November 29, 2010: Online Work Bee

Ben ... headache again
Brandon ... has been overcommitted, will be jettisoning one of his commitments
Shelley ... Done with wards ... inspired to make Solstice a special tradition for SolSeed and our family
Sequoia ... teething ... missing naps ... still pretty jovial most of the time

<s>Shelley ... repost Craigslist ad ... after it expires</s>
Shelley ... send out the solstice invitation (use SolSeed.org to create the pretty invitation and copy paste it into gmail and invite Carol and Steve and Judy) ... by next call ... invitation is done but not sent, looks ugly
<s>Ben ... add SolSeed to SpaceWiki About page ... by next call
Ben ... add a contest page describing the vision and how to contribute good material (look at Community portal page) ... by next call
Ben ... consider who we'd like to invite to Solstice and send list to Shelley ... by Tuesday
Ben ... prepare phone service ... by Sunday</s>
Brandon ... start a consensus poll about church vs. non-profit ... by next call
Brandon ... start a consensus poll about "what is a solseed business" ... by next call
Brandon ... consider who we'd like to invite to Solstice and send list to Shelley ... by Tuesday
Brandon ... add logistics stuff to the SEDS contest page and send link to Rick ... by next call
Brandon ... remove Gus's non-Mars-Underground emails from the list, and verify that he's on the newsletter list ... by next call
Gus ... look at the Big Book and provide feedback ... by Monday
Gus ... read our first children's book Happy in the Sun ...

Shelley feels this should be considered a "high holy day" for us, so the invitation should look really well crafted
We're going with a Punchbowl online greeting card

What we've been up to lately:

Last month, Brandon quit his job and started the first SolSeed business! He's helping large groups of people come to consensus on difficult decisions using an online process (I'd give you more details, but we have to keep our trade secrets). Our first three-month contract with the Meyer Memorial Trust is off to a good start. No consensus yet on a name, though; maybe something like SolSeed Consensus Consulting or SolSeed Collaboration Works.

Ben and Brandon took our SpaceWiki sign-up-and-get-a-free-caricature table to SpaceVision 2010, the only student-run space conference, and the attending students were really into our irreverent style. We got over a hundred new members and discovered some opportunities for collaboration with the sponsoring groups.

The mini-SolSeed Services are continuing on a weekly schedule. It feels like we're practicing for space travel because we're using futuristic videoconferencing technology to bring us together. To participate, email shelley@solseed.org.

Coming up soon:

The Longest Night Festival! Join us to celebrate the Winter Solstice, 6 pm to midnight on Tuesday, December 21 at the SolSeed Village, 1824 SE Oak St in Portland. Bring your kids to enjoy a Yule log, great food, songs, and more.

Self-publishing our first SolSeed book! Literally, just one book, a test copy of Happy in the Sun to see how it looks before doing a full production run.

Requests:

We're looking for one more person to join our weekly work-bee conference call and help us move forward on our many projects. It's usually Sundays at 8:30 PM (Pacific time), and we're very careful to keep it no longer than an hour. Please tell us if you're interested!

We just published a Craigslist ad focused on the SolSeed Village, so if you or someone you know would like to help us establish this new community, let us know!

By default, we'll pick February 5-7 unless additional constraints come in.
Won't ask people to help pay
Could we combine this with the music festival? Probably a bad idea
Music festival: January 15?
Shelley probably won't have time to plan a January event unless it's very low maintenance
Have some music that appeals to adults as well as kids?
Lori is a really good connection and potential member

Brandon ... start a consensus poll about church vs. non-profit (http://solseed.org/Legal_Organization) ... by next call
Brandon ... start a consensus poll about "what is a solseed business" (http://solseed.org/SolSeedBusiness) ... by next call
Brandon ... consider who we'd like to invite to Solstice and send list to Shelley ... by Tuesday
Brandon ... add logistics stuff to the SEDS contest page and send link to Rick ... by next call
Brandon ... remove Gus's non-Mars-Underground emails from the list, and verify that he's on the newsletter list ... by next call
Brandon ... start publishing kids book ... upload all pages ... by next call
Brandon ... prepare the phone service ... by Friday
Brandon ... set up a test server for Ben to play around with ... by next call? (low priority)
Shelley ... go to mail.solseed.org and "manage this domain" to obtain email addresses for punchbowl; send invitation ... by Tuesday at 10 pm
Shelley ... ask Lori if Jan 15 would work; also check with Meg and Heather ... by next call
Shelley ... book the lodge for Friday-Sunday nights, leave on Monday (First weekend in February) ... by next call
Ben ... add photos and send the November newsletter ... by Tuesday
Ben ... put script for phone services on the wiki ... by next call

There is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks. -Johann Gottfried Von Herder