Making It Easier/Facilitator Sharon Sommerville

Notes taken at "Making It Easier"

Present

Joan (Zonta), Sydney (Kitchener Public Library), Bill (Trinity United Church), Sylvia (Reception House), Mike (First United Church), Bob (facilitator)

Value Statements

• Equity & Fairness
• Legacy for the Future
• Compassion
• Community of Voices

Which of these apply to you?

• Service Organization
  • Clearly all of them!
• Zonta
  • All about Equity and Fairness for women
  • Community
  • Communication
  • Same direction as others
• Social Work (Reception House)
  • Legacy!
  • Equity and Fairness
    • But sometimes not everyone agrees on what that is
• Minister (of Trinity)
  • Once you do something, it always seems to fall short of the orginal goal
    • But keep trying!
• Social Work (Library)
  • Evolving
    • And the library evolves as we evolve
• Tech community
  • At first the tech community members would say none of them apply, we're only about tech
  • But we have meetings and events, so we're a community of voices
  • And we have events where we teach others, so we're trying to leave a legacy for the future
  • And many tech organizations advocate for the freedom of users against corporate interests, so that's equity and fairness
  • And in the Free Software advocates want to make software and knowledge available to all, so there's compassion too.

Common Needs

• Being known, getting support from other groups
• Sharing information, resources
• Communication _about_ the groups (not everyone knows what we do or what we stand for)
• Programs are collaborative with other likeminded groups

• Space (Meeting, Presentation, and Storage to a lesser degree)
• Funding
• Resources

• Reachout to others
  • Issues are siloed, get ourselves out of our silo

• Get positive press
  • Mainstream Media is not always "with the program"
  • It is *not* true that "any press is good press"
  • Involve press appropriately (how?)
  • Empathy

• Meeting space
  • How to involve groups
  • Church (First United) has outreach projects, outside of the congregation
    • But you need to know who to talk to
  • Need a Community resource to provide contacts
    • to find space, to let others know space is available
  • At University
    • Dinner meetings: Pay for dinner, space is free
  • Need After-hours space (after business hours, weekends)
  • There is a perception against churches
    • Some people don't realize that church spaces are available without needing religious affiliation
    • But meeting in a religious setting is still uncomfortable for some
  • Space must be Safe, Hospitable, Clean
    • Especially for organizations working with vulnerable people
    • But think of Airbnb -- seems safe enough
      • But there are counterexamples, eg. Uber drivers
  • Need appropriate space
    • Can't just use any old big open room
    • eg. storage of servers, need electricity
    • Again, knowing what space is available

• How to disseminate information?
  • And keep it accurate?

• There are good organizations in the community
  • eg. Google
  • other potential business partners
  • But businesses are narrowing support, fewer opportunities for partnerships

• Plan how to do without
  • Then it's a bonus when you get buy-in from the community

"Only dead fish go with the flow" --Mike Savage

• Groups countering the mainstream don't get mainstream support
  • But in many cases our organizations exist precisely to counter the mainstream!

• Can't grow with limited resources
  • eg. using someone's house limits the size of meetings
• Encourage sharing resources and information
  • (this was originally "Overcome tendency to hoard resources and information", but this wording is more positive)

• Get buy-in from lots of people (the community), then approach politicians.