Scribe Tribe Will Feed You

I want to encourage a few of you to step up and try out scribing for a committee or taking on the Board Recording Secretary position. Let me relate how it improved my Fair experience. I’ve been a boothperson for about forty years, and did my share of complaining. I was a crafter way before Facebook, and complainers rarely had any listeners, so my complaints never resulted in anything but a mounting dissatisfaction on my part, which culminated in extreme frustration with my forced stay on Monday night of the Mud Year. I got stranded on site with my giant wet pile of goods and no one really cared…but like all Fair experiences, it had a silver lining. I spent a lovely, quiet night camped out in my bare booth with my dried fruit and the minimal amount of things I was willing to unpack, and I hope you all have Fair moments as sweet as those. After I wrote my incensed letter to “them” which I knew better than to mail, I got to work thinking about how to shift my Fair life to one that fit better. I knew some volunteers, so I had a clue that maybe we had more common ground than I thought.

I decided no one “saw” me, and that was my own fault. I read a call for scribes and that fit my skill set, so I volunteered, trying a few positions out until landing at Craft Committee. A whole world opened up that turns out to be endlessly fascinating and completely satisfying on so many levels. What might sound like a thankless task is indeed a rare opportunity to serve in a sacred manner and show your love for Fair through right action.

The scribe’s duty at a meeting is to witness and describe with honesty what occurred and what was decided. This can be as simple as you like. Often minutes contain only the most vital info such as the motions passed and who showed up. It is not necessary to include all of the discussion and who said what to whom and how that felt. You put yourself in a position that is in the meeting and of the meeting and try to portray the meeting in a helpful manner. You learn to frame things neutrally, be clear and concise, keep your emotions and opinions and perspectives to yourself, and serve the best interests of the committee and of the Fair.

This is super training for many areas of life and while it takes a little organizational skill in some ways, the most necessary part is that you don’t have to do the work of the committee (although you can choose to pitch in if you want). You don’t have to vote or even take a position. It’s better if you don’t. You do have to attend the meetings, and that’s a commitment, but I’ll bet lots of you are pretty interested in what happens in some of those committees, and here’s your chance to get in there and find out. You would be intrigued and amazed to see how much does get done, and how expertly and inspiringly it can be accomplished.

We at OCF have the most stellar community activists and thinking, feeling people who come from so many areas of the bigger regional networks. Powerful, loving, incredible people come together in these rooms and try to solve problems, look ahead, heal breaches, plan for improvements, and do the work of the organization and the event. You don’t have to work during the event, but it keeps you tuned into the Fair year round, and you will be really important in a small way that will benefit you and others.

Being a witness to group process is endlessly fascinating and you can help the committee function by being an organizational tool. You keep them aware of what they did at the last meeting, and the one last year, and what is coming up in the yearly round of work. You track their work so they can communicate it to others, and you document progress so we aren’t always spinning our wheels. You have a calming force as a witness, and functional behavior and cooperation will increase. The Chair will not have to be the only one with tasks, because your minutes will record the assigned tasks as people volunteer for them, and remind them of what they said they’d do. Phrasing the business of the committee in neutral, clear language takes the heat out of many discussions and gets to the meat of proposals, conclusions, and solutions. You might be amazed how much more work the committee will be able to do with your assistance. We will all move forward in much healthier ways!

At Fair, we do have a detailed style of minutes that serves our membership organization, but it doesn’t mean you have to write down every word and then type it up. Technology rules. I use a voice recorder to supplement my notes, and it’s easy to type notes and construct the minutes from them as you go if you have a laptop. I personally like a lot of detail, but that’s a style choice and many committees would appreciate a less-complicated report, so you would work with your committee to tune your work to their needs. There are tons of resources online to help you with the structure and content of good minutes for a membership nonprofit. It is required that a public record be kept, and you will be serving an essential legal function for OCF, which will make many of us proud of our professionalism.

You do not need to be able to spell these days, and if you can’t type there is probably a work-around for that too. Maybe it would be a great idea to learn to type better, and this will help. Maybe you really don’t think you have the skills, but I’m guessing there are several people among us who could help with that, Randy being high on that list. You don’t have to start from scratch in an organization that is almost fifty.

The Board has explored the idea of their being some kind of reward or exchange for this service, but I’m here to tell you that it is its own reward. You get thanked a lot! The office staff and the Board and your committee grow to love you. Everyone who has searched the website in vain for what is being done here or there will love you too. You will be pitching in with a most meaningful, continuing task that will only require a few hours a month. Think about it.

Attend a meeting of the committee you are interested in serving. Try taking notes in your seat and see if you like it. I find it helps me stay interested in even the longest repetitive discussions, because psychology, human relations, group process and consensus building are laid bare. That person who always talks about herself, and goes off topic? Your meeting framing can help her focus too. You can say cool things like “There’s a motion on the floor,” if the Chair forgets to say it. You will learn things you never knew you wanted to know. I think it is my favorite thing about going to meetings, to frame things in a helpful manner for forward progress. If I weren’t doing it for five different groups, I would take Randy’s job myself. So if you can read and write, this is your chance to step in. Let this be your formal invitation and your permission to be part of the glue that holds our community together. Take a bite of the Peach!

Thank you to all of the scribes, ordinary heroes.