Silence followed by check-ins.
Training next generation of facilitators (Becky, Christine) – Christine - What’s the invitation look like? What do trainings/learning opportunities look like? Christine will be exploring these questions and others with Becky Peterson and will report back so that we can talk about this.
Thank you for Kerry - In past we gave earth candle. John will look for a butterfly by a local Vero Beach artist and send to him. The approved amount is: $53.42. John will also have a conversation with Kerry inviting him to share any insights regarding his experience with OSI, US.
Giving Letter – it was a great letter but did not raise a lot of funds: estimated $800. We have $6,400 in our bank account. (Actually, a gift of $1,000 came the day after our call.) It communicated the things we wanted to communicate AND it did not clearly focus on fundraising. We decided to do another letter that focused on fundraising. (Doug circulated a draft the following day).
Tree committed to doing a reminder on OSLIST that deadline for people to submit requests for funding for WOSONOS is May 6th. There are currently no requests.
Chandi – Doug and Peggy provided a background on the situation: Chandi’s active in OS and will be traveling to Australia to present at an academic conference on peace activism. He solicited contributions from OSI, USA. We indicated that we’d be willing to give him a 1/3 of his airfare ($2,100) and we encouraged him to seek funding from other communities whose methods he talks about in the paper that he will be presenting. After much deliberation we decided to give $2,100 to Chandi: $900 that he’s raised through several individuals giving to OSI, USA, $500 from Henri, and $700 from general OSI funds. Peggy will take responsibility for communicating with Chandi and for distributing the money. We are committed to using this as a learning opportunity together as it appears that there have been misunderstandings along the way in our interactions with Chandi. It will go in the bin so that we can reflect on the experience toward using it to help us gain clarity about OSI, USA’s giving practices and policies.
Request from Open Space Institute, Haiti – It was decided that we would provide $1,000, of the $2,100 requested for helping to make it possible for 20 additional people to participate in 7th Annual Haiti Open Space on Open Space on the conditions that:
Michael Pannwitz, Jr. came on via Karen at one point to exchange greetings.
BIN for May 16, 2008 OSI(US) Board meeting:
1)Encouraging monthly/regular giving. (Gabriel)
2)Learning from the experience with Chandi. (Includes possibility of inviting Chandi into conversation with board)
3)Girl Scout Convention Video - status, pricing, availability on-line (Christine)
4)Grants and payments to individuals (Doug)
5)Book pricing. (Peggy)
6)Dealing with situation of having board members that are frequently absent – How do we feel about this? (Phelim)
7)WOSonOS2008 Update (Lisa)