[OLPC-Philippines] OLPC efforts in the Philippines / core team

[Mel Chua]

Responding to this message on the mailing list, so others can join in 
the conversation. Indented text is me, text aligned on the left side is 
Ryan.

My response: +1 to all. Rock on. :)

>     Here's the crux of it: are we the core team, period - or are we the
>     core team *so far*? (If it's the former, then I'd consider myself to
>     not be on the "core team" yet, since I don't understand the
>     expectations that entails.) Arbitrarily delineating "insiders" and
>     "outsiders" with no criteria as to how you progress from one to the
>     other eventually becomes an artificial cap on community growth. 
> 
> 
> Great point! To answer your question, I think this is not the "core team 
> period." We are a young group, and are still in the process of 
> identifying and defining the different roles that are needed to get this 
> project off the ground. (Setting expectations will hopefully be one of 
> the outcomes of the meeting.) Thus, most likely there will be new 
> additions.
> 
> Furthermore, I think most of us are in temporary or interim leadership 
> positions due to our time constraints and other full-time commitments. 
> This presents an additional challenge: For sustainability reasons, we 
> need to identify individuals (leaders) that will be committed full-time 
> to this project in the long-run.
> 
> To drill more into our roles as core team members, I think we are 
> enablers, facilitators and catalysts. Whatever you call it, I think one 
> of our charge is to build capacity through our volunteer base. We will 
> have to pick up the slack, whenever volunteer members do not have the 
> capacity to meet our organizational and high-level technical needs. The 
> question of "community growth" is certainly an important one and I hope 
> we can drill into this. How does their needs and our needs coincide? How 
> do we sustain community interest?  What does community mean in the 
> context of the Philippines? Some questions to think about :)
>  
> 
> 
> 
>         (3)    I completely agree with Mel and Cherry regarding
>         “ownership” of the OLPC project. Our success will be rooted in
>         our volunteer base. However, we need to work on our capacity (or
>         volunteer model) to handle inquiries and cultivate our member
>         base – so that we make proper use of their time and resource.
>         Our ability to do so will be dependent on the framework/model of
>         our organization (We are leaning towards a hybrid of Waveplace
>         and OLPC Headquarters. However, there are some nuances that we
>         still need to drill into).
> 
> 
>     Totally! All the more reason to publicly discuss how we're going to
>     handle incoming volunteers/requests so that the folks who may be
>     volunteering/requesting things from us have a chance to participate.
> 
>     Mind you, I don't expect many (if any) of them to join in - I think
>     that if we're lucky, maybe we'll get 5 observers, 2 of whom might
>     talk at some point. But we should give them the option! And publish
>     full logs afterwards for the people who couldn't come - we *must*
>     default to transparency if we want other people to step up and take
>     their own initiatives on this, because *that* is what is going to
>     give us that capacity to handle inquiries and cultivate our member
>     base. (I mean, I sure don't want to handle all those inquiries and
>     do all that cultivation on my own...)
> 
> Community growth and ownership has an inseparable link. It took this 
> email thread, a quick chat with Cherry, and kim chi, to see that our 
> success really lies in our community. So lets go for this open meeting! 
> In the beginning, I hope we can properly set the context, and then 
> facilitate, so that the meetings coincides with our agenda items. 
> 
> Cheers guys,
> 
> Ryan