People in many countries are finding it difficult to join our regular meetings. This has come up around the monthly global catch-up meetings but is also an issue for other regular OFN global meetings.
@tschumilas suggested that we could have a relay system so that a meeting is held twice within a 24 hour period with one person being present at both and providing some continuity. Both meetings could be recorded and decisions made on consensus across the 2 meetings - or postponed until the next round of meetings.
Please chip in your thoughts on this suggestion and any other proposals you have.
We are particularly keen to hear from people who are in time zones that make our current meeting times inconvenient - @Permakai @gary @lauriewayne1 @lauriewayne @Bevan
1 Like
Possibly rotate the times so they are convenient/inconvenient in turn. e.g. 2:00 BST, 10:00 BST, 18:00 BST Also discuss the main business first so those in the “wrong” time zone can then sign out when they have had enough.
I think the idea feels more inclusive, and also sounds like an opportunity to take more detailed notes during the meeting (I would suggest that the facilitator and note taker are different jobs) - more/more detailed use of the chat area might serve to document conversations very nicely, since I think that can be copied into a doc right away at the end of the meeting, without waiting for the meeting recording to be posted, for use and reference by the other team. It also seems like it would be important to make sure there is plenty of cross-attendance, so that we maintain a sense of who each other are.
I think it’s worth a try, especially if it results in a lot more participation. For ease and consistency, I would suggest that the meetings be scheduled (exactly) 12 hours apart. I am willing to give it a try and also happy to attend both meetings (I learn an awful lot from listening and having the chance to ask questions).
Even though some people are willing to come at inconvenient times (i.e. the middle of the night), I think those may not be the times when they are at their best and can make the best contributions. @Permakai I have found that the global meetings tend to be efficient and jam-packed with important conversations, so I would not want to attend partially if I make the effort to get there (and once I’m up at 3, an hour long meeting is just as easy as a half hour).
Continuing the discussion from Rescheduling global community online meetings:
Another idea that came out of my discussion with @Permakai was that someone volunteers to stay on at the end of the meeting and records a summary of the meeting with references to the time at which each discussion/decision happened (eg “17 minute into the call we started to discuss… and at 21 minutes we decided…”) so that people who missed the meeting can skip to parts they are most interested in without having to plough through the whole hour’s recording.