Is it time to retire our current card system?

Jun 3, 2022 Advocacy, Meetings

Executive summary

For you busy executives 😎.

Summary
An explanation of the current card system used in Cascadia HOA meetings.
Virtues of the present card system.
Pitfalls of the six card system.
A simpler three card solution.
Conclusion.

Now that we are tentatively beginning to hold our community meetings in person again, after two years of virtual presence via Zoom technology, some have suggested that we resume use of the card system in HOA meetings. This post will explain the current system and propose a simpler one that is easier to learn and use.

Given that we have five households that have not had to grapple with learning to use the current six card system, this is an opportune time to consider a change. As this system was, according to my review of the record of HOA consensus, never agreed upon by the HOA formally, it does not have to be revoked or modified by consensus.

The Current Cascadia Card System

In the procedural context, colored cards are used by the meeting facilitator to determine the “stacking” order for the comment queue. In the decision making context they are used primarily to give a visual indication of who supports the decision, who is standing aside, and who is blocking consensus.

When blocking consensus, we expect you to support your position by pointing out where the proposal under consideration is in violation of our mission or guiding principles.

The following is the order of precedence when the facilitator is calling on members to comment:

Red > Purple > Orange > Yellow > Green > Blue.

The Red Card

Discussion – No, this card does not mean you are really, really mad. That’s what the purple card is for. In discussion, it’s used to state an observation relative to a breach of procedure, going overtime, off topic, stuck in emotion, etc. Also, to suggest refocus or punt to a smaller group.

Decision – When testing for consensus, holding up a red card signifies an intention to block the proposal being considered.

The Purple Card

Discussion – That’s right, let us know what you’re really feeling .

🤬🤪🥰😱🥳😩

Decision – Sorry, expression of feelings during the test for consensus is strongly discouraged 😉🧐.

The Orange Card

Discussion – This is used to call for a straw poll. The purpose of a straw poll is to see where the members currently stand with respect to the proposal being discussed.

Decision – In the test for consensus, this card is used to stand aside or abstain from the decision.

The Yellow Card

Discussion – Got a question during discussion? This is the card for you.

Decision – If you need information or clarification during the test for consensus, then we’ve really fouled up somewhere.

The Green Card

Discussion – Yes, please tell us what you know about the matter that is boggling us!

Decision – This is your opportunity to let us know how meh or slightly peeved you are about the proposal up for decision.

The Blue Card

Discussion – Speak your piece, hopefully something to do with the topic at hand.

Decision – This means you are on board, full steam ahead! 🛳

Why use cards at all?

Colored cards give a visual indicator to the meeting facilitator as to how to “stack” participants in the comment queue. In the test for consensus, the facilitator can quickly spot blocks or stand asides and ensure that their objections are noted in the minutes and decide with the group what the next steps should be.

Virtues of the six card system

For savvy users of the six card system, the spectrum of choices available while commenting and deciding is a boon. Some people, for instance, like using the green card in the test for consensus to indicate that they are granting consent with minor caveats.

Pitfalls of the six card system

As a meeting facilitator, I notice even long time members fumbling in search of the appropriate card. It took me a year or two to become comfortable using the cards when I first came to Cascadia. I like to think I’m not stupid, but I sure felt that way in the early meetings.

A simpler card system

The flow in discussion and the test for consensus tends to fall in three different modes:

stop the discussion or decision
pause the discussion or decision
go ahead with the discussion or decision.

Sound familiar? The three card system uses the familiar stoplight metaphor of go, slow, stop; which makes for an easier to remember and shorter set of choices for the meeting attendee to grasp.

The following is an excerpt from: The Consensus Decision Process in Cohousing

Using Colored Cards to Achieve Consensus

Groups have successfully used the following system of colored cards to facilitate the consensus process. There are two contexts in which to use the cards: Procedural and Decision Making.

Procedural uses occur during preliminary discussions of an issue. Participants hold up a card before speaking. The facilitator recognizes them in the following order:

(1) Red (2) Yellow (3) Green

In the procedural context, the cards have the following meanings

Red means “Stop the Process” (time out) and indicates a breach in agreed upon procedures. Examples include; discussing topics not on the agenda, going overtime, and suggesting that a member of the group is being inconsiderate of the group process. It can also be used when a member feels uncomfortable with the way that the process is proceeding or if they believe that a break would be appropriate. The red card may be raised at any time during discussion.¹
Yellow indicates a member’s ability to clarify some part of the discussion. ²
Green indicates a member’s desire to make a comment or ask a question.

More than one card may be raised at a time by a single member, but the order of priority listed above is still observed. When there is more than one card of the same color raised, the facilitator ensures that the individuals are heard in the order that the cards have been raised

In the decision-making context the cards have the following meanings

Green indicates agreement with the proposal under discussion.
Yellow indicates that the member has reservations but is unwilling to block group consensus because of those reservations.³
Red indicates the member’s opposition to the proposal at hand and their willingness to block group consensus because of that opposition. When a member/or members use a red card, it becomes his or her responsibility to work with the proposing committee to come up with a solution that will work for everyone.

It is incumbent upon group members to use red cards judiciously within the procedural context, remembering that green cards permit questions and comments. Similarly, in the decision-making context, members should be conscious of the seriousness of blocking consensus and use the red cards only for principled objections. However, when a member strongly believes that the fundamental interests of the group are not being served by a particular decision, the red card should be used as a vote of conscience, even if unpopular.⁴

Modifications of the above system for Cascadia use

Calling for a straw poll currently uses the orange card. Since calling for a straw poll is meant to stop the flow of discussion, I believe that the red card can do double duty during discussion.
We currently use the yellow card for questions. In addition to dealing with clarifying questions before discussion and test for consensus, I believe questions that arise during discussion can be piggybacked on the yellow card, along with clarifications and more information.
The orange card does not serve to block consensus, therefore the yellow card can be appropriately used for this. Yellow card holders in consensus should have their concerns noted in the meeting minutes.
Refer to the guiding principles when using the red card in consensus.

Think of the stoplight metaphor when using the three card system. Do I need to pause the discussion with a yellow card to ask a question or provide information? Should I stop the discussion to note a breach of procedure or call for a straw poll?

Conclusion

The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two

An oft cited paper in psychology The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information sets the number seven as the ideal maximum number of variables for our minds to easily juggle. Our current system has a total of 11 meanings for the colored cards, and few members can use them without frequent reference to the explanations printed on the cards. Since we only use the cards for HOA meetings, and some cards get seldom used, it is very easy to forget the appropriate color for the task at hand. The three card system has a total of six meanings, three each for discussion and the test for consensus.

The reason for using cards is to facilitate an easy flow during our meetings. If the cards are acting as a source of confusion or frustration, they are failing in that function.

Missing from the three card system is the purple card for feelings. The truth is that strong feelings are often present throughout discussion and the test for consensus. Rather than corralling our emotions into one segment of discussion, we should refine our perceptions to notice when a member is struggling or in reaction and make a point of acknowledging what we perceive they are feeling and confirm that we heard what they were saying.

CCA (Not Tribal) Knowledge

Aug 20, 2020 Advocacy, Editorial

In the interest of communal harmony, the language and imagery of the original article have been altered. The stricken text remains, so that the original sin of the author is laid bare to the reader. If any Packers’ fans are offended by the replacement image for this article, please feel free to express your sentiments in the comments section. – ed

Imagine that you are standing at the front door of the Common House at 6am, with an urgent need to enter the building and the keypad lock isn’t responding. Do you know where the Common House key can be found? A light isn’t working in the south side parking lot. Whom should you inform and how? You’re not on the current meal rotation. Is it OK to take leftovers from the Common House fridge? The answers to these and a multitude of other questions are part of the ~~tribal~~ Cascadia Commons acquired (hereafter CCA) knowledge accumulated here over the past twenty years.

A small fraction of that ~~tribal~~ CCA knowledge is contained in the members manual, most of it resides in someone’s noggin, the rest can be found on a paper calendar, or document, by searching the mailing list message archive, or Google Drive.

Because we don’t know what we don’t know, it’s often difficult to formulate the questions we should ask. It would be helpful to have a proper owner’s manual for Cascadia Commons.

I’ve spent a week and a half, putting some of our ~~tribal~~ CCA knowledge into a Groups.io wiki. It’s really cool. And, the exercise of organizing and understanding the fraction of our collective wisdom available in print and on Google Drive has been personally illuminating. Particularly, I’ve become aware of the gaps where we have not formalized unwritten codes of conduct and tradition. We are very dependent on the knowledge that is often locked away in the brains of our fellow residents. Thank heavens for the mailing list. Otherwise we’d be constantly knocking on doors which, in this particular era, is probably something we should try to minimize.

While my first post on this topic focused on the nifty messaging features of Groups.io, I’m equally impressed with the Wiki and easy access to Google Drive files. Having a single site, where all of our digitized knowledge can be managed and accessed, is much less stressful than navigating between several different platforms to find what you are looking for.

A No-Brainer Proposal

Aug 12, 2020 Advocacy

I’ve been thinking for a while about our Cascadia Commons mailing list which is, by today’s standards of social media and online group networking tools, truly archaic. Even for a mailing list platform Google Groups is bare bones basic. It hasn’t changed much since its inception.

Groups.io has a take on dealing with some of the limitations in traditional mailing list platforms. At its basic level it works just like every other mailing list. Messages posted to the list show up in your inbox. What’s cool is that you decide which messages are sent to your inbox by filtering messages with hashtags you designate. So, if you don’t want email on topics such as #pandemic, #dirtyjoke, #dumptrump; you can mute them and manage the inflow from the list to your inbox as you wish. Handy links appear in the footer of each message letting you mute further messages on the thread or all messages with that hashtag in the future.

There’s lots more great stuff on the server side too. You can create an album of vacation pix and post a link to it, or use a single album to store all photos that you share in messages on the site. And, like Google Groups, you can also have a web only account. Unlike Google Groups, the web features are so good that you will actually want to use it.

Requests for help can be mildly problematic as people often respond privately and we don’t know if the issue was resolved or not. The chat feature handles these scenarios beautifully. I send out my chat message to the list: “Need a ride to the airport Sunday AM.” In the footer of the message is a link to the online chat. Anyone can check the chat to see the status of the issue. No need for any more messages to the list on the topic.

There’s an integrated calendar that will send notices of upcoming birthdays and events to the list. Yes, you can mute those too if you don’t wish to receive calendar reminders. And, it has a simple poll feature for questions like: “What night would you like to watch my “Best of Ernest Borginine” film marathon:

Monday
Wednesday
Friday
Not in a million years

While it might not fully replace Google Drive because of the 1GB file limit on free accounts, the essential files can be stored on Groups.io and even links to Google Drive files and folders as well. Oh, and a feature that I appreciate, the list can subscribe to The Cascadian blog feed, sending notices of new articles as they are posted.

Finally, as the storehouse of Cascadia Commons tribal knowledge, there’s a wiki. Who knew we needed a wiki? Want to reference the Pet Policy and read comments on outstanding issues? It’s in the wiki. Confused for the umpteenth time about which plastic lids go where in the recycling, just check the wiki page. As a repository for communal knowledge, wikis are the jam.

You’re probably asking yourself now “How can I behold this eighth wonder of the world and see the great pyramids of email for myself?” You can subscribe to the list on it’s Groups.io home page and you’ll be all set for when and if we migrate from Google Groups. I think it’s a no-brainer 🤓.

Look for an official proposal and demo at the next HOA meeting.

Hatch up or Hatch Down?

Jul 19, 2020 Advocacy, Editorial, Health

Arrrg! is intended to serve as an occasional outlet for your communal frustration and ranting. Today’s futile kvetching is about the state of toilet seats, particularly in our shared communal space, the Common House.

Unlike the doors on most public restrooms, ours lack a Vacant / Occupied indicator and are not equipped with automatic door closers. So, the state of the door is either ajar or often wide open, and usually with the toilet hatch in salute for inspection position.

The science of whether tis better to leave the hatch up or down is hardly definitive as the academic article Lifting the lid on toilet plume aerosol and the Brit Lab short below demonstrate.

In Feng Shui, wet spaces like bathrooms and laundry rooms are inherently problematic. Think mold, fungus, bacteria, and the like. As for toilet seats, Feng Shui practitioners generally recommend putting the hatch down, something about being a prosperity sink, where leaving it open is akin to flushing your wealth down the drain. I’m skeptical of this claim and think a simple poll or study of millionaires would likely show that they are no more or less inclined than the hoi polloi to leave the hatch down.

As for leaving the toilet seat up after enjoying the masculine privilege of peeing while standing, cohabitation with the fairer sex has firmly ingrained in me the moral rightness of always putting the seat down when I’m done. The lid, however, is another matter. When one considers the excess energy expended lifting the lid up and putting it back down over the course of a lifetime, for what seems little more than a matter of opinion or “energetic sensitivity”, a reasonable argument can be made to spare the next person from lifting what may be an unhygienic lid.

Despite the obvious convenience of leaving the hatch up at all times, I’ve become a firm believer in closing the lid when I’m finished with my business. To my eye it’s less unsightly and just “feels right”. When I see the lid up a voice in me says: “There be barbarians in these parts.”

This is not an upper case ARRRG! it’s more a hopeless sigh of an arrrg. Just one of those little things like our mismatched silverware and coffee cups. It rankles and ruffles like a slight disturbance of the force.

Jane Morrison, longtime SF progressive organizer, dies at 100

Jul 7, 2020 Advocacy, Biography

The following is from the July 5th, 2020 edition of the SF Chronicle. Jane Morrison was Camilla’s aunt.

John King
July 5, 2020 | Updated: July 5, 2020 11:08 p.m.

In 1960, Jane Morrison toured Northern California to organize Democratic female voters for presidential candidate John F. Kennedy.

Jane Morrison, a beatiﬁc and diligent ﬁgure in San Francisco politics for a half-century, died Saturday at her home on the east slope of Mount Sutro. She was 100.

The onetime radio executive held countless fundraisers for progressive candidates and causes at her home near Golden Gate Park, as well as serving on numerous advisory committees related to social justice and the environment. But in a city where the political scene can be needlessly pugnacious, the Oklahoma native had a knack for making friends, not enemies.

“Jane had a wide network of people who knew her, and they would relax in her presence,” recalled Sue Hestor, an attorney and frequent development critic whose friendship with Morrison dated to 1969. “She would talk about issues, but not in a catty way about people.”

As early as 1960, Morrison socialized with then-presidential candidate John Kennedy at a campaign function in her role as women’s chair of the California Democratic Party. She later hosted events for such emerging local candidates as Nancy Pelosi, Willie Brown and Barbara Boxer, and spent more than a decade on the city’s Human Services Commission.

Morrison also appeared on local ballots herself, several times winning a seat on the Democratic County Central Committee. The breadth of her connections can be seen in the list of endorsers from her run in 2002 — everyone from such establishment bastions as Dianne Feinstein and Pelosi to the most left-leaning members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Former San Francisco supervisor and state Sen. Mark Leno (left) poses with Jane Morrison in 2017, as he conﬁrmed his intent to run for mayor.

Democratic politicians of all generations knocked on Jane “Everyone wanted her on their (political) slate, because she was so well-liked,” said Jennifer Clary, president of the environmental group San Francisco Tomorrow. She and Morrison joined the group’s board in 1992 and remained close from then on.

Political people also liked Morrison because she knew the basics of organizing — how to ﬁnd people to spend a day licking stamps and stapling election ﬂiers, or making sure that gatherings went smoothly with good food and drink close at hand.

“She would tell me at ﬁrst that when she hit 80, she was going to retire and just go to lunch. That never happened,” Clary laughed. “She had a stable of volunteers and the most amazing energy. It wasn’t unusual for me to get six to 10 messages in a day when she was putting something together.”

When The Chronicle proﬁled Morrison in 2011, then-Sen. Barbara Boxer hailed her as a “grande dame of San Francisco politics,” low- proﬁle but essential. Morrison herself attributed her longevity to habits learned on the Oklahoma farm where she grew up in the 1920s: no alcohol, no tobacco, but three glasses of milk every day and “lots of vegetables. That’s all we had back then.” Born Jane Schneider, and one of four children, she was only 3 when her father left the family. Her mother raised the children on her own, determined to steer them toward a better life, and the youngest daughter responded by heading to Oklahoma A&M College, now Oklahoma State University, where she earned a journalism degree. During World War II she became a reporter for the Associated Press. After ﬁve years at the AP bureau in Kansas City, the ﬂedgling reporter met and soon married Jack Morrison, a Navy oﬃcer. The couple moved to San Francisco in 1952.

Jack worked for The Chronicle as a reporter before running in 1961 for the Board of Supervisors, where he served two terms emphasizing neighborhood and environmental issues such as preventing high-rise buildings from spreading to Telegraph Hill and the waterfront. Jane became the public aﬀairs director at radio station KNBR, where she deﬁned her job to include mentoring young women and encouraging them to push forward in broadcasting.

Her other, unpaid job — or crusade — was the advocacy of Democratic candidates and liberal local political causes. This is how she crossed paths with Kennedy in a suite at the Fairmont Hotel, part of a fundraiser that included drinks with Frank Sinatra and the chance for guests to mingle with the candidate’s brothers, Robert and Ted. The political events that Jane Morrison would host after her husband Jack’s death in 1991 weren’t as lavish as the Fairmont soiree. But they attracted an ever-shifting collection of progressive activists and political aspirants — modestly priced aﬀairs that were ideal for getting people excited about whatever campaign might lie ahead.

“I went to so many fundraisers at her house, for so many candidates and so many ballot measures,” said Tim Redmond, longtime reporter for the now-defunct Bay Guardian alternative weekly who now edits the nonproﬁt journalism website 48 Hills. “People could call her bossy, but she was never mean-spirited and she would never say anything nasty in public.”

Morrison had dementia in the ﬁnal years, but remained in her home. There was around-the-clock care arranged by Gimmy Park Li, whom the childless Morrisons looked on as their daughter, as well as visits from her friends and neighbors.

For her 100th birthday in April, friends assembled an hour-long video tribute to Morrison. It included aﬀectionate testimonies from family members still in Oklahoma as well as local political luminaries up to and including Pelosi, now Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

“Equality for all, that’s what you’ve been about,” Pelosi said in the video. “We’ve all learned so much from you.”

John King is a San Francisco Chronicle staﬀ writer.
Email: jking@sfchronicle.com
Twitter: @JohnKingSFChron

BLM Vigil

Jul 3, 2020 Advocacy

Not sure who started this but I really want to state my appreciation. We have been out there on Beaverton-Hillsdale every night (as far as I know) at 7:00-7:30 for almost 5 weeks. That is starting to seem like a long time but I compare it to how long blacks have been considered second class citizens. Then it doesn’t seem to bad.

It feels like a smaller accomplishment than marching and maybe being injured downtown. But I hope that if we keep reminding people like us every day then more white Americans will accept it as a new normal. We get honks, waves. thumbs up and black power fists. We also get catcalls, middle fingers and blank stares. We even had one man pull into the left turn lane and lecture us for 4-5 minutes. It feels good having neighbors from outside Cascadia join us, sometimes to continue with us and occasionally to see what it feels like and go back to their neighborhoods.

The time holding signs and waving is also a good bonding feeling for me. Since I connect more with people by doing things than talking I particularly enjoy this time. So if anyone wants to join us we have extra signs and congregate at the CH about 6:45.

The New Cascadian

Jul 2, 2020 Advocacy

In compiling The Compleat Cascadian, I had a realization similar to Gretchen Westlight’s when she rebooted the newsletter after several years hiatus. I miss having a place where memories of community life are captured in the amber of a publication medium.

Newsletters are mostly passé these days and, sadly, we’re engulfed by the culture of TL;DR. Our attention spans are shriveling.

I believe the best medium for a communal diary these days is a weblog, and wouldn’t you know it, CascadiaCommons.com is powered by WordPress, and WordPress happens to be the most popular blogging platform; by far. A blog can have many contributors, just like the old newsletter, and there are editorial roles to publish posts submitted by contributors. It’s pretty slick.

Rather than being issue focused (as in vol 9. Issue 7), I envision the weblog as a gentle stream of content, trickling here and babbling there. No pressure, no deadlines, 100% guilt free. And, where the old Cascadian was internally distributed and shared with some other communities, I’m proposing that we feature this on our website under what is now the Stories link in our site header. Yup, let’s bring The Cascadian out of the communal closet.

Here is what the new Stories page can look like. Content for the posts was snatched from our Facebook page or created by me. As new posts come in, the older posts roll on down, with the top post a sticky one to act as an introduction. Feel free to share your thoughts just below my bio in the comments section of this post. Note that you can’t post comments from the blog roll page, only from within a post.

Chalk Art

Jul 1, 2020 Advocacy

Chalk art on our street in solidarity with Black Lives Matter done by community members

Cascadia Commons

Category Archives: Advocacy