Community Mapping

Here's a photo of part of our community mapping exercise from last week. I've saved the other two photos to my server and you can download them here: world map and US map. Hannah has also typed up all the stickies and i've saved that document here: Community Mapping Report. Finally, in the interests of inclusive thinking, i've also saved an "outreach chart" that you can download. It's a tool that we developed in our Catalyst Centre work to practice an anti-oppression ethic as we think about forming groups. As you'll see, it's a simple chart that's a thinking tool to help us remember who we ought to be considering, who we're excluding, where we need to be doing more relationship-building and so on. Of course, this exercise is only a beginning and if any stickies got missed or misinterpreted, there's lots of opportunity to correct and add to as needs be. This could be a very helpful tool in building a database when we get to that point in our efforts. A big thank-you to Hannah for taking this on last week!

Potential Committees/Working Groups

This blog post is intended to start a discussion on committees: what they should be, who they might comprise, the structure they might take.

• Which committees do we need to get up and running as soon as possible, and who would like to be a part of those committees?

• What are folks' ideas on the structure of the organizing body as whole?

• Should we even call them "committees"?

Comment away!

Best,
RL

new folks!

I have just added everyone who signed up to be a reader on this blog. So for those folks who can now read our Steering Committee Blog, please start commenting and let us know what we should be talking about in this forum.
If you have links you'd like me to add, you can post a comment or email me with the link and I will add it to the links section of the blog.
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One things we need to do a-sap that we didn't get to in the meeting:

• choose a PTO Board Liaison: one person who will handle communications with the PTO Board in the U.S.A.

Comments? Questions? Nominations?

Minutes from the last meeting should be available shortly!

That's all for now!
Robyn Letson (RL)

that's me

BTW - on the blog I'm known as "Toronto the Better PHoto Project" or something like that. Just so people know, that's me,

adam

Thanks - looks great,

adam

COOL!

Thanks Robyn for hooking us up! Whoaoa:)

Minutes for November 21st meeting

Hey Folks,
Here are the minutes for our meeting on Friday. Please correct any names that I've misspelled. Any other corrections should probably include an indication of who corrected and when.
Cheers! RL
P.S. I will turn item 4 from the minutes into a Google document so we can eke out an agenda for next week's meeting.

Minutes for November 21st Steering Committee meeting at OISE, Peace Lounge (4:30-5:30pm)

1. Introductions

2. & 3. *Typo in address of call-out (it’s 252 Bloor). Email people back people to correct them on address.
Chris’s Contacts: list of attendees: Margo Charlton, Olivia Rojas, Deborah Barndt; emailed Julie Salverson who he hasn’t heard back from; Deborah Koneckny and Natasha Hargovan from Toronto Community Development Institute (TCDI). Reached out to folks at the Association for World Education meeting in Massachusetts; mentioned to MES pop ed students at York, who will be graduating in 2010 (2 people might come Friday).
Emily’s Contacts: Shirley Steinberg: excited but not confirmed
Brendan’s Contacts: OPIRG Peterborough might come; Carole Roy at St. F-X might come; Lynn Davis excited but can’t make meeting; No One Is Illegal (NOII) excited in relation to Convergences; Kawartha World Issues Centre interested;
Sara & Adam’s Contacts: Lynda Clark from the Peace Theatre excited but not confirmed—asked about funding. Suggested asking for grant from Heritage Canada.
jes’s Contacts: someone from SETS M.A. program at Guelph; Alan Filewod, interested but not attending
Robyn’s Contacts: Simon Malbogat at Mixed Company Theatre is interested and trying to attend--interested in relation to his Forum Theatre Symposium; Ingrid Mundel PhD student at U of Guelph interested not attending; Hartley Jardine from McMaster is attending.
Further Connections: TCDI and PTO connections. Mixed Company Symposium: when and where?

4. Next week’s meeting: Someone facilitating and someone to take minutes. Each of us might facilitate certain sections.
Rudimentary agenda for community meeting:

• Background to PTO and their board.
• Declaring responsibilities and commitment to committees; what the PTO board is asking of us—list of organization, who is doing what.
  

Emily suggests confirming with PTO that Toronto is hosting 2010: written support and enthusiasm from PTO board for 2010 Toronto; we will need a motion from PTO board to confirm 2010 Toronto. For next week, we should at least know when the next board meeting will be scheduled and the motion will officially be made.
We need to answer the PTO questions between now and next week.

• Community mapping exercise: with post-it notes and a map of Canada/Ontario/Toronto and name people and organization on the map. Hannah from York can facilitate this section of the meeting. It would take around ½ an hour.
• Ideas for generating themes for the conference; perhaps as part of introductions: what are you most passionate about in your work that you would like to see as a theme for the conference? In confirmation emails we can ask people to start thinking along these lines: list of things to think about. Also send out agenda.
• Fundraising issue: initial brainstorm at meeting.
  
• Booking space a.s.a.p: talk about dates and deadlines. At OISE: last two weeks of April or last to weeks of June. Available at present.
• Potential working groups we can get out of the meetings:
  
• fundraising and finance;
• housing and space;
  
• communication [board liason; public relations; committees liason—maintaining minutes, blog, database];
• steering/organizing;
• advisory;
  
• youth advisory [Stasia from Native Youth potential connection; include in community mapping]
  

-Further groups to look to: volunteer coordination; hospitality
-How do we solidify commitments? Asking people to declare, with specific tasks. Real commitment is commitment to next meeting.

5. PTO 2009 is willing to billet us if we come to the conference.

7. Duties for next week's meeting:
Brendan: talk to board, send our committee board email.
Robyn: set up private blog using email account; put minutes into google docs for all of us so that we can make an agenda.
*USE adam@iftheatre.ca and/or sara@iftheatre.ca to contact A & S from now on.
*PTOtoronto gmail password: 2010toronto [or toronto2010]
Chris: bring materials: markers, etc.
Everyone: Confirmation email to our contacts with agenda and cc to PTOToronto address. *Make sure we include the correct address for OISE in our emails!
Sara: will confirm if she can come.
Emily, Chris, Adam: come out ½ an hour early to Peace Lounge.
Robyn & jes will bring laptop. Brendan will take minutes next week.
Adam will time keep.
Chris will be convener.
We’ll divide up facilitation according to agenda.