Onboarding Process

Onboarding is a self-directed process intended to help new and returning participants ask for support as they learn about our current practices, and build confidence in to co-creating our collective going forward.

Access orientation support

Ask your onboarding supporter or buddy for a series of ‘orientation sessions’ to:

• Discuss what participating in the Collective involves in practice
• Demonstrate when, how, and why to use each of our communication channels
• Outline each of our current collective agreements, the scope of decision-making delegated to each of the current Crews, and our decision-making process for creating and amending agreements
• Create a copy of the template checklists, and personalise them by adding any additional areas of onboarding support you may need.
• Share your current capacity for doing the work of onboarding, and clarify when/how you can ask for help in ways that are sustainable for your supporter/buddy.

Gather context

Read through the sets of resources linked from the checklists, noting down:

• any new terms, concepts, or talk through areas of knowledge implied in our documentation
• any skills or areas of knowledge you want particularly want to contribute (and/or learn) while participating
• any other areas where technical support, training on specific tools and processes, or additional context would increase your confidence in contributing to shaping the direction of this collective going forward.

Ask onboarding supporters or buddies for support in accessing, reading, and understanding any items in these checklists. Questions can also be directed towards participants on each of the relevant Crews.

Share your context

As you gather context about participating in the Brassica Collective, please share anything from your own experiences that could help your collaborators better appreciate the perspectives you are bringing to this project.

For example, consider sharing from your experiences in the context of: leaderful horizontal organising; navigating generative conflict; building local resilience and mutual aid networks; collectively stewarding common resources; and/or sustainable approaches to activism

Share how confident you feel about participating

Review the following statements, for those that you are not ready to agree with, please discuss with your supporter/buddy how to build confidence in these areas.

• I can use each of the Brassica communication channels appropriately
• I can regularly attend assemblies
• I can reliably contribute to our online discussion forums
• I can act in alignment with existing collective agreements
• I understand the foundational context of the RAD housing project
• I can contribute to the processes for updating and co-creating collective agreements going forward

When ready, please share each statement of confidence with the collective

On-boarding is considered complete when all statements are shared as outlined in our Entry & Exit Pathways Agreement

Reflect on participation capacity

• Review participation responsibilities and expectations and update your participation status, opting in or out of different forms of participation each interval as relevant.

Template Checklists

Templates for each of the following checklists are available on our shared drive. Please copy each list, personalise, and check-off items as you gather and share context.

Communication Channels Checklist

• Accept invitations to our internal communication tools, asking mobile/computer set-up support as needed:
  • Participation dashboard Radicalise for opting in/out of different forms of participation
  • Discussion forum and decision-making software Loomio
  • Chat groups (Matrix)
  • Crew project-management tool Taiga
• Access the Brassica Handbook to review publicly documented agreements and processes

Agreements and Guidelines Checklist

• Review our current decision-making process for creating and amending our agreements.
• Review our current collective agreements, including the scope of delegation to current Crews
• Review our current process ‘how tos’ guidelines
• Review current Loomio discussions, prioritising those with agreement proposals as guided by your supporter/buddy

Foundational Context Checklist

Brassica Collective emerged as a project to design and implementation of version of RAD housing.

As a RAD Housing inspired project, we aim to decommodify and retrofit multiple housing sites by transitioning from collective ownership to stewardship while living collectively and acting in solidarity with movements for justice)

For more of the context on which the Brassica Collective is building, see the RAD Housing website, and discuss with your on-boarding supporter or buddy the ‘what’, ‘why’, and ‘how’ questions around how the Collective is currently incorporating:

• Climate-adaptation processes
• Decommodification principles
• Collective practices for commoning
• Solidarity actions for connecting our collective to broader movements for justice.
• Transformative Justice approaches to navigating conflict well
• The RAD Housing Transition to Stewardship pathway