Summary

Thirteen people attended Apr 14, first planning meeting for Victoria's 2nd Wisdom Council. We got to know each other a bit and discussed several important items, with plans to complete these decisions on April 28.

• Proposed date for WC#2 - June 22 & 23 (public meeting June 23)
• Info meeting 2 weeks prior - that would be sometime June 4-9
• Target community - expand to Greater Victoria > CRD (Sooke to Sidney, not including the islands and Juan de Fuca)
• Venue options: CRD, Victoria City Hall, BCGEU, New Horizons
• Random selection - use phonebook or voters list, plus explore options to reach under-represented communites

NEXT MEETING: Sat Apr 18, 10-12:30, Meeting House at 1831 Fern

Upcoming events:

• April 19, 9-10am PST Teleconference to report Victoria WC info to the international WC community
  Dial 641-696-6699 Participant Access Code 947366
  www.wisedemocracyvictoria.com
• April 28, 10-3 at Uvic, David Strong Bldg - CRD municipal policy event
  Hosted by www.VIPIRG.ca
• Proposed Dynamic Facilitation seminar in the works - Dan

-----Minutes taken by Mike Boyd-----
Wise Democracy Victoria - April 14, 2007
Wisdom Council #2 Planning Meeting Minutes

Participants: Cecil Bannister Colin Dower Carlie Stevens Wendy Bergerud Yvonne Haist John Waters Mike Boyd Sonya Ignatieff Oscar Zemla Caspar Davis Anke van Leeuwen Dan Doherty Robert Smith-Jones Regrets: George, Jan, Arifin, Brigitte, Gerry, Philip, Gillian, Rod F, Nancy Agenda: 1. WC1 Follow-up: what we learned 2. WC2 Planning:

• use the WC toolkit
• choose target community
• chose a venue
• describe tasks (choose what you want to do)
• decide how to make decisions, consensus strategy

1. WC1 Follow-up:

• WC1 Wisdom Council (WC) debriefing meeting held (Dan).
• Entire decision process needs speeding up i.e. fewer revisits of those decisions (Sonya).
• A brief framework introduction would be valuable in helping the WC get started (John).
• Significant discussion on determining a random selection process that remains as unbiased as possible (All). This included expanding beyond use of the telephone book (fairly impartial but not perfect – Wendy) perhaps into community news papers. Suggestions that general notification by a number of methods, prior to the random letter mail-out, may boost awareness and therefore overall response numbers. A decision was made to establish a separate committee tasked with reviewing the selection process strategy and confirming guidelines for WC2.
• WC1 process raised core awareness of individuals, in turn leading to a core awareness throughout, raising the WC1 group to a higher, more thoughtful level (Caspar).
• A true democratic process may have wavered at times (Various).
• Everyone who has something to say, needs to be heard – possibly not all groups represented i.e. those without phones (Robert) or other cultures (Yvonne).
• When phoning and people respond cynically…main thing – not to get discouraged - everything does work out (Anke).
• The largest single WC1 cost was mailing 485 participant solicitation letters. This can be reduced by accepting responses by phone and email, saving the cost of stamped return cards. (Dan, et al).
• In addition to the actual decisions the WC reaches, the media coverage and the presentation at the public meeting should include an overview explaining the process gone through to reach those conclusions (Wendy, Carlie, Robert).

2. WC2 Planning:

• Sub-committees need to be established as soon as possible (Wendy).
• A similar level of funding ($1500) provided by World Federalists for WC1 will likely be made available for WC2 also (Caspar).
• June 22, 23 proposed as dates for conducting WC2 (Dan).
• Have WC1 statement available for reading by Wisdom Council 2 participants (All).

Toolkit:

• A.I. – Dan to distribute Toolkit, Decision Process Guidelines, and Principles. Participants to select and communicate roles as soon as possible.

Target Community: ***Ripples***

• Beyond city of Victoria scope should be considered (Wendy).
• Discussions on Greater Victoria, CRD, or other.
• CRD appeared to be the popular scope. Ensure choice of CRD does not entail long-distance telephone call charges (Robert).

Venue:

• Highly important to be a well known, easily accessible, location (Anke).
• Potential locations include Victoria City Hall, or CRD or BCGEU conference rooms.
• A.I. Anke reviewing potential locations now.

Tasks:

• A.I. Random Selection Process Committee to be formed of Wendy, Carlie, Oscar, Robert, Yvonne (and others who are interested).
• A.I. Robert will assist phoning.

Proposed decision making strategy (Dan)::

• Facilitator leads discussion: Diverging points < GroanZone > Converging points
• All voices given time to be heard;
• When agreement seems close, someone call for closure, states the question/decision
• Individuals cast a varible vote 1(no)… 2… 3… 4… 5(yes);
  1=no, 2=no with qualifications, 3=neutral, 4=yes with qualifications, 5=yes
• If all votes are on one side of the mid point, it is considered consensus.
• If not, voters explain reasons, repeat until agreement is reached.
• Clerk to record points and outcome.

Other Points:

• Start planning meetings with a personal check-in and a quick recap of decisions from prior meetings (Carlie).
• Explore funding for possible meeting space (Carlie, Dan)
• Explore awareness building potential via net streaming (broadcasting via the Internet) – potential assistance on setting this up (Carlie). or www.youtube.com

Next Steps

• Review Toolkit and select tasks and role(s).
• Next meeting:10-12:30 April 28th at Friends Meeting House, 1831 Fern
  Notification to be sent out closer to the date.