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

[Teresa F (fostertlu]

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/
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