Hello Friends / CORE Collaborators:
The idea of a commons is interesting, but my preference is to stick with council (as the name COO suggests): an advisory, deliberative, or legislative body of people formally constituted and meeting regularly.
I am pleased to see the communications using Intermix to begin a constructive collective dialogue between our working group.
Since the Feb. 25th meeting, I followed up on several items:
I shared with the national COO Executive Committee chairs Aaron Etra and Carol Connors about our progress with the UNA-SF Bay Area COO, and they are fully supportive. With regard to some of the group questions and concerns, here is some general and specific feedback:
The hope for the UNA-SF Bay Area COO is to encourage collaborative activity among NGOs in support of the work of the UN, with function as the goal rather than structure.
The national COO "sends blessings to the new grouping for good work under whatever banner", and is interested to stay informed about the progress, as part of it's own mission to share good practices and lessons learned.
It is encouraged but not required that local organizational members join or encourage the national organization to join the COO.
With reference to membership, the members of the council should be the organizations themselves (as we discussed at the recent meeting), with perhaps one or two "official" representatives and encouraging participation of as many individuals from that organization as possible, with the recommendation that once elected, a member serves as an individual rather than being 'tied' to an organization.
Joining a UNA-USA Chapter, such as UNA-SF, is currently an individual membership rather than organization. No follow up on inquiry yet.
Mary Frances Wain, Deputy Director of UNA-USA, is willing to speak at a future meeting of the UNA-SF Bay Area COO and may potentially assist with fundraising development support for the COO ongoing and the UN 70th Anniversary.
I will put more ideas into writing for our core documents for our next meeting.
Best to all, see (some of you) soon! Thanks, Elizabeth
