Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Searchable Decision Log?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

Groups.io still has a free basic service. Scroll down to the bottom.

https://groups.io/static/pricing

The free service is now limited to lists of 500 members, 1GB storage space, and 
limited subgroups. These limitations change as Groups.io becomes more popular 
and is used by more organizations that need all their services. It was designed 
from the beginning to be a service for large organizations and businesses that 
would support a the free groups. But it has grown I suspect more quickly than 
planned — they were totally overwhelmed when YahooGroups began failing.

So the free options have been gradually becoming more  limited. I switched all 
our groups shortly after they started so we have been grandfathered in.

But for new groups looking for a central hosting site for documents and 
communications, I highly recommend it. At $20 a month it is completely worth it.


Sharon


> On Nov 22, 2021, at 1:26 PM, Teresa F <fostertlu [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Sharon, (do I not include your email address in the reply? Apologies as I'm 
> new to this listserv).
> 
> You raise some interesting questions about logging or "not logging" decisions 
> - And how does one follow up with previously made decisions?  
> 
> Is there a free membership option with http://groups.io/ membership? What I'm 
> seeing is a cost of $20/month. Our community is already established with 
> Google groups and I believe that they would be reluctant to pay for a new 
> interface nor would they want to reinvent the wheel, even if it is a better 
> way. 
> 
> I'm seeking a simple solution! 
> 
> The Evans Oaks Decision Log is a separate Google sheet within our Group's 
> Google Drive which I maintain as the HOA secretary.
> 
> Teresa Foster
> Evan's Oaks Cohousing
> Silverton, OR
> 
> 
> On Mon, Nov 22, 2021 at 8:30 AM Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l 
> [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
> > On Nov 22, 2021, at 11:05 AM, Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l 
> > [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
> > We don’t have a subgroup for decisions and we really need one. Our official 
> > minutes are being stored as PDFs on our website which makes searching a 
> > bizarre activity of bringing up 20 documents that all have to be opened and 
> > read to find the search term. It is much easier to search Groups.io, which 
> > has a very good and fast search function. In the search results you see the 
> > snippet containing the search term and then only open the ones that are the 
> > actual minutes. 
> 
> I left out a sentence. The person here who would most like to have a decision 
> log is me, and I would be the one to figure out the best way to do it. But 
> the problem with labelling anything “Decision Log” is the subsequent 
> discussion about whether it was actually a decision or not. There are 
> definite decisions and soft decisions. A proposal that has gone through 6 
> drafts and finally has consent, is a definite decision and enters the 
> universe as a policy. But many other decisions are not that clear. 
> 
> A small working group decides on a plan for the plantings in the side garden. 
> 2 years later someone plants something else. Was the first decision a 
> decision that was not expected to be violated? Or was it just a preference by 
> those people that could be changed by the next person doing the work?
> 
> The other problem is that if a decision is made and is recorded in the 
> minutes of a meeting but is never listed in the decision log was it really a 
> decision? Is the recording of the Decision Log part of its authenticity?
> 
> At one point minute takers started recording decisions at the top of the 
> minutes as “Decisions Made:  “ so other members could just read the decisions 
> and not the whole set of minutes. But if you read the whole set of minutes 
> there were often decisions embedded that didn’t get labelled. At the bottom 
> of their minutes, teams often keep a To Do List or a Parking Lot of items it 
> plans to take up next or that are waiting for next steps. But it is often not 
> marked as a decision when an item is dropped from that list. A decision not 
> to do something is also a decision and should be recorded. 
> 
> Decision Logs are not so easy. 
> 
> Sharon
> ———
> Sharon Villines, Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> 
> Fossil Treasure Trove: Earliest Evidence of Complex Social Behavior in 
> Dinosaurs.
> Dinosaurs lived in herds, had communal nesting sites, and socialized by age  
> — Science Daily
> 
> https://scitechdaily.com/fossil-treasure-trove-earliest-evidence-of-complex-social-behavior-in-dinosaurs/
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://L.cohousing.org/info
> 
> 
>