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Intentional Home Retreat #3

I’m typing fast, having learned my lesson last time that it’s necessary to get these minutes posted quickly.  I’ve taken a shot at paraphrasing things people said, but would warmly welcome comments and corrections.

Thanks!

Claudia

This was a short meeting.  John, David and Katica there in spirit but not body, and we were joined by Kim, Leslie and Gordon.  (Kell had come to Ganas with the intention of being there –we all had a great time chatting Friday night – but in the morning he was busy arguing with stomach bacteria so we’ll have to schedule a catch-up).

Really the main discussion was each of us discussing where we were and what we were thinking about, relative to the project at hand.  These discussions included elements of values, practicalities, and question and answer.  It was interesting to note that Eric, Jenny, Claudia and Kim all described different initial visions of the place, all of which have been under discussion at some point and all of which could eventually coexist.

Gordon mainly wants to live as far off the grid and outside of the sphere of corporate influence as possible.  He wants to maintain relationships with Ganas people, and pointed out that multiple groups with reasonably consonant aims could benefit greatly by sharing space and resources, without a huge necessity for them to share exactly the same goals.

Leslie’s interest in the project relates to her interest in being in the country and growing her own food, and also to her interest in Jim who has long been expressing a wish to fire up a “Ganas farm” type project. 

Kim had already been working on the idea of a retreat center, and was also attracted to the idea of a Dharma community that worked on the issue of end-of-life care (she’s taking a contemplative care course).  She told us about a big piece of land (640 acres) near Walton, NY (pretty near to Livingston Manor and Roscoe, not far from where Grow2 was) which she has recently placed into a Charitable Remainder trust (I think that’s the term) for that purpose.  The parameters are complex – we’re hoping she’ll post a written description to supplement our fuzzy memories of the conversation – but it seems at least a possibility that this project could take place there.  We decided that it’s a perfect opportunity to run the exercise Eric got us started on last time – “if we had to get the project up and running in this place as soon as possible, what are the logistics and what’s the business plan?” 

Possible dates for this: 

Jan 7-8 (John could be there but Kell couldn’t)

Jan 14-15 (no John; not sure about Kell)

February 4-5

February 11-12

February 18-19

Making Community Work

In our search for how to make relationship work, we came up with principles drawn from the Buddhas teachings. These teaching were given in relation to making community work and brought to us as indicated in the following text:


ESSENTIALS FOR COMMUNITY

Taught by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche for the Tergar Community
1. Generosity
   - material things
   - protection
   - Dharma (during mental/emotional problems)
   - love/kindness/compassion
2. Communication - skill
   - skill
   - don't use sharp or bad words
   - smile, say pleasant things
   - don't lie
   - address communication to person's good qualities, not the dark side
   - don't press buttons
   - be gentle
3. Behavior - balance of unique/union
   - follow norms, don't go against local custom
   - leave aside that which offends others, it’s not necessary even if it’s “right”
4. Common goal of liberation for all

THICH NHAT HANH: (Old Path White Clouds, p304, ff)
1. Sharing a common space
2. Sharing the essentials of Daily Life
3. Observing the Precepts together
4. Using only words that contribute to harmony; avoiding words that may cause
community to break
5. Sharing insights and understanding
6. Respect for others’ viewpoints; don’t force others to follow yours

THICH NHAT HANH; (Old Path White Cloud)
Four essential Precepts:
1. Don’t engage in inappropriate sexual activity
2. Don’t steal
3. Don’t kill
4. Don’t claim insight you haven’t actually attained

THICH NHAT HANH: (Old Path White Cloud)
Seven steps for Conflict Resolution:
1. Face-to-face discussion in front of community
2. Each takes a turn stating his entire recollection of what happened
3. Both resolve to non-stubbornness (expect to resolve the matter)
4. Both resolve to confess their own wrongdoing (there are many causes and
conditions for conflict)
5. Both agree to accept the verdict of the community
  (The word verdict gets a reaction from Claudia and I; perhaps we should make it direction or guidance??)
6. Community reaches verdict by consensus
7. Each has an elder to represent their part in the conflict, who can be expected to
speak the matter with words that are non-divisive

Starting to think about financial questions

Questions for a Financial Plan

Our financial arrangement will determine how our resources are acquired, distributed and compensatedIt doesn't necessarily tell us who or how decisions get made (that's the Authority plan), although there may be some relationship there.

There are lots of ways to do it, and through my work in the community I know about many of them. But we do need to know more about what we want, both personally and together. Here are some questions that might get us started.

I have some random illustrative examples at the end which you might choose to read at the beginning if you don't have much experience thinking about financial arrangements.

I. Purposes

            1. How do you feel about financial plans? Do they excite you, irritate you, intimidate you, or something else? Do you want to be deeply involved in thinking about it, or hope not to be?

            2. How, if at all, might you imagine the purpose(s) or mission for our legal financial arrangement? Is it, for example, just a quick and dirty way to make legal the fact that we are doing business? Is it a highly detailed structure which clarifies, enables, and constrains? Is it mostly a way to anticipate and provide remedies for conflict? Is it a spiritual container that should closely mirror our deepest purposes and values?

II. Personal Resources

            1. What sort of resources are you prepared to contribute? Financial resources, labor resources, consulting resources, other resources?

            2. What sort of risks are you willing to take? Do you want to be an owner, a paid worker, do want to make low-interest loans, do you want to donate without compensation?

            3. How "collective" do you want to be? Do you want to pool together assets with other people, or do you want a clear share, etc.?

III. The Collective

1.     Do we want to be a relatively closed ownership group or do we want to include others over time? Would those others include only investors, or would they include workers, residents, etc.

2.     similar to above, how much do we want to "pool" and how much do we want to specify individual shares? How much do we want the shares to be equal and how much do we want them to be based on financial contribution?

IV. Forms of Financial Arrangement

            1. What forms of financial arrangement best do what we want them to do based on above?

            2. What are the various advantages of different arrangements that allow resource sharing, such as LLC's, co-ops, etc.?

            3. How do most collectives organized themselves?

Some Examples:

1. Simple – We form a simple company called Transitions Retreat Center, LLC. We each contribute money, and own the company in proportion to the money we contributed to it. The company buys the land and carries on the business, and as any of us contribute more money to the company our percentage share increases.

2. Complex – We form a company called Transitions Realty. The company buys property which is owned in proportion to what we contribute. Over time, workers other than us receive shares of Transitions Realty so that they become part owners. What happens to a worker's shares if they stop working in the company is clearly spelled out in a legal agreement. We form a nonprofit called Transitions Retreat Center, which carries on the business of the retreat center and pays rent to the owners of the property. Some of us work in the business and receive a yearly salary. We also form a company to house the online computer project John described called Computer Transitions – only a few of us own and manage this business together (including John's son?), but we make a yearly taxable donation to the Center depending on our profits (and pays a sublease to the center for programs that are run there). Occasionally one of us who is not an owner of the business might do extra work for this business and receive compensation from the business for doing so.

3. Mystical – We each identify a set of personal resources (financial, labor, services, rusty old car, etc.) that we are willing to commit to the project for a year. The sets are not "equal” in value, but they represent equal levels of pushing each person to the boundary of their comfort zone. We operate through consensus to determine what happens with these resources. We chant a lot and do more drawing exercises. When the year is over, who knows? We leave that to the universe.

Possible Places

Claudia and I made a spread sheet where we can capture information on possible places. Please feel free to add..

Click link: Places

Appreciation!!!

What a pleasure to poke my head up from work-land and see your wonderful posts! I feel incredibly lucky to be collaborating with such wonderful people, and enormously confident that whatever we wind up doing with our time and energy, in the end it will be a great good thing. I love the online business idea -- feel like it could be in sync with our workshop-giving, growth-supporting gestalt, and yet independently beneficial in its orientation to productivity and profitability. It's starting to feel to me like a 4 legged work stool -- teaching, meditation, healing and self-sustainability.

Any of Katie's possible meeting times are possible for me -- and boy am I looking forward -- what do other people think?

Big big hugs to all,

C

Notes on Possible Software Business:

Claudia and I had a conversation which started with how my son Ben has made a business on the web. Our conversation transitioned to the possibility of creating a business model that could support our community.

Ben operates a consulting business where he provides software services to others on a fixed price or per hour consulting basis. It all began because he loves the idea and practice of creating the software for games. He learned to program in an Adobe language called Action Script. It is a popular language used in the production of 2D games and in the generation of animated web content. The production of either a game or a web animation is generally a collaboration between at least three parties.

1. The customer. This person has a particular need or idea and needs others to make it a reality. Generally this person is paying for the production, but often they are an intermediary providing project management for the ultimate client.

2. The artist. This person is skilled in the production of computer based art work that forms the basis for the animation. Parts of the image are created and assembled in a story board that shows the progression through the animation.

3. The coder. This person is skilled in computer programming. They will bring the static images to life by creating the motion and any response animations that will happen as the user interacts with the animations. Perhaps data is collected...

Example Projects:

You can see many game examples here:  http://www.2d-world.co.uk/

Some ad samples are here:  http://www.a4flash.com/design/flash_ads_intros.php

Perhaps I’ll get Ben to describe some of his projects for us.

See Ben's reviews of some of his favorites and play the games.

http://www.jaxbug.com/review/rejoin/

http://www.jaxbug.com/review/the-i-of-it/

Where Ben finds work:

There are web sites that specialize in hooking up clients with software professionals. They client posts the project requirement, the coder makes an offer at either a fixed price or a per hour rate. When the work is complete, the web site collects the fee from the client and pays the developer. They each review the other.  Ben started with small projects lasting a few hours for a few dollars. They may have involved adding text to an existing project or fixing a problem left in the program by the previous developer. Sometimes a developer had a problem and posted it so people could bid on fixing it. In this way, Ben created a good rating for himself and gradually worked into more complicated and more profitable projects. Now at 16 he is a successful professional charging $35/hr for his time!  :-)

How this relates to our community...

We could develop one or two month programs were people can immerse themselves in developing the skills for the creation of games or online content. Three basic skills could be facilitated:

Story Boarding - The creating of the story, the flow, the narrative and the basic points to be made. In a game, that is the goals, challenges and process.

Artwork - The art that supports the story. This is often complicated as each picture must be created. (almost frame by frame like in a cartoon)

Coding - Integrate the artwork into action that brings the entire story of game together. Collect data, etc.

The students could and should crate sample projects.. As soon as possible they should be engaged in real work. In the process of teaching, we would also introduce the participants to the process of getting work and beginning to generate their online reputation. For those who are ready for it, we can support them in profitable projects during their stay with us.

So...   I’ll work with Ben and see if I can put together an outline for the business and the related course work.