Council meeting minutes

The top level page for the meeting minutes for the PPO council.

2007-01 PPO Council meeting minutes

PPO Council Notes 1-8-2007

Agenda Items:
T-Shirts
Taskforce
Village Information System
ASPO Conference
City Repair/ Community Empowerment event
February meeting schedule
Website hosting
Purpose of Council/ Purpose of PPO

Meeting Schedule
1/24 Speaker's Bureau
1/31 Biodiesel Guy. Host: Randy, Open: Nellie. projector required, Randy will bring.
2/7 Prep - discussion of Maritime Northwest Garden Guide. Host: Carla, open:Nellie
2/14 NO MEETING
2/21 Taskforce - comment on public draft of findings Host: Jonathan
2/28 TBA- possibly presentation by Jerry (ppo member) Host: Jonathan.

Content of 2/21 and 2/28 may be swapped on the basis of when the taskforce public draft is released.

City Repair/ Community Empowerment event
this is a workshop taking place on 2/17 and 2/24. They'd like someone from PPO to present on 2/17. Jeremy volunteered.

T-Shirts
Robin will work out technical details with the printer, PPO has ~$400 from the donation jar, Robin will put up $50 if everyone else (council regulars) will put up $50, David will put up whatever shortfall there is between what PPO and council regulars put up.

Website Hosting
PPO is running out of disc space with current host
Can host with local company Stephouse for $15/mo, but limited disc space and limited bandwidth would make it difficult to expand the media portions of the site.
Dreamhosting (national company with regional datacenters) $7/ mo with 200GB disc space and 2TB monthly bandwidth.
Decided to go with the more space/ higher bandwidth option to allow for expansion of media resources portion of the site.

Taskforce
Don't know when public draft will be released- no recent meetings, changes down to language quibbles, should be sometime soon.

Purpose of Council/ Purpose of PPO
Robin mentioned she will be phasing out her involvement in Council on the basis that its not moving her toward the goals she'd like to achieve. Jeremy mentioned that we need a new set of bullet points for the PPO mission statement, since we've achieved about 2.5 of the current goals. This is a discussion of greater scope than can be handled in a regular council meeting. Suggested format was meeting at an informal location (Mike's place, depending on number of people interested in attending) where we can discuss personal PO goals and synthesize from those goals a new set of goals for the organization as a whole. Someplace where we can have beer and food is preferred for the venue. Event will probably take place on a Sunday, there will be a planning meeting for the event on 2/15 at Mike's place starting at 6:00. IIRC we're doing potluck, BYOB.

ASPO Conference
David made some calls about the possibility of bringing the ASPO conference to Portland. Process is we submit a statement of interest in hosting ASPO 2008. Since planning and arranging logistics for a conference of this size is likely to require most of a year of full time work for at least one person, and PPO does not have funds to pay such a person (or resources to do many of the other necessary tasks) David will put out feelers to PSU and the City to see if there is interest in hosting the event, and funds to make it happen.

VIS
Work is ongoing, nothing particular to report at the moment.

Community Building
Popped up at several points in the meeting that it would be nice to have some more socially oriented/ get to know each other/ community building meetings at a location where we could buy food and beer. Venue would need to be non-smoking or have a separate room we could use. Preference is for inner SE Portland.

Projector
Mike is buying a projector, which he is willing to make available to PPO if needed.

Attending:
Jeremy
Jonathan
Carla
Nellie
Robin
Randy
David
Peter (new guy, from Austin)

2006-10 PPO Council meeting minutes

Oct. 9 at Laughing Horse Bookstore 7pm

AGENDA:

*Upcoming Wednesdays at St. Francis
*5th and 2nd Wednesdays
*Updates: website, taskforce
*PSR Beyond Oil Conf. Sponsorship
*Speakers Bureau
*Post Carbon Inst. Relocalization Network

Present: Mike, Jeremy, Nellie, Robin, Jonathan, Mark

Introductions: Mark is traveling from SF to Sea. and back to create a pilot for an independent documentary. He would like to stay in touch with PPO.

*Upcoming Wednesdays at St. Francis
Nov. 1 - host: Jerry opens: Mike, Robin
Nov. 15 - Speaker/movie host: Mike
Nov. 22 - NO MEETING

*5th and 2nd Wednesdays
- Jeremy notes that attendance is lowest for 2nd Wed. and asks if a meeting with more resources for more experienced "preparers" would be of value.
Robin proposes facilitated open floor
Mike proposes open-ended question topics
(open mic, lightning talks, or community ideas, mini presentations 10 min.)
Robin will bottom-line 2nd Wed. and she requests organizations and contacts info
- Mike will bottom-line 5th Wed. potlucks

*Updates: website, taskforce
- Escape from Suburbia to be released soon
- Website: new Resources Page, mailing list features is in progress (Thanks Jeremy!)
- Taskforce: ended phase one, each subgroup presented drafts of findings about impacts. In theory OSD staff will complile readable report that will still be open for editing. Next Thursday Oct.19 will begin Recommendation phase.
David finds theme that we "can't talk about peak oil by itself" and refers instead to general economic slowdown. Most drafts are posted on thecrashcourse.

*PSR Beyond Oil Conf. Sponsorship
Nov. 18 - we agree to cosponsor and get specifics later

*Speakers Bureau
Oct. 11 David will walk through agenda
Oct. 18 - we'll need as many electronic (laptop) resources as possible for powerpoint content building and organization. Need more than one CPU with content.
Mike says: need lots of different presentations for various opportunities
Jeremy asks about handling workflow questions such as "how do I get a speaker on this date?"
Robin wants orientation meeting for new people.

*Post Carbon Inst. Relocalization Network
Does PPO want to become part of the Relocalization Network?
What exactly does that entail?
We agree to open dialog with PCI

Adjourn

2006-07 PPO Council meeting minutes

July 10, 2006 PPO Council Meeting Minutes

Present: Emily, Jeremy, Pam, Carla, Robin, Nellie, Jonathan, Mike, Roberta

Agenda Items:

Upcoming Wed. and next Council meeting (15min)
PeakTV (5 min)
Civicspace update (5 min)
Admin task delegation (15 min)
Task Force Membership (remaining)

Upcoming Wed. and next Council meeting
Robin will host, Jeremy opens

Gen. Meeting proposal from Jeremy (see civicspace post)

Pam asks if we even need a “general meeting”

Jeremy’s point of attachment is Peak Oil 101 availability

Emily asks do we want to keep going every week? Suggests every other week.

Mike likes consistency of every week for general public psychology.

Jeremy proposes low-stress option of not having to program options.

Robin wants to use the space for doing work that needs to be done in Peak Oil arena

Emily suggests “open topic” night where folks can do their own circles

Jeremy proposes presenting this to the general meeting and getting feedback

July 19 – fall gardening (prep) Carla hosts, Pam opens

July 26 – Jenny Leis from City Repair on Place-making Jeremy hosts, Mike, Carla open

Aug. 2 – rainwater harvesting Mike hosts, Jonathan opens

Aug. 9 – Gen. Meeting Robin hosts, Emily opens

NEXT COUNCIL MEETING – August 7 @ Mike’s Place

PeakTV

Janaia Donaldson communiqué RE: videotaping “peak moment” – Can we help put together a show? Mid-late August

Can they do a Wednesday? July 26?

Pam suggests City Repair as a resource for coordinating.

Robin suggests finding out how many people they’re looking for plus more details

ADMIN TASK DELEGATION

Emily would like to divvy up behind the scenes tasks will post to the Council list

1. E-mail checking
2. Weekly Posting to calendars (already has a list of online calendars)
3. Supplies for meeting being stocked and prepped (available online)
4. Sign-up data entry

Jeremy proposes host is responsible for event workflow and monthly admin rotation

Robin volunteers to do quarter pages

Emily will document specific tasks then we will self-delegate after continuing discussion on Council List

Mike suggests workflow description – timeline guides

CIVICSPACE UPDATE

New version will have integrated mailing list functionality

Emily will check meetup.com account

TASK FORCE MEMBERSHIP

Richard Benner - ?? (can anyone fill this in?)
Christine Caruso - MCM Architects; Portland Planning Commission
David Cohan - PPO rep; Project Mgr. with Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance
Angela Crowley-Koch - exec. Dir. OR PSR
Lesa Dixon-Gray - Health promotion/education for State of OR
Allen Lee - ?? (can anyone fill this in?)
Jeanne Longley - Zero Waste Alliance Senior Associate
Bill Scott - Portland Flexcar's director of operations
Sallie Schullinger-Krause - Program Director at OR Environmental Council
Marcus Simantel - retired farmer; Food Policy Council; City Club member
Randy White - marketing/advertising at KPOJ
Rowan Wolf - P.O.E.T. founder; sociology professor at PCC Sylvania

Staff: John Kauffman

2006-06 PPO Council meeting minutes

update: John's name was added.

NOTE: this is not the "offical" one yet, just my notes from the meeting.  After a few days to let folks who attended post any changes or modifications and then reviewed at the July Council meeting.

In attendance: Mike, Emily, David, John, Robin, Pam, Jeremy and someone who I can't remember their name.

Jeremy talked about the following suggested agenda management.  The event posting for the meeting would include a few likely agenda topics and people are free to additional possible agenda topics but they will need to be present at the meeting to talk about agenda.  However, the official agenda for the meeting will be decided at the start of the meeting along with an approximate amount of time spent on each.

May minutes where approved

talking about the opening shifts at St. Francis

        - Robin has the list of people opening at St. Francis

        - need hosts for 21st - talk w/Randall

Wednesdays

  • 6/7 - Bikes
  • 6/14 - general meeting
  • 6/21 - David Blume
  • 6/28 - Speakers Bureau / the outreach meeting
  • 7/5 -  Geoffrey Lawton
  • Jenny of City Repair in July
  • Prep really wants to cover fall gardening early in July
  • Joe Leitch was penciled in for rainwater et al on first Wednesday in August
  • having some time to to talk about

future of outreach was discussed

    - basically the Speakers Bureau will be come the primary focus of the outreach group.

David was selected by PPO to be the official represent PPO for the Taskforce

Pam will look into how many hours PPO has used her projector and as the lamp is only rated for X numbers of hours, the use of the projector is a consumptive use.   Once the number of hours is determined an appropriate amount of money will be given to cover PPO's use of the projector.

Jennifer requested that the topics of group communication options be discussed, but she wasn't in attendance so this topic will need to be moved to the next council meeting.

2006-02 PPO Council meeting

outline of the Feburary 2006 Council meeting 

present

    Mike Dill

    Emily Pollard

    Pam Litech

    Robin

    Lyle

    Gene

next 2 months of wednesdays

    2/8

        general meeting

            breakout wg circles

                policy

                prep

                economic

                outreach

    2/15

        Bartlet DVD

    2/22

        Diggable City video?

    3/1

        gardening

    3/8

        general meeting

    3/15

        movie?

    3/22

        movie?

    3/28

        party!

update from working groups

    outreach

        planning the upcoming meetings

        not enough people attended

    policy

        meeting with Saltsman

        trying to get the Aliance to take an editoral stance on peak oil

        meeting with the Sierra club re: peak oil

        have CLF to endorse the petition

        talk with Natural Step

    prep

        only two people

meetup.com

    let it die

WWeek story

    it isn't about Portland Peak Oil

address recent e-mails

    Richmond newsletter

        looking for a peak oil article

            pointed at Robert's letter

    DFA of woodburn

        looking for a speaker

    Gene

        will schedule a speaker's beauru meeting

CivicSpace

2006-01 PPO Business meeting minutes

Present:

Jeremy O'Leary, Pam Leitch, Emily Pollard, Theressa Latoski, Robin Canaday, Jennifer Rueda, Gene Berk, Judy Barnes, John O'Brien

Agenda:

  • Opening shifts at St. Francis for February
  • New ideas for general meeting (2nd Wed.)
  • Reports from working groups
  • Neighborhood working group?
  • PostCarbon Institute issues
  • Finances update
  • Goals for 2006
  • Petitioning / drafting a letter to city officials


1. Opening shifts at St. Francis for the next few months:

Emily passed around the sheet for signing up for opening up St. Francis.  This will be emailed out to the business group soon.


2. General meeting on 1/11 - new ideas?

Small circles by topic seem to go pretty well

Small circles by neighborhood haven't been going very well

Topic - how bad will it have to get before we knock on the doors of our neighbors and get to know them. - Jeremy

Topic - how to stick to a low energy habit - Jennifer

Topic - local politics and influencing policy - Gene & Emily

Topic - Peak Oil 101 - Pam

We will reconvene at 8:30 to give a wrap-up of the various discussions and announcements.


3. Reports from working groups:

Jeremy talked about the prep group, i.e. the schedule for the first Wednesdays

Theresa talked about the upcoming outreach tabling efforts

Gene talked about forming a political/policy group, building coalitions


4. Neighborhoods working group?

Emily & Jeremy will get the data of sign-in contacts loaded into CivicSpace.  We’ll be able to sort all 250 names and info from there and neighborhood organizing (Pam).


5. PostCarbon Institute:

To become an outpost or not?  Emily still hasn't heard back from them re: political questions.  This results in present uncertainty.   


6. Finances update:

We have about $100.  Let’s pass round the donation jar at events rather than leave it on the table.  Take the ring off the donation jar.


7. Goals for 2006:

The community has called for more practical stuff/workshops

A new policy action working group (Gene and Judy will take point on this)

A new neighborhood working group (Pam will take point on this)

Each working group can set its own goals


8. Petitioning / drafting a letter to city officials:

Gene read a several line statement that will go into a new petition to start circulating at events. “We the undersigned request that the City of Portland appoint a task force to investigate the problem of the impending peak oil crisis and its implications for the citizens of the Portland metropolitan area.”  Emily will type this up.  

Gene was given permission to talk with environmental groups in the hopes of forming a coalition of concerned groups in Portland metro area.


9. CivicSpace / webtools:

Jeremy & Emily talked about migrating more features into CivicSpace (www.portlandpeakoil.org/cs).  This way we can utilize bulletin boards, have access to group business information, and plan projects more easily.


2005-11 PPO Business meeting minutes

Ideas for the agenda (emailed out beforehand)

  • Setting up rotating "shifts" at St. Francis (re: who opens the door, sets up the table, facilitates the evenings, etc)
  • Deciding what to do at St. Francis the evening before Thanksgiving (Wed. 11/23).  The church employees are going to be cooking turkey dinner late into the night that evening in the kitchen.  Too loud probably to show a movie.  Do we want to just close down that night or do something else?   If we do something else, would people even show the night before a holiday?
  • Plan out our "Harvest Potluck" 11/30 event... live music, dancing, potluck, decorations, publicity, etc.
  • Wednesday evenings after 11/30... need to get the schedule down.  
  • Rex Burkholder's assistant wrote back and said that 12/7 doesn't work after all, that he could do 1/4 instead.
  • The Yahoo group.  It's relatively quiet these past few days, but there's been a lot of frustration from folks who think there's too much "irrelevant" yammering.  Do we want to split into different groups; is that too confusing; moderate the group instead, etc.?
  • What are the prep and outreach working groups up to?
  • When we have speakers, it might be a good idea to have a "room captain" during Q&A
  • one of us who can help the speaker by keeping track of raised hands and calling on people in an orderly and fair way.
  • The idea of forming a small committee of sorts to draft a statement to Mayor Potter's office urging him to take peak oil considerations into his vision planning.  A few folks I've talked to are very interested in doing this.
  • What to do with this database I have of people who have filled in the sign-in sheet all of these months.  Start contacting folks?  Telling them what?
  • talking points for Portland Peak Oil
  • portlandpeakoil.org/cs update
  • have something (group/structure/plan/...) around finance but from  the point of view of how to do things on the cheap as most people  don't have any money to invest anyway.
  • Maybe plan for a Wednesday on a how to of bartering and/or local currency?
  • maybe a Wednesday night around " lightning talks" which are a  series of 5-10 minutes on a series of subject.
  • Regular minute taking..(posted online?)
  • Who's handling Wed's schedule
  • Wed schedule through 12-15 (if possible, for publicity scheduling reasons)
  • Media guidelines around filming attendees without their permission.
  • Volunteer round-up...Misi calling, projects, script
  • Party...last wed in Nov.

Present at the meeting

Jeremy O'Leary, Jim Wrathall, Pam Leitch, Emily Pollard, Theressa Latoski, Norris Thomlinson, Robin Canaday, Jennifer Rueda, Gene Berk, Mike Dill, John O'Brien

Agreed topics for the agenda

  • Schedule: -opening/setup   -who decides the scheduling of St. Francis  -Wednesdays thru 12/5
  • Talking points for Portland Peak Oil
  • Yahoo list/web site
  • Media guidelines
  • Room captain idea
  • Sign-in sheet/volunteers
  • Outreach and prep group updates
  • The neighborhoods/"circles" model


1. Schedule:

We passed around a sheet where two people signed up for each Wed. night.  Both people will be responsible for getting to St. Francis at 6:30pm and opening door, setting up long table, greeting people, etc.

Who decides the Wed. night scheduling from now on:           

1st Weds. handled by prep team

2nd Weds. handled by the business meeting

3rd/4th and occasionally 5th Weds. will be handled by outreach team starting with 12/21

Upcoming schedule:

11/9: General mtg. (see more below)

11/16: Mark Lakeman and Charlie Hales - "community building"

11/23: Showing of "Affluenzia" using Pam's projector, Jim's speakers...

11/30: Peak Oil Party with local food potluck and dancing (see more below)

12/7: Prep meeting, focusing on what are you doing now

12/14: General mtg.

Nov. 9th General meeting details:

Pam will handle intro.  Jim W. will facilitate introduction go-round.  Small group discussions will be center on neighborhood, which is a big change from the topic-oriented groups in past general meetings.  Who from the core handles each circle will be determined.  There will be an assessment to see if this NE / NW / SE / SW discussion split-up was effective.

Peak Oil Party on 11/30 responsibilities:

Jim W. will look into music/dancing bands.  Jennifer will design a poster and/or get help designing it.  Emily will post to CNRG list to see if any orgs. want to do tabling.  Mike will get KBOO publicity on board.  We determined that we might have to pay a band something to lead dancing and we could request a donation at the door to go toward this.

2. Talking Points for PPO:

For 10 minutes we discussed a few possible talking points such as "localize" and "we're not experts/no one can predict", and we decided to use Wed. 12/28 as an event where we call upon the community to help PPO focus and create a "vision" and articulation of what we value.

3. Yahoo list/web site:

We decided not to form a second Yahoo group.  Instead, there is the possibility of setting up a bulletin board with topic threads on the web site.  Jeremy will put together a tech group to talk about the website and the possibly implementation of CivicSpace.  

No group business should be conducted on the Yahoo list.  Please use the business, prep, or outreach lists to conduct PPO business.  John, Robin, Jennifer, and Gene have been added to the business email list.   FYI: there are now 231 people on the announcements list, 129 on the Yahoo list, and the web site has received over 4300 visits and an average of 29 visits a day currently.

4. Media guidelines:

Filming is OK, but is has to be OK'd beforehand by the business group.  The room captain for the evening will have to deal with how to arrange things such that those who do not feel comfortable being taped during the Q&A will not be taped.

5. Room captain idea:

We agreed it was a good idea to have a room captain to help the speaker(s) answer raised hands in an orderly way.  It needs to be someone bold and organized.  Each time we have a speaker, we'll determine before the speaker starts who will be room captain.  Side note: we need to ask the church employees about turning down the answering machine so incoming calls aren't so loud.

6. Sign-in sheet/volunteers:

Emily will get Misi a list of those who have checked "I have ideas" on the sign-in sheets.  She could call these people with the purpose of finding out what their ideas are.

7. Outreach and prep group updates:

Jeremy acted as prep group liaison and shared with us what that group has been up to, including first Wednesday night ideas.  Emily, Jim W. and others shared from the outreach group, including next weekend's letter writing party, progress on a tabling backdrop, and the upcoming talk to the Rotary Club.

8. The neighborhoods/"circles" model:

Didn't really get into this; it started to get late. Emily will soon email Pam a list of those from the sign-in sheets who have noted their neighborhood.

2005-10 PPO Business meeting minutes

Proposed agenda:

nail down next two months' schedule

preparedness update

outreach update - decisions on FOX 12 news

unified message/talking points

Next two months of Wednesday

Oct 5th - Preparation: Food Prep, led by Pam

Oct 12th - General Meeting

Oct 19th - Lead by the Green party

Oct 26th - Speaker or film (perhaps Charlie Stevens - Jim W. will contact Charlie and let us know ASAP)

Nov 2nd - Preparation: Finance - discussion led by Jim and Andy

Nov 9th - General Meeting

Nov 16th - Lead by the Green party

Nov 23th - Movie Night

Nov 30th - Peak Oil Party/community celebration

Preparedness update

- the most recent meeting had five new people to the meeting

- startup new threads

- Carla has been working on a list of skills (the network) and present a list of ideas

- Emily brought up an idea about sending out a survey to all the people who have signed in at the various meetings

- a new e-mail list was created: prepare@portlandpeakoil.org

- Jeremy will send an e-mail to the announcement list about the new prepare mail list

- Neighborhood Emergency Net is starting in December or January

- Carla’s work with the network lists will hopefully will be able to applied to the neighborhood groups

- the preparedness group will lead one of the monthly Wednesday meetings

- hopefully someone will be available to take notes/minutes of these prep. Wednesdays

Outreach update

- decided not to do FOX12 news story as a group. People can participate as individuals preparing for peak oil, but not as members of Portland Peak Oil preparing for peak oil.  Too much "spin" risk.

- no one is authorized to speak on behalf of Portland Peak Oil without clearing it w/group

- we do have a tri-fold flyer; be on the lookout for flyering opportunities

- PDX design labs has offered to help with designing media

- several people have offered to do printing for PPO

- Pam did a presentation to a high school class and they asked some very good questions

- Robert sent out his letter to many of the local newspapers and will be presenting to his Sunnyside neighborhood assoc.

Talking Points

Possible points of agreement

Do we want to develop a set of talking points?  

Are all opinions only opinions of that person?

Do we agree to not endorse nuclear or violence?

We don’t know the rate of decline or the exact ramifications

We are concerned about financial ramifications

We advocate demand side solutions

non-partisan!

peak oil does not mean running out of oil

growing a garden

Localize!

localize example: 100 mile diet

localize example: building community

interdependence?

2005-06 PPO Business meeting minutes

In attendance: Andy & Trish, Bill, Jim, Jeremy & Emily, Randy White, Misi, Kathy & Steve from the Green Party, Gary, Marine, Norris, Teresa, Max, Pam, Carla, Alexander.

For any of the Wednesday meetings, someone needs to be to St. Francis by 6:30pm so the people cleaning the room don’t have to worry about handing off a key and we can just make sure the doors lock at the end of the meeting.

It was suggested that the Education/Outreach group help structure the general meeting.

Teresa suggests...

1st Wednesday would be education and outreach could be in part led by the green party.

3rd Wednesday would be preparation.

It was agreed that St. Francis would be reserved for general public functions, with the 2nd Wed. being the general monthly meeting.

Steve from the Green Party pointed out that the Green Party just wants to help out as peak oil clearly affects everyone.

Teresa has reserved the People’s Co-op the first Sunday of the month for the next three meetings starting at 5:30pm with the agenda pegged to start at 6pm.

General meeting - 2nd Wed. 7pm, St. Francis

Business meeting - 1st Sun. starting at 6pm, People’s Coop (wait for Teresa's e-mail to the list).

Training/Outreach meeting - 4th Wed. 7pm, (Emily will look into Meetro)

Preparedness meeting - 4th Wed. 7pm, (Jim’s house?)

Group selects Jeremy as facilitator. Emily will take minutes at meetings. Of course, this will stand only at meetings at which they’re present.

Discussing decision making in groups. Alexander will send a message out to the group regarding consensus democracy. We will restate decisions as a way of cementing them.

Jim shared a brief history of the meeting.

Carla proposes we start a steering committee whose purpose is to make decisions. Andy’s idea is that one has to attend a certain number of meetings before one can join the steering committee. Jim suggests a small, odd number of people in the committee. Carla recommends the committee be self-selecting.

Steering committee - when a snap decision has to be made; for the group to have a distinct core group to identify to others. 3-meeting requirement to be part. Bill will write up the functions of the committee by Sunday’s business meeting. Will table issue until Sunday July 3rd at People’s Coop

Misi, Pamela, Norris, and Bill will set agenda for next general meeting on July 13th by this Sunday. E-mail them with any suggestions.

Emily went over web site points. We will decide upon domain name at the next business meeting on Sunday.

Jeremy mentioned how Randall and Jeremy registered the domain name of www.thecrashcourse.org and pointed out the double meeting of crash course. This _might_ be a great place to put the preparation doc, but there was no discussion of this point.

Pam mentioned Heinberg and the Hirsch report.

We’re agreeing that Laughing Horse can table at our general meetings.