Rewriting EJB TOR

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During EJBM 2008, after the decision making session, the EJB Region felt the need to rewrite their Terms Of Reference.

This is the roadmap to be followed until next EJBM in 2009:

  1. EJB Team finds a group of people who are interested in working on this. done
  2. The group posts the ToR on JBPedia and encourage discussion on this page. done
  3. The group work on the ToR until 1st July, 2008. Using as many or as few of the comments on the JBPedia page as they see fit.
  4. The group runs a session at AIM with any interested juniors presenting their idea and getting feedback.
  5. After IJBC the group works on the ToR until December 1st, 2008.
  6. From 1st December 2008, the group works with EJB Team and IJRs to make the plan solid.
  7. At EJBM the group runs a session with the help of the EJB Team to see how the new document is viewed and to make it more useful for the rest of EJB.

Here you can read the EJB TOR as they were before EJBM 2008.

Below you can see the entire discussion regarding re-writing the EJB Terms Of Reference, but here is a summary that states the main points in the discussion between the group (Dario, Karo and Menso (and EJB Team)). In order to see the full stream of e-mails and opinions, scroll downs this page.

This is also where the group and EJB Team will update you on what is going on right now. We ask you all to read what the points of the discussion are, and comment and give your suggestions. Everyone is more that welcome to join! In order to contribute please do so in the bottom of this page, and please state who you are and where you're from. Thanks for helping in the improvement of EJB!

Contents

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Summary of the discussion on the re-writing of EJB Terms of Reference

  1. who speaks?
    1. everyone (all participants, no matter if it is NJRs or not)
    2. only NJRs
  2. who checks? (who counts votes etc.)
    1. JB is self-governed, therefore should we erase the sentence "Any non junior may serve as the election chairman appointed by the EJB Team"?
    2. have a non-junior do the counting etc.
  3. decision making - issues
    1. point of clarification was abused for making points
    2. decisions were seconded before it was even clear what the decision was.
    3. making amendment wasn't understood
    4. speakers list
    5. the rules just weren't clear.
  4. how to end the discussions?
    1. move to end discussion and then vote on voting
    2. when discussion repeats itself, someone suggests to vote (have a time limit for the discussion, e.g. 1 hour?)
    3. vote on motion, when speakers list is empty
  5. how to amend motions?
    1. amendments (yes or no)
    2. friendly amendment (yes or no)
    3. change motion while discussing
    4. write down all the changes people suggest, so everybody knows what options there are at any time and then have an open vote on these options, crossing out the losing options until a magic number is reached.
  6. election of the EJB Team
    1. As it is?
  7. What is EJB Team's role at decision making?
    1. let the board facilitate itself
    2. an active role in facilitating
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The full discussion so far

This is what we have been discussing so far. Every single email that has been sent about this topic here and nothing is left out. So please feel free to join the discussion, tell us whether you agree with things said or make suggestions yourself.


so heres the first message now we can start discussing. i am on a board meeting this weekend but i will get back with my comments on sunday night or monday latest.

i am copy asting the main ideas behind this group from facebook:

ejb team suggests: 1) EJB Team finds a group of people who are interested in working on this. DONE 2) The group posts the TOR on JB Pedia and encourage discussion on this page. 3) The group work on the TOR until 1st July. Using as many or as few of the comments on the JB Pedia page as they see fit. 4) The group runs a session at AIM with any interested juniors presenting their idea and getting feedback. 5) After IJBC The group works on the TOR until December 1st. 6) From 1st December The group work with EJB Team and IJRs to make the plan solid. 7) At EJBM The Group run a session with the help of the EJB Team to see how the new document is viewed and to make it more useable by the rest of EJB.

what should be in it: 1) Suggestions of how we elect new people (procedure) 2) Explination of the purpose of why we have an EJB Team 3) INclusion of the important parts of IGORC

so i think we should first talk about how the new thing should look like but here are also the first comments from dario on the existing tor

1) who speaks?

Although obviously only NJRs can vote, everyone should be allowed and encouraged to speak at the board, so, we should avoid the distinction between an inner circle of njr and an outer circle of "simply juniors" because this really feels like exclusion to me.

2)who checks?

we are saying everywere that jb is self-governed, so i would erase the sentence "Any non junior may serve as the election chairman appointed by the EJB Team". because this sounds like the JBs don't trust each others, and so they need a senior wich controls us. let's simply say that anyone of the juniors with an appropriate knowledge of the procedures could be the Election chairman. one of the senior members of the ejbm team could fit this role perfectly.

3) decision making!

ok, that was really messy! If we spent 4 days discussing about important topics just using the speakerlist as only way of moderating the debate I don't get why should we think about something completely different to discuss the motions.

since the members of the ejbmteam are elected to facilitate the ejb work, one of them could keep the speakerlist, allowing people to speak simply following the list! If you are afraid that in this way think could get long i just remeber you that we spent more time voting on closing the debate or seconding emendments than actually discussing them...


4) how to end the discussions?

the italian national board meetings work as i describe before, no wierd methods to end the discussion, simply, when the discussion starts going pointlessly in circle, someone ask to vote. no voting to vote then! if you think is needed to have specific rules, we could simply set a time for the discussion, like 1 hour per motion. if most of the people think we should go on, then the discussion keeps on going other 30 minutes. of course if the discussion ends before, then, we vote.

5) the motions, how to emend them?

same as above, most of the people got really confused about the friendly emendement thing. I think that simply, discussing a motion, we could change it while we discuss it. as we do for everything else we discussed during the ejbm. I dont remeber that any of the many groups we had before the decision making felt the need of such strict rules to achieve their aims. why would we need them during the decision making?

6) election of the ejbmteam

since there will always be someone asking for a secret ballot, i think we should keep it as default, like in all democratic elections, the vote is secret.

so far thats from me, more later karo


Hey people!

If you agree I'd like to ask to the ARMM, JASPARC and JEMM teams if they can send us their TORs, I'm sure there are good ideas inside, we could see the other regions procedures and maybe find something we can use in the new EJB TOR.

Let me know

Love

Dario


Sorry i've been kind of quiet untill now but i've been really busy with getting my study on track and the JB-NL weekend. after this weekend I'll give my oppinion on the old TOR.

Menso


yeah i think its a good idea to look at others... plus...i really think we should change "terms of reference" into a more...not-so-strict-and-formal-name so its not like those rules that need 1000 preocedures to be changed but something that is good and easy to use...like a "suggestion of procedures" or something like that. more from me next week...when finally i will be home :)

love, karo


Here we go with the JASPARC documents that peak sent me, although she said they are going to rewrite them soon...

Dario


OK Just to give a quick opinion on this.

I think it is interesting but in many ways more constraining than the one we are aiming to update. It is clearer in some ways and very thorough but by referencing too many other documents it makes it hard to take it as a complete document in itself.

What does everyone else think??

Thanks for getting this Dario it is interesting to look at.

Nic x


I agree with Nick,

JASPARC's procedures seem even more strict and "burocratic" than ours, and since peak wrote me that they are going to revise it soon, probably

they are aware of that...

Hana wrote me that she is going to ask the old JEM reco if he still has

the procedures somewhere in his laptop, but since JEM region was very young, everything was made in a very friendly way, without the need of many documents. of course since the JEM doesn't exist anyomore she is not even sure someone still has the few documents they wrote during JEMM's history.

looking forward for other comments!

Dario


hello everyone, i feel like giving my 2cents on this issue. I think that rather than taking examples of other TOR, the overhaul of the document should take the perspective of guidelines. -I think that the drafted bullet points that Dario wrote sometime ago where already avery good start. -I think this document should include also a general guidance to ejb team and ejb growth and development plus the strategic pillar In my mind this will be a simple guide to ejb in general with a small part on procedures. Maybe i am out of what you guys had in mind, just wanted to share how i saw things. kiss on the nose ico


Hey guys,

I finally got my school and the JB-NL on track, the two other things I considdered rather important, so I'm finally going to respond on "the dreaded TOR"

1: Who speaks: On this point I agree with Dario. Everybody should be allowed to speak. However a thing we should keep in mind is that as an NJR you speak in name of your country, while non-NJR's speak as an individual. This is one thing that created a lot of confusion for me during the meeting,because sometimes I had something to say but Laura and I disagreed.....

2. Who checks: I agree on this too. I don't think things will get so heated up that we can't trust someone to count votes. No further comments

3. decision making! Just to clarify, I'm going to list what went wrong here: 1. point of clarification was abused for making points 2. Discusions were cut of because of the not finishing the speakerlist rule, even though I heard from terresinha our Ex-NJR that a rule was made on IJBC about finishing the speakerslist 3. decisions were seconded before it was even clear what the decision was. 4. the making ammendment thing wasn't understood 5. because the motion was allready on the projecter, suggesting alternatives or discussing alternatives was practicly impossible, because of the ammentment-thing 6. The rules just weren't clear.

4. How to end the discussion I disagree with Darion on just voting when someone asks to vote. some other people might still have things to say. Then again again voting on voting doesn't work either because minorities don't get a chance to speak because the majority might vote on voting. For example at the DM this year, the people that were pro a 2-2-2 term for the EJB-team didn't get a chance whatsoever to make their point clear.

solutions for this are: finishing the speakerslist before actually ending the discussion when someone has moved to end the discussion or having a timelimit and voting at the end of this timelimit if more time is needed for the discussion. which is kind of similar to the thing Dario suggested earlier on. Secondly I think when the EJB-team should play a more active role in leading the discussion. When the discussion is going in circles the EJB-team can point this out.

5.Making a ammendments (How the hell do you spell ammendments or ammentments or...) I disagree with Dario on the thing about not needing any rules whatsoever. the thing is, at the discussions during EJBM you weren't together with 80 people and personaly I think discussing without rules with 80 people will create chaos. the way I see it, is to write down all the changes people suggest, so everybody knows what options there are at any time and then have an open vote on these options, crossing out the losing options until a magic number is reached.

6. Electing the EJB-team I think everything went great this year so I don't see where the problem is here except for writing the method down in the TOR.

7. Country and Individual. I want to come back to the thing that happened to me during the DM meaning the thing that me and Laura disagreed and I was simply silenced. I think the day before the DM all the NJR's should be reminded to talk about what to do inside deligations and to think what to do when the two NJR's disagree.

8. Objectivity One of the things I'd like to point out too, this was also discussed a lot too during the dinner during the DM, is that during the DM this year the EJB-team had interest in the Reco-Peco to EJB-team motion. They were the ones writing the motion and the ones that decided whether an ammendment was friendly. I think this created a conflict since the EJB-team were both facilitaters and had interest in the discussion. This influenced the discussion in a way and I allmost felt that EJB-team wasn't objective in the discussion allthough i'm sure this wasn't on purpose. The thing is that at the end of the day it are the countries that are supposed to vote and not the EJB-team. The EJB-team's job, and correct me on this if i'm wrong, is to facilitate and advise. I'd like to hear everybodies oppinion on this too.

well this is all. Hope you had fun reading this endless email and I'd like to get a lot of reactions on this.

menso


I've just created a page on jbpedia about the tor rewriting

http://www.ijb.cisv.org/mwiki/index.php/Rewriting_EJB_TOR

so we can start getting suggestions from the rest of the IJB world


hey everyone

i guess my point of view goes in the direction of what ico wrote (if i understood right)

mainly after talking to a few people that actually created ejb and were the first recos/ecos my idea of how to change the tor is rather eliminating it to the most part then changing it. ejb was created as a place of non-formality. that was the idea, to have romm outside of ijb to go crazy, to create something new without having all those boundaries and rules that we stick in in ijb (with electing etc).

i do agree that with having an ejb team and electing an ejb team it is of interest to do this in a fair and good way but also let space for change and developement.

we have seen this year how complex and difficult the election was because of the tor. we shouldnt forget that in some years, whatever we do now the ejb will have changed again...or will change. thats why my idea of working on the tor is that we forget it in the first place and write a new "document". this would ideally (for me) be a paper suggesting a procedure of voting, as menso said we could write down in easy words how we did it this year, that the ejb can decide on if they wanna use it on each ejbm. further about motions. i believe we should not vote on motions like we did in the past years (at least the last four that i have been part of ejbm). all motions were about procedures and changing the tor...

i suggest taking the time of the motion decissions and add them to the discussion paper time. we would have more informal time to discuss about anything we want....opening ejb for 60 year olds...making new jb programms like jbx or ipp....kind of like the jb projects, but more informal and first of all for talking, the main idea would be something like devils in real on the ejbm. plus in whatever doc we make we should as ico said include the strategic pillars as a guidance but leave space for development.

alright, i hope i explained myself well and you dont get me wrong. i do believe having something to follow is always helpful. but why do we need all those rules and tors...ejb should be a place of future not of the past.

love, karo


I totally agree with karo!

So, the new document should be more about contents (strategic pillars, igorc's parts, ejb aims and goals, and whatever else we think is important) with just a little appendix about how we vote the EJBteam memebers and the next EJBM place. leaving all the "thinking and creating" during the EJBM, in the same ways as we worked for all the other projects.

Hana sent me the JEMM constitution, it's a simply and interesting document, where the JEM people described themselfes as region, what were their aims and goals, the roles of their coordinators and just a little, simply procedure for the election.

you'll find it in attachement in this mail.

hugs

Dario


Hey everybody,

Ok lately I've been thinking about it a lot. I talked to a lot of people. Including some of the old Dutch NJR and some other JBers just to brainstorm and think about it...

Anyway I actually do not so much agree with Karo and Dario.... I do not think we should eliminate the entire TOR and make it a very light guideline.... simply because this is what keeps happening all the time, at least I heard from old JBers:

First the rules were too light and they made stricter rules. Probably for a good reason. Now these rules are too strict and we're changing it back to very light.... So I think we'll have to keep the rules but change them into to rules that do work, like i pointed out in my last email.... I mean there will allways be room for change and development and I wouldn't call changing back development.

secondly I think we should think about the election and motionmaking because we do need something to work from when decisions are to be made. Don't get me wrong, the Devils thing is a great idea but it can be done beside the motion making, besides how can you develop when no decisions are made?

As for some small details on the things we discussed earlier that came up when I talked through the discussion we guys had so far: 1. about not having something someone from outside JB to count votes. Wouldn't it be stupid if one person knew who voted on who when a secret ballot is supposed to be a secret ballot......

2. about allowing everybody to speak and elliminating the rules: If everybody is allowed to speak wouldn't we need some rules about speakerlists and stuff even more?

3. we thought that if we made an example discussion with everybody following the new rules we make next year, things would work much better next year because then it's clear how it works to everybody. which was not the case this year because the explanation was optional.

4. I think we should also take a look at the candible candidate thingie as far as that wasn't allready the idea.

Well this is all for now. let's keep the discusion going. One more thing, I was thinking about posting this entire discussion on the JB-pedia so we can finally get some feedback. Menso


Hey people,

I sent this email a couple of weeks ago and there still hasn't been a single response on it... IJBC is coming up soon and we need to get our asses to work.

menso


Hey Guys,

Just to let you know that we are following this discussion and are very interested in the points which are coming up.

It is nice to have differing points of view sometimes as this is the only way we can truly look at something from all the angles.

This weekend the EJB Team will be meeting for a strategic meeting in Paris and so we will take what has been said so far and make some suggestions for actions in order to make things start moving again.

Please if you have time give comments before the weekend so we know what you are all thinking when we move on to it.

Love

EJB Team


There is another thing I've always forgot to say during those email, and even though is not strictly related to the TOR it can fit in this discussion.

Since I've noticed that during the "decision making" session people tend to behave differently by how they are used to, like if, sitting around in a "United Nation-like" table with their country flags in front of them. It's like the flags created a sort of division between the partecipants, after all a country flag is a strong simbol and even if I

wouldn't blame flags for how the "decision making" session was, I feel like they played a part in creating that weird atmosphere.

Of course my suggestion is not to ban flags! it's nice to have the simbols of the country we represent during the session, but why don't we put all togheter? maybe linked to a wire in the session's room, or (if there's enough space) all toghether as a patchwork on a table in front of the circle we sit around...

We all know the importance of creating the right atmosphere for an activity to stimulate in the partecipants the mood we want them to reach, we shouldn't underestimate that importance during the DM either.

Flags alltogheter=more relaxed and friendly delegations

Love from a rainy italy


Dario


hey there i am sorry i havent really said much lately. i am just completely sucked up with my studies. i have this very important project this summer and i cant miss it. so only a few words from me now. i very much agree on what dario said. i also see ejb as a chance and an opportunity to create a good working atmosphere without too many borders but based on trust. it already happened this ejbm that we didnt do anything as the tor said...and it worked. so i would go for desission making just like discussion papers work, because they work!! and i believe its because they are kind of "unofficial" i also like the flags idea.

besids that i have to say that i wont be at ijbc because i will be working at a film. but i will come to aim so if there will be time then to work on this i will try to also give my input as much as i can.

love, from germany good luck for everyone in the euro2008 ;) ...well ok not for nic haha karo


Hey Guys,

We are currently in Paris and have been talking about the conversation on this so far.

It is really nice to read your opinions and so here are our thoughts on your conversation. We feel that these are the main points that are coming out of what you are talking about.


- We feel that having a speakers list is a good idea but we think that everyone should have the opportunity to give their opinion. It is however important to remember that the NJRs are there as they have a mandate from their own country to represent other peoples opinions. We feel a situation should be created where NJRs give the opinion of their country but observors can put across their own opinions as well.

- We agree that when the discussion is ended that the people on the list should be able to finish speaking. The decison in Sweden was for the Board of Trustees for that year only. At the moment when discussion is ended it should end immediately. We agree with you though.

-We have discussed the idea of opening voting up to other people rather than just the njrs. Here are some ideas we have (not all of us agree on any of them). - We stick to the system of only NJRs voting (1 vote per country) - Each country could get 2 votes in case the NJRs of that country disagree. (even if only 1 njr is there they would still get two votes) - We keep the present system but give the observors two votes between them. (they then decide between them what they want to do - if they disagree then they would vote in different ways). - Each person gets vote - Each country is given a proportion of votes to the amount of people the have there.

As you can see some of these ideas have serious floors but we would like it if you could give your opinion on them.

-We believe that we shouldn't need a senior to count the votes. If it is a secret ballot then the junior wouldn't know who voted what because there are no names on the ballot papers. Our suggestion for this would be that one person who knows the system very well (maybe ejb team member) and an observor should be able to do this.

- Dario we feel the flag situation is important as part of them consideration before it but is more to do with creating a nice atmosphere then our procedure. We will have this in mind when we set up the decision making in Austria.


Suggestions - We think that it would be a good idea to promote what is already on JB Pedia along with your comments so far to everyone else. Perhaps you could post your comments on the page to start the conversation off. We think this is especially a good idea with the things that you are not in agreement about. Can you do this and promote it to everyone else for debate.

Let us know is this has been any help to you and whether we have missed something you wanted us to talk about. We are here til tomorrow evening if you want to add anything.

Love and affection

Nic, Camilla, Laura and Louise. xxxx

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comments

Hey there! well, i need to think deeper in order to give a full comment, just a comment about the idea to open voting to observers.. i think it can't be implemented, and shouldn't be, the moment observers can vote, they also become representatives of their countries, which means stronger JBs that send more JBs to EJBM have more influence on the next EJB team, specially in case we give one vote per person. i think the way to handle it in not when voting, but when deciding who you vote for, NJRs should consult the rest of their delegation who to vote for.. and i think in most countries that what's happening. As well, i don't think a country where both NJRs don't agree upon a candidate should get two votes.. first, as we don't write the name of the country on the vote, we can't be sure a country doesn't write the same name twice.. second, let me show you when it elects the wrong person let say we have 3 candidates "A" "B" and "c", 11 countries want A(means they vote only for A), but all of them would prefer B over C, if they would have to choose. 10 countries vote for both B and C as their NJRs disagree, and one country vote for C only. let's count, we have 11 for A, 11 for C, and 10 for B, which means next round B is out, and C or A wins, doesn't matter.. anyway most countries would for sure prefer B over C. hehe, hope i'm forgiven for my mathematics comments. Ido

Hey People I've finally had the time to sit on a beautiful morning with a cup of coffee and catch up on this very interesting discussion of the TOR. I love the ideas that are coming up and I love the whole energy in this discussion. Okay about the voting, I think each country should have one vote, that is to be agreed upon by the whole delegation before the DM starts. and for issues that come up during the DM delegations can ask for a time out of 5 minutes to discuss how they will go about the issue at hand. It just doesn't make sense to me to give a vote to each person there as some countries will send 1 participant while others will send 5, so its just not fair. NJR is the representative of the country, and ideally is elected by the JBers of the country, so it is their responsibility to vote on behalf of their JBs. I still think however that everyone at the DM should be able to voice their opinion, and not only have the NJRs speaking. I understand what you are saying Menso about not being able to distinguish between the opinion of the country and the opinion of the individual. But then again, to me the NJRs opinion does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the entire JB, right? I mean it is the NJR's responsibility to vote X at the end even if he/she believes that Y is right, but I think as an individual he/she has the right to say that they personally believe in X because of this or that.. get my point? As for the strict rules, for me in EJBM 2008 it was really difficult to follow the DM at the beginning because of all the strict rules and the fancy complicated names, I think there need to be a certain set of rules, especially if we are giving the space for about 80 people to be able to speak, but they don't need to be this complicated at all. Just have a set of rules/guidelines/procedures, whatever u want to call them, (whats in a name?) to help the EJB team facilitate the discussion. I do agree the UN like structure needs to be changed as it gives EJBM the serious and strict atmosphere (Believe it or not alot alot alot more than IJBC I think!) and the whole point behind regional meetings is to give participants the space to get creative in a more easy going and flexible environment that is aimed towards a more specific group. I know that because EJBM is so huge its quite hard to maintain the quality and still give the space for all of this, but I think this is what you guys are here to do with the new TOR, so good luck to ya! So this is what I think, If I think of something else now or at IJBC I'll make sure to let you know, Love, Rou


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Please feel free to comment on anything from this discussion right here! Yes, you. And you.

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