Category: Council of Nine

Council of Elders Face to Face Meeting

Council of Nine

Saturday June 23, 2018 ~ 9:00AM – 5:00PM

Sunday June 24, 2018 ~ 9:00AM – 1:00PM

office of Positive Impact ~ 523 Church Street, Decatur Georgia

The GSV Council of Elders conducts a face-to-face meeting at least once a year. This is in addition to our monthly conference call meetings. This meeting gives the Council Members a chance to actually spend time together and do more extensive planning, etc. All council meetings are open to anyone involved with GSV, but most particularly we look forward to input and participation at our face-to-face meetings. Although only Council Members can vote, we have found community input to be invaluable.

Our next council meeting will be a face-to-face meeting, scheduled for June 23 & 24. The meeting times are 9:00 – 5:00 on Saturday and 9:00 – 1:00 on Sunday. The location will be at the office of Positive Impact, located at 523 Church Street in Decatur, Georgia.

If you are interested in joining us please message Bill Harris so that we have an idea on who will be attending.

Thanks,
Bill Harris

June Council Meeting

Council of Nine, Organization
Greetings Dear Siblings,

The next semi-annual in person GSV Council meeting will be held in Atlanta GA, Saturday June 24 and Sunday June 25 at Positive Impact, 1117 West Peachtree St. NW, Atlanta GA 30309.  GSV council meetings are open for observation by members of our community and other invited guests.  And we encourage anyone in the Atlanta area, or willing to travel who is interested in GSV leadership, future conferences, GSV long term planning, or just GSV workings in-general to attend.

The Saturday meeting is scheduled from 9 am to 5pm with a lunch break. On Sunday we will meet from 9 am to approximately 1pm to wrap-up.

If you plan to attend Saturday and/or Sunday, please notify the Council so we can make accommodations for seating and building access.  Email the council at: [email protected].  A details agenda for both days will be available closer to the meeting dates.

If you plan to attend, please review the following from The GSV Policy Manual:

“Observers are welcome at Council meetings.  However, observers are expected to observe and not to comment or participate in discussions unless invited to do so by the Chair of the meeting.  Observers are different from guests who may be invited by the Council to present information or to share perspectives about items on the agenda.

“If an observer has an opinion or perspective to share, he may share it with a Council member before the meeting or at a break during the meeting.  The Council member may choose to share the perspective with the Council or may ask the observer for a short summary of the perspective.  Observers will receive a copy of the agenda if they have contacted the secretary beforehand.  Observers will be reminded that the Council has a pre-agreed agenda with time allotments to carry out much essential work, some of which is time sensitive, thus, observers will not disrupt the ongoing work of the Council by asking for information or offering suggestions which might impede the normal processes of the Council.

“As a routine practice, the chair will ask for observer feedback with a limit of 5 minutes for all observations at the end of each major section of the agenda.  If several observers desire to speak, each one can be given one or two minutes unless all wish to yield the full 5 minutes to one observer.”

Thank you for your support.

May 2017 Council Meeting

Council of Nine, Gay Spirit Visions, Organization

Gay Spirit VisionsDear Brothers,

We are posting this to inform you that we have a Council meeting scheduled for Tuesday 5/16/2017. Our intent was to make sure this conference call would be open to observers. However, we have encountered a technical problem and are working on a resolution which includes options suggested during the Spring Retreat open forum.

Sadly, it does not appear we will be able to correct this before the call. Therefore, we are inviting anyone that may have questions, concerns or comments to please email them to us by Monday 5/15/2017. We will be able to add to the agenda for discussion and in turn post results the following week.

Please use the email address: [email protected]

Thank you for your understanding,

Mark (Thunder) Zumback, Wendell Johnson, Doug Emerson,
Bill Harris, Kraig (Nightshade) Blackwelder, Tony James, and Mahan Kalpa Khalsa.

Letter from the Council – July 2016

Council of Nine, Organization

Our Beloved Community,

We, your brothers on the GSV Council, want to express our ongoing commitment to you, our community. We are committed to transparent, respectful, and efficient communication. We are committed to ensuring that every member of our community is heard and has equal access to consideration for all service and decision-making positions within the organization, regardless of personal relationships, financial contributions to the organization, popularity, race, color, religion, gender expression/identity, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation, marital status, military or veteran status, age, weight, or disability.

We are committed to holding each other accountable for respectful communication, and being strong allies to each other in the face of bullying, outside and within our own community. We are actively pursuing these goals through several avenues. These include: the creation of a community liaison council position; improved orientation for council members including non-violent communication and respectful confrontation; preventing, recognizing, and responding to bullying within the community; and bylaw revisions to streamline operations while protecting our community from the concentration of power and avoid any conflicts of interest.

GSV is an all-volunteer and consensus-driven organization. This means communication, action and change sometimes happen more slowly than any of us would like. We also know that many in our community, including members of our current council, have not always experienced the council’s commitment to these values — and for this, we are truly sorry. We invite you to reach out to us with your concerns and desires, whether through emailing us at [email protected], or attending a council meeting to witness and give feedback. We will post the next Council meeting dates on Facebook and send an announcement via email. We will follow up with a list of decisions and an action item list on our webpage.

Thank you for the incredible love, wisdom, courage and strength each of you bring to our community and our conferences, and thank you for working with us to make our conferences even more wonderful.

Your Brothers on the GSV Council,

Steven Wilson

Hunter Flournoy

Wendell Johnson

Tony James

Mark “Thunder” Zumbach

Todd Humphrey

Doug Emerson

GSV Council Bulletin: Welcoming Thunder & Call for Suggestions

Council of Nine

Hello Brothers!

As we are preparing for the 2015 Fall Conference, the Council is working hard to continue our efforts to respond to community feedback by improving communication and pathways into leadership in GSV. As part of that, we wanted to write you a brief note to let you know about an exciting development in our Gay Spirit Visions Community, and put out an invitation for your suggestions for themes, keynote speakers, and conveners for our 2016 and 2017 conferences. We want to draw on the tremendous wisdom, creativity, curiosity, and passion in our community as part of the planning process, and we need your input to do that!

First, the Council is delighted to welcome Mark Thunder Zumbach as Elder of Archives. Thunder has been an instigator, teacher, performer, advocate, guardian, and organizer in GSV and the larger faerie community for many years and brings to the Council tremendous skills in community building, creative flair, and a passionate commitment to including and empowering every member of our community. We are excited to have him on the team!

Second, the Council is actively seeking suggestions for themes, keynote speakers, and conveners for GSV’s 2016 and 2017 gatherings. If you have a passionate desire to organize a conference, be a keynote, explore a particular topic, or hear from a particular GSV brother, please send your suggestions to [email protected]. All suggestions will receive a response from the Council and will also be shared with the Keynote and Theme work group. Because we need to begin planning for the 2016 Spring Conference, we need all of your 2016 Spring suggestions before the  2015 Fall Conference…so please send them in right away!

We hope you are having a wonderful summer, and we look forward to seeing many of you at the Fall Conference! Remember to get your registration in soon—enrollment is moving quickly this year!

The GSV Council

Read about the Council of Nine >>
Read more about the 2015 Fall Retreat >>
Register for the 2015 Fall Retreat >>