.
– Software to streamline participation would be helpful. Having a point person for each situation is helpful so effort is coordinated.
– An app like Facebook can be a good tool. Admins/moderators can mobilize inside the sangha. An already familiar social media site is helpful. Centralize support in addition to email chains.
– Not comfortable using Facebook
– We tried to create a care team a while back, and it was much more complicated than one might imagine. Hopefully this won’t become too complicated. Also, privacy is important. Some people don’t want the whole sangha knowing what they’re going through.
– There are five other coordinators (on the Working Groups Coordinators team) to work with, the interconnection could ease the complications. Hoping this new structure will aid in a successful effort.
– Social organizing and directing care are different needs. Separate teams operating under the Community Life umbrella.
– Without a champion, things don’t happen. Skillful nudging needs to be done to remind the community of these efforts and needs. Give ourselves a goal of contributing time.
– Not entirely new. A retrospective look at what has been done. An inventory of what’s been done, what’s in progress, incrementally improving current procedures.
– Point people often end up doing all the work because people think it’s taken care of.
– Keep it simple. An app is helpful.
– Do we have a handle on what’s needed and wanted? How has it been working right and what needs improving?
– Tech interface is an obstacle to the personal connection that comes from being called on by an actual person.
– So many things depend on dedicated individuals who are left to do the work. People have to stop doing everything so that others step up.
– Looking at different levels of care needed. Gather resources that already exist.
– Informal way of doing this means that there might not be follow through. Finding point people who will commit to following through would address that.

Next step: re privacy, people can reach out to one or two sangha members before reaching out to entire community.
Next step: An online forum for meetups.

Submitted by Willa Rabinovitch