talk.kiezburn.org
Wed 29 Jan 2020 10:47PM

[advice process] Shaping the Event Coordination Team

W walto Public Seen by 158

Welcome! Welcome!

Why you might be interested

If you are interested to co-create the Kiez Burn event this year and/or take up a lead role, you might want to contribute to the discussion :) In this thread, we want to open the discussion on how we want to shape the Event Coordination Team this year. This, with a particular focus on leads and coordination between the areas.

Why have this discussion?

We have gone down the rabbit hole on decentralization last year. Whereas many are willing to take on lead roles within Kiez Burn, we also saw there (still) is a need for coordination between leads and areas. Last year the board took on this role. This year, the Kiez Burn e.V. board is stepping back, to focus on its role as vision guides and keepers of radical bureaucracy.

Acknowledging we need people initiating, coordinating between & documenting the leads & areas, we realized, there is a need for an Event Coordination Team.

Event Coordination Team

Leads

First of all: there is no Event Coordination Team without leads. Leads are the people who lead the realization of Needs, as defined on Realities.

challenges

As you see from (the post on) Realities: there are A LOT of Needs (& Responsibilities). Some of the challenges:

  • The Kiez Burn Needs, should be identified. The responsibilities that would fulfill these Needs, should be identified as well. Who does that? This is not a one-off, but a continuous process. In 2019 for example, we realized only in April that we needed a build lead.

  • There are interdependencies. Different Needs & people depend on each other. They need to talk. We know real-life meetings are great for that. Who organizes these meetings?

  • Some Needs/Responsibilities are event-critical or desired, but nobody stepped up yet to take on that need or responsibility. Who flags this and provides the needed transparency to the community that we need volunteers for that position?

  • Sometimes issues or conflicts arise that are counter to how we want to co-create together. Who flags this or helps us guide through this?

  • Good documentation is critical to assure a good collaboration during & a great event the next year. It is the nitty-gritty of posting Talk threads in the right place or saving documents in the right google drive folders.

Coordination Team responsibilities

The below is a proposal. How it actually takes shape is to be discussed.

The potential Event Coordination Team would not be the people who are "the boss" or can dictate how things are done. They rather are the glue that enables the leads to work their magic. Their art is the enablement of the art of others. Maybe they should be called the "event glue team"? Or maybe they should just name themselves.

Some of their responsibilities:

  • Organize regular (bi/tri-weekly) lead meetings to align on important topics

  • meet regularly to go over the timeline, evaluate the status of important topics & anticipate issues to come

  • Discuss the Needs & Responsibilities: anything missing? Are new volunteers needed? Is further clarification needed?

  • Guide best practice implementation among the leads

  • Take certain decisions?

Who gets to be part of the "Event Coordination Team"?

This is unknown yet. We could consider an election without candidates among the first or second leads meeting? What is clear, that this team should arise from the leads already volunteering.

A first leads meeting will be called in the near future so to kickstart this process.

Based on our experience, the Event Coordination Team ideally consists of around 5 people.

Help? We need guidance?

The board is ready to be guides to a new Event Coordination Team. The board consists of some veteran Kiez Burn event leads who are more than happy to help a future event coordination find its way.

The Event Coordination Team will be in close contact with the Board. This might mean regular collaborative meetings or/and some board members being part of the Event Coordination Team.

As a separate entry in Realities, leadership succession is a big topic that the board is focusing on this year.

BL

Benjamin Langholz Mon 2 Mar 2020 6:54PM

Great I hope it goes well. Looking forward to a clear process that I can follow.