Board Agenda & Minutes 01/14/09

CNVC Board of Directors Meeting Minutes – Wednesday, January 14, 2009

In attendance:

Board Members:

Gail Taylor– Board Member

Margo Pair – Board Secretary

Marshall Rosenberg – Board Member

Valentina Rosenberg – Board Treasurer

Robert Gonzales – Board President

Stefan Wisbauer – Board Vice-President (for check-in and early part of meeting)

Absent:

Eduardo Montoya – Board Member Applicant

Stefan Wisbauer – Board Vice-President (most of the meeting)

Observers:

CNVC Communication Coordinator Glenda Mattinson (Canada – Ontario), Susan Livingston (US – Virginia), CNVC IT Coordinator Pan Vera (US – Vermont),

Facilitator: Robert Gonzales / John Buck

Notetaker: Elin Skappel

Summary of Action Items:

1. Next meeting – To Be Determined

2. Margo will contact a specific proposed Board Member and initiate a conversation with him in regards to joining the Board for an Applicant Period.

3. Elin will start an e-mail discussion about the quarterly meetings proposals by making a preliminary draft and distribute it through the cnvcboard yahoogroup by January 15th.

4. All Board Members will participate in the e-mail discussion on the proposed policies in the cnvcboard yahoogroup and a resolution will be made within two weeks (January 28th, 2009)

5. Margo will communicate the Board’s request of the GCC to prepare a synopsis of the parts from the November In-Person Board Meeting that involve the global community.

6. All Board Members will comment to each other through the cnvcboard yahoogroup on any internal matters from the November In-Person Board Meeting that they are not clear about.

Summary of Decisions:

1. To process the feedback given to the Board through the Board’s feedback form on the website, the Board appoints the Board Secretary to be responsible for presenting the feedback to the Board during the initial summaries on the Board Agenda. If the Board Secretary is unavailable to present the feedback at a meeting, he/she will request another Board Member to present the feedback.

Future Agenda Items:

1. Review of our system for recruiting Board Members (how it is working to achieve the results we aim for, consideration of possible strategies, what it might look like to open a broader search for board members, compared to connecting to someone by recommendation of a Board Member, taking into consideration that our strategic plan is not completed, and also reviewing the information that is presented to new Board Members)

Announcements & Administrative Matters

• Minutes of the November 13-16, 2008 Board meeting were accepted.

Financial Report

- Financial statements have been emailed to the Board Members through the cnvcboard yahoogroup.

Review of Action Items/Status Report on Search for future Board Members

Action Item: Margo will contact a specific proposed Board Member and initiate a conversation with him in regards to joining the Board for an Applicant Period.

Future Agenda Item: Review of our system for recruiting Board Members (how it is working to achieve the results we aim for, consideration of possible strategies, what it might look like to open a broader search for board members, compared to connecting to someone by recommendation of a Board Member, taking into consideration that our strategic plan is not completed, and also reviewing the information that is presented to new Board Members)

Proposal for Quarterly Board Meeting

Action Item: Elin will start an e-mail discussion about the quarterly meetings proposals by making a preliminary draft and distribute it through the cnvcboard yahoogroup by January 15th.

Action Item: All Board Members will participate in the e-mail discussion on the proposed policies in the cnvcboard yahoogroup and a resolution will be made within two weeks (January 28th, 2009)

Review of November In-Person Board Meeting

Synopsis/summary of the meeting: There were a number of thoughts raised concerning the totality of the NVC community, and some decisions internal to the board. We need a synopsis of this rich material. We ask that the GCC prepare a synopsis of the parts that involve the global community (from both international calls and the rest of the four day In Person Meeting), and that the Board Members comment to each other through the cnvcboard yahoo-group on any internal matters that they are not clear about.

Action Item: Margo will communicate the Board’s request of the GCC to prepare a synopsis of the parts from the November In-Person Board Meeting that involve the global community.

Action Item: All Board Members will comment to each other through the cnvcboard yahoogroup on any internal matters from the November In-Person Board Meeting that they are not clear about.

Communication Coordinator Report

• Elin distributed this report to the cnvcboard yahoogroup during the meeting, including an attachment with the feedback the Board has received from the network through the Board Feedback Form on the website.

Observations and Needs:

• The NVC Community is invited to provide input and feedback to CNVC Governance Teams, including the Board, through the Feedback Forms on the website. Each CNVC Governance Team needs to determine its process for review and inclusion of this material in its decision-making.
• The Communication Coordinator extracts the information from the Board feedback forms and attaches this as an Excel file to the Communication Report prepared for each Board Meeting.
• Needs: shared understanding, awareness, connection

Decision: To process the feedback given to the Board through the Board’s feedback form on the website, the Board appoints the Board Secretary to be responsible for presenting the feedback to the Board during the initial summaries on the Board Agenda. If the Board Secretary is not available to present the feedback at a meeting, he/she will request another Board Member to present the feedback. Term: 12 months

Meeting Measurements

Marshall – Overwhelmed by the meeting, lost in the abstractions.

Valentina – Exhausted, this felt like a four hour meeting, not a two hour meeting, I celebrate for some of the areas we did cover, but am also overwhelmed with confusion.

Susan –Concerned about the proposed decision of quarterly meetings, there is a lot going on and I believe it would be more digestible in more frequent, shorter meetings.

Pan – Pondering ways to organize information, especially the decisions that the Board has made.

Glenda – Many significant things were tackled. I really like the idea about getting greater clarity about the delineation between Board responsibilities and the responsibilities of the Leadership Team and its members.

John – Look forward to the minutes on the proposal to go to quarterly meeting, concerned about that.

Robert – I think that we made some progress on this meeting. We dealt with important items and developing clarity. We could have spent more time on the Communication Coordinator’s report. The meeting was a bit cumbersome but we are dealing with the follow-up of a very significant meeting.

Margo – I feel good about the tone of the meeting and the way topics were addressed. I appreciate the compassion and willingness to bring up what is important, and to keep working towards joint clarity and moving forward and feel that today’s meeting helped us accomplish that. Robert I appreciate the way you facilitated the meeting, helped us move along in the timing, with care and concern that everyone were heard.

Gail – Robert, thank you for how you helped the space in facilitation. Pleased and delighted about the meeting, today has amplified the need for clarity between the Board’s intentions and policies, and what we want the Leadership Team, Admin Team and GCC to handle. Grateful for the way the discussion flowed and the collaboration. One of the things I would have enjoyed going a little smoother, is shared tracking on if we are making a policy discussion, if we are discussing strategies, or if we are discussing concerns about strategies. I am concerned about the amount of time this takes on the calls and wanting more shared holding of that.

The meeting was convened 1:00 PM MST

The meeting was adjourned 3:05 PM MST

Agenda for January 14, 2009 Board Meeting

Wednesday, January 14, starting at 19:00 GMT/UTC (1:00pm Albuquerque), teleconference 1.712-432-1600; code 825078#

(1:15) Administrative matters

• Observer policy
• Announcements
• Acceptance of agenda for today

(1:25) Content

• (1:25) Updates (Margo)

Financial report

Status of key action items

Propose quarterly board meetings (Admin. Team)

Review of November in-person Board meeting

• (1:35) Day 1/2 – What are the foundation ideas of our strategic thinking? And the key themes of the first call with the international leaders?
• (1:45) Day 2 – Were there any additional themes in the survey data?
• (2:55) Day 3 – What were the key strategies suggested in the second call with the international leaders? Do our thoughts later in the day adequately reflect/respond to their thinking?
• (2: 05) Day 4 – Any changes to priorities for integrating NVC Community input?
• (2:15) Next steps in the development of an NVC Community Strategic Plan?
• (2:35) Acceptance of minutes of November in-person board meeting
• (2:35) Communications Coordinator report. (Glenda)
• (2:40) Status report on search for new Board members.

PROVIDE FEEDBACK

To provide input or feedback to the Board, please use one of our feedback forms:

• If you want the input you provide to be immediately accessible by other members of our community, please use the form labelled "Public", which is located at

  http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=p6HBFi7KGIunfDcZAl7RIEg .

• If you would like your input to be visible only to the Board, please use the form labelled "Private", which is located at

  http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=p6HBFi7KGIumNAcd-FNDVUA .

Both of these forms are available at any time from the bottom of any page of the CNVC website (www.cnvc.org) by clicking on the link "Provide input/feedback to CNVC Governance Teams".