Governance
FabLab Governance
This page contains documentation related to how the FabLab Governs itself to support its members and the rest of North Forge.
For now the two most significant groups that have an impact on the day to day operations of the FabLab are the Member Council and the Safety Committee.
Member Council overall
Historically, Member Council fulfills and number of different roles within the institution that is North Forge. It uses a mix of both paid staff, volunteers, and subject matter experts to conduct some the week by week operations of the FabLab.
Member Council Participant Categories
The member council consists of folks that fit into four very broad categories:
- Compensated Volunteer: people whose membership fee is reduced in exchange for their efforts on the on member council
- Members at Large: people who participate in the meeting(s) without direct financial compensation. Regular members.
- Staff: people doing paid work as employees of North Forge
- Invited participants: This could include guest speakers, other North Forge components, contractors and more
Member council agreed on this method of participant categorization via simplistic concent method.
Purpose of Member Council
The membership at large voted via Slack poll to use the following as the Member Council Purpose Statement:
“The purpose of the North Forge FabLab Member Council is to represent the diverse voices and needs of our membership, foster a culture of proactive and responsive problem-solving, by enabling a connected, collaborative community.
Through effective communications and hands-on operational efforts, the Member Council strengthens its support for North Forge at large, cultivating a dynamic environment where members are empowered to innovate, create, and grow together.”
The purpose of member council was agreed upon via Facilitated Concensus Modelling. A subject matter Expert, David Dorosz, was brough it to facilitate the discussions. {Insert Date Time Reference}
The proposed statement was carried forward via simple concent.
Member Council Methods
Issue Categories
Member Council will sort issues requiring a decision into three broad categories
| Issue Category | How hard is it to discuss |
|---|---|
| Simple | Doesn't Require a whiteboard to explain it |
| Tricky but not Complicated | Probably doesn’t need a whiteboard to explain it, but it may help |
| Complex | This is gonna need a whiteboard, possibly pictures/diagrams and some deep thinking on everyone's part |
Decision Flow
Member Council will use the following flow to work through making decisions on issues. We’ll use each method one after the other until a decision is made.
Concent Based ⇒ Consultative Based ⇒ Consensus Based ⇒ Democratic Based
member council agreed on this method via simplistic concenet method.
Structure of Member Council