2016-09-09 WuppHouse meeting

Whilst originally called as a Planning meeting, Douglas Webb observed that the meeting fell more into the dreaming side of things, which seemed to be very fruitful. Many ideas and concepts where discussed without any group decisions being made. There was no speaker list but people were respectfully talking and listening. All round, nice.

Present: Doug W, Joachim T, Bodhi N, Janina A, Luke S, Matthias L, Paul F, Axel K, Anna O'N, Marin N, Pia, Max, Selina S, Sarah, Lara S, Anja K, Larissa, Chris, Fritz, Chandi, Adrean K, Zed R, Arno D

Notary: Doug W

Outcomes

AP: Contact Robert, see if he can come here, if not see him in München - BN

AP: Find out details and conditions for the others houses on offer - PF

AP: Explore the idea of roles and responsibilities in more detail - BN, ML, PF, Max, JT, AD, ZR, Larissa

Wish: To work towards a house where private ownership is replaced by communal access.

Wish: To learn from communities like Tamera and Niederkaufungen about the things they're winning at.

AP: Host a communal living workshop based on Animal Farm - AK

Agenda

Action plan. Who, what, when? Visiting properties, forming sub-groups and pursuing different paths. Robert Sr/Jr. 2
Social order/law. How do we govern ourselves without internal finance? Dealing with issues as they arise. Duties and responsibilities. Who are guest/residents/board members/etc and how is that decided. Private space vs public space. 4
Vision and intention. Clarifying personal and group intentions. Why are we doing what we're doing. Different groups are OK (truly common space vs more 'ordered' space) How to duplicate and go viral with the concept. What are the activities we actually want to do there? What do we need to pursue those activities? 5
Physical attributes. Garden, minimum requirements, big enough for wuppdays, etc. 12
Separating legal and financial matters from living. Benefits of setting up space as a separate entity to yunity. Legal ownership of propertry whether bought or donated. If bought, finance from individuals or some kind of fundraising, etc. 15
Presentation pack - materials to help secure space. Completing list of references from previous hosts, and perhaps getting more. Creating a aet of bios/pictures of probable residents for people to see. Details of concept. 17
Updating from previous meetings. 18

Action plan.

BN: Most concrete Gera and Weida - who is interested? Contact Robert, can he come here? If not, visit him in München.

PF: Some properties for free (financially), but there are perhaps other conditions... not sure. Invitation from hitching host to talk further. Squat in Grenoble. Will arrange different session for this travelling, setting up food sharing and living yunity. To describe and discuss in more.

DW and JT: Would like to figure out some of the legal/set-up details before going further ahead.

SS: Who actually want to live there? I'm not currently interested.

Social order/law.

ML: 2 sets of people - more permanent residents and care takers. They would make decisions about the building and living conditions. (Others would be guests)

JT: Wish towards a proposal - instead of having people having permanently designed, we could have agile hierarchies. People being in positions and those positions having authority. This is not outlined in the state-legal Satzung, but internally. Necessary positions such as 'facility manager', 'cooks', 'cleaners', etc. Roles with specific tasks who do it for a certain period of time.

AO: Thoughts on how positions would affect group dynamics?

JT: Agility v important. Ability to vote out and for rapid changing.

DW: Roles can be awful (I won this, etc), but doesn't have to be that way. Would be most interested to start without roles, just a decision making stack.

PF: If roles, rotation is super important, prevents information hierarchies. Handovers. Easy and transparent, holacracy inspired.

BN: Cool community and no rent... there could be a lot of people. How do we cover the needs for calm for residents?

JT: Setting out building limits and residents space. Asking people not to come if no space.

AD: Would trust that this would be solved by residents making a decision.

AK: If people want to come, we can show them how to make more.

DW: Online availability for people planning on visiting. Trusting people to leave if they are there for an event.

F: Building capacity and roles. If people with roles leave, would be great

JT: Think that techies make the world go round

ZR: Having multiple people holding the same role. Rotation is super important to prevent imaginary power.

DW: Interested in talking about roles later, who else?

DW: In Rotterdam room allocation was crap. Usually done fairly using money - how to we distribute resources faily without rent?

AD: Private rooms vs public rooms. Would there be a fight for private rooms?

JT: Functional living - allocate purposes to rooms (kind of like roles for people). Room for sleeping, room for sex, room for study, etc. Could have room for 'one person for two weeks' - focus on the needs.

ZR: Saw this issue happening in Rotterdam before it got bad. Poortgebouw was a working building, but had no community.

AO: There is an advantage to yunity having worked together

JA: What is the house? How many rooms are there? Fit to the building.

DW: Old habits, private room is mine and my property - moving is oppressive.

JA: Private property less important.

ML: I would also be fine with some one or others to have a permanent room.

JT: I have high resistance against private rooms from experience. Leads to less communal spirit. I would like to bring my child and her mother. Families don't need a private space - the opposite.

AK: Before moving into a place, we should have a workshop based on George Orwells, Animal Farm

ZR: Suggests also reading Lord of the Flies

DW: Suggests watching The Beach.

ZR: Private rooms for hire (booking rooms for a period of time)

Max: With functional rooms, what about my stuff? Would there be a wardrobe? Would I put it in the basement?

JT: In Tamera, there are 'love spaces'. Stuffed animal indicates they are in use. Caretakers go through the rooms and keep them nice.

DW: Re governance. I would be happy with subjective values and

F: Would be very happy to have no private property in the WuppHaus, everything

DW: My concern with 'my possessions' is that people could damage with negligence - training is useful. Can I take it out? Does the house become full of items that can't leave the place?

BN: I want to live the pooling economy!

PF: Companies do this already - employees can break something and the company looks after it.

JT: Tamera closes down over winter for 3 months and spends this time to reevaluate their entire way of working. Doing it in winter seems like a really natural way.

DW: Niederkaufungen are already living the pooling thing with regards to cash. People bring in all assets and debts and when they leave they can ask to take some money with them.

JT: Niederkaufungen integrates finance equally over 4 years. One person left after 7 years with no problem, taking 12,500 Euros.

JA: Mentions K-pop CD's - wouldn't want them to go!

AD: Over-protection could lead to community losing the access to certain items.

JA: 'Cheating' by keeping your prized possessions elsewhere doesn't make so much sense.

[Meeting adjourned after 90 minutes due to proposal to continue tomorrow at 14:00. Resistance noted, SysCon started, group decision to adjourn meeting and continue tomorrow at 14:00 focussed on Vision and Intention using a different meeting format]