CNVC Board of Directors Meeting Minutes – Wednesday, February 11, 2009

CNVC Board of Directors CLOSED Meeting

Minutes – Wednesday, February 11, 2009

In attendance:
Board Members:      
Margo Pair – Board Secretary
Marshall Rosenberg – Board Member
Robert Gonzales – Board President
Stefan Wisbauer – Board Vice-President
Valentina Rosenberg – Board Treasurer

Absent:
Gail Taylor – Board Member

Facilitator:      John Buck
Note taker:     Elin Skappel

Financial situation / Trainer situation

1. A Trial Balance was sent out with the invitation to the Board Meeting.
2. Currently, the majority of CNVC’s income comes from Marshall’s trainings. The income from these trainings have gone down 40% compared to earlier years; the number of IITs have been cut down from 12 to 9 per year, and max number of participants lowered from 85 to 50.
3. We started to put together a Training Team a year ago, as a way to create another source of income to support CNVC. CNVC is currently not making money. An initial loss was expected.
4. We are working on new ways to market and manage requests for trainings. 
5. While we are looking to increase the number of trainers on staff, we are also exploring other options, i.e. a system where we can organize certain trainings by contracting certified trainers on a case by case basis/for single events. 
6. Note from Stefan: Some companies do not list their consultants on their website, to avoid people contacting the consultants directly in order to get a cheaper quote.

Admin Team Activities

1. Support and coordination of  Leadership Team by holding 2 meetings per month, with coordinators from each Leadership Team (IT Coordinator, Communication Coordinator, GCC Coordinator, Director of Educational Services and CNVC Office Representative).
2. Educational Services Team: Working with Rita (Herzog), re-evaluating and reviewing the trainer application, the trainer agreement contract, the trainer renewal and assessor fees, registration, etc. Two assessor trainings were held in 2008, one in Germany and one in the US, much time and energy has gone into coordinating the 38 new potential assessors into the Educational Services Team. The whole certification process is being revised from a global perspective.  We are taking into consideration language and cultural differences while still holding the integrity of CNVC with universal guidelines.
3. Legal situation with trademarks and service marks.
4. Many of these processes are being built from scratch. The Admin Team is experimenting with the best ways to work with the Educational Services Team, Communication Coordinator, IT Coordinator and the GCC.
5. The CNVC Office and its staff are being taken to a new level. One example is the bookkeeping department, where we are finally able to get timely and accurate reports.
6. Day to day needs of the business come on top of these responsibilities and tasks.
7. The Admin Team is not looking for suggestions on how to better manage their priorities, but an understanding of the volumes of work, and an understanding from the Board that the areas where the Admin Team are actively involved are in direct correlation of what the Board set as the Admin Team’s priorities a year ago. Relief from some of the overload is forth coming, as teams are developed where the Admin Team can delegate responsibilities, but it is taking time.
8. The Admin Team requests that no additional items are added to their Agenda, in order to focus on current action items. Our goal is to respect and satisfactorily address each area. 

GCC/Network Representative to the Board

1. The Admin Team requests a revisit of the decision that was made in November in regard to appointing a representative from the GCC to sit on the Board as a Member.
2. Valentina pointed out that a venue for the community to be heard is already set up through the Leadership Team Extended Forum, and that adding a second venue may bring confusion.
3. There has been two Leadership Team Extended Forums in 2008, and three or four will take place in 2009. Margo shared that she has worked very hard to make sure that the invitation is there for the whole global community to connect to the greater community through the GCC, and that is the link to our Leadership Team (which links to the Board). It is taking time to build the trust and consciousness for the global network to fully make use of this invitation, but it is in place and functioning as a place for the global network to participate.
4. The Leadership Team is set up to receive proposals from anyone, team or circle. Depending on what that proposal is and the scope of the topic, the individual team may handle it, the Leadership Team may handle it, or it may appropriate for the Admin Team and/or the Board.
5. The GCC has a Coordinator, a member of the Leadership Team; this is a venue for the GCC’s voices to be heard.
6. The topic of mutual responsibility was raised, with the example of Robert’s three specific requests to the participants on the last day of the international calls, to which we have only received one response.
7. Stefan made a suggestion that the decision be revisited and discussed again at the next Board Meeting, and to include the suggestion that instead of a Board Membership, there be set aside a space, for example ten minutes, where a member from the GCC can bring any urgent request or proposal from the GCC to the Board for discussion, as a sociocratic way of sending someone upwards when there is a need for it. This would give the connection that the Board is seeking, without the complexities of an automatically appointed Board Membership.
8. Valentina questioned the purpose of having the current venue of the Leadership Team, if the process is to be sidestepped. The Leadership Team meetings are time consuming.
9. Margo expressed a desire to have a Board that is focused on the overall policies instead of being entrenched in the day to day issues, and also expressed concern that the Board would be drawn down to a level that would be less productive otherwise, stating: “The Admin Team has been working very hard to develop other teams so we can delegate more and free ourselves up and be able to look at the overall umbrella for the organization and lay long term plans instead of being so entrenched in the day to day necessities of what needs to be done.”

This topic will be addressed again at the next closed meeting.