Comité

Comité 6.12.2021

 6 décembre 2021


vicky, malcolm, noe, martin, alvin, claire
mediation : malcolm
notes : claire (apologies if incomplete, i didn’t formally realise i was taking the job and put notes down for myself mostly). TD means to do


EXTRAORDINARY PIANO MEETING : VICKY NEEDS TO WORK


  1. vicky wants to put a strong focus on piano work to prepare for her entry exam in april : 6 hours/day, from mondays through thursdays, + 2 to 3 weekends per month. 
is the matrix house willing and capable to assure her access to piano for this volume ? 
  1. can vicky still feel like she belongs to a collective project if her personal energy is concentrated on her personal project “that much” ?


remark : vicky’s questions seem personal, but they bear similarities with other permanents’ personal issues and touch on many collective topics with room for improvement. 


OTHER CURRENT TOPICS COVERED : 
  1. 4) 5) etc. as a result of the “vicky conversation”, neighbouring questions will be raised and partially discussed. 



2) 
a feeling round shows that overall we think it’s ok to have someone that’s focused on personal work in the house – providing other important aspects of the life are still guaranteed, such as good room neighbour relations, and other permanent pianists’ or residents’ need for access to the instruments. 
in fact, many people are just as busy, with activity out of the house. 
vicky’s intensive work is also expected to bring positive energy, motivation for all to join her in their own personal focused work (many say they do not have enough of it for themselves). 
finally, 6hours/day is not the entire wake time, and vicky should probably still have some time and disposition left to get involved in the MM – perhaps even more so after her basic fundamental needs are met, and her mind eased of that particular load.


1) 
  • we talk about the possibilities for pianos in the house, we identify <-> relations where there is acoustic interference, whether isolation is needed, etc.  a) LIST OF ROOMS below. 
  • we decide to look for a silent upright piano that would go in vicky’s (ex-chadi) room (several leads : vicky buys or rents one, we mail out to the MM community to find one). a normal upright is possible too (she has her own), but the work will put too much pressure on her immediate neighbour (her current room). Malcolm will call Kummer the piano tuner, Claire her friend, Claire will make a mail to all MM members in search of a piano. 
  • we decide to increase workspace by investigating in the attic (“issaaf”’s room) for possible piano installation, as well as possible installation of other “work boxes” (like the ones found in professional music schools).


  1. LIST OF PIANO POTENTIAL OF ROOMS FROM A PIANO PERSPECTIVE AND COMMENTS  <-> means acoustic interference
  • Foyer <-> Buranderie, <-> Social conversations and Mealtimes. 
Add visual separation ?
  • Buranderie <-> Foyer, <-> Studio, <-> Co-Working painter* or anyone doing something else 
It is clear that a piano will go there. Whether a grand or a straight is not yet decided.
TD : Add acoustic treatment : floor (carpets) and walls (drapes)
* Question to Martinha and paint atelier project : how do you feel about interacting with a working pianist ? How would it be in/compatible do you think ? Observation : a working pianist might offer tiresome stimulation for the ears. 
  • Barbook <-> Buranderie work temporarily excluded when recordings
Piano tuned extra for some recordings : temporary exclusion of other pianists for duration of recording
  • Bureau CMC (ChloéMalcolmClaire) <-> Barbook id. Buranderie work is excluded when Barbook is recording
TD : make the room more agreeable
  • Vicky’s (ex-Chadi) room <-> Noé’s work and other upcoming neighbour’s quiet
TD : find a silent piano solution. 
  • Issaaf’s Attic <-> with CMC apartment quiet. 
TD : evaluate current thermal isolation and study possibility to enhance it, such as curtains and wood pannels
TD : study heating options
TD : study acoustic interaction with CMC apartment and consider adding phonic isolation if need be and possible. 
  • Potential new work boxes in the attic : 
TD : study possibility to make more thermally isolated boxes where possible.  


3) River Salon : Martin brings up remarks about the way the room is used. He feels it is under used one one side, or inadequatly used at times*. For now, everyone agrees that the River Salon can be the collective quiet activity space. Un/planned talks or other more or less noisy activities in the room are not ruled out, but assurance that Martin and Noé feel comfortable with them is necessary.  
We recall that making the river room a salon was a conscious decision to cut off one common room from the Martin-Alvin apartment (which is extraordinary), and that this can be unmade. 



*There has been an incident where Martin felt uncomfortable with Claire using the river salon to do temporary residency work → this incident touches on neighbour question of how carefully the reservations are added to the MM agenda with respect to previous entries (there are as of now 2 official group workspaces, and river salon was used as an extra one in the context where more reservations had been made without particular consideration). But Claire had also come to vocalize several times (ie. not a temporary residency), which had caused irritation because Martin and Alvin were having a hard time focusing, and the common understanding was that the room was not for personal focus. This situation brings the observation that often people feel shy to raise questions and talk about their needs on the one side (so here Martin did bring it up to Claire so they talked so the topic is addressed here which is great),  or fail to ask whether x activity is now ok (good neighbour relation check, here Claire should have spontaneously asked Martin). 



4) Common rooms 1st floor : bathrooms, kitchens and living rooms. Claire reminds of previous considerations dating back to the “flute room incident” and room distribution arbitration. There is an accepted notion that the 1st floor functions as one large-Wg with 3 apartment subdivisions and that the 3 living rooms, bathrooms and kitchen are considered as common spaces. 
In practice and quite naturally, people living immediately next to them put more pressure and presence on and in these common spaces. Claire suggests increasing the understanding and use of these rooms as collective spaces. 
TD : work to make these common rooms agreeable and welcoming as possible, 
TD : develop a culture of shared responsibility to keep these common rooms clean and accessible (clearing up trash & personal objects left behind). 
Post Scriptum remark by Claire : the River Salon is now primarily the quiet work zone, with a good function as a 10h workgroup zone. Maybe all 1st floor Salons can have such a priority affectation, with some degree of flexibility providing precautions are taken (the is this ok now ? question)


5) Malcolm announces that he has drafted a CENTRALIZED MEGA MM TO DO LIST in the wake of his MEGA FEELING LETTER which he will post on the google drive for all to edit. It aims to centralize all tasks, one-time, recurrent, about everything. Malcolm invites us to get hold of it and add detail where we know more than he does. The document is meant for collective management purposes. In some aspects, it is also a wishlist. There is a color code for tasks that need collective decisions first, tasks that need other tasks done first, and recurring tasks that are more or less frequent. Link to googledrive : https://docs.google.com/document/d/13LAS5IR2i9AOlbQC5CRRydz7oeA-9-LJplY3NnJqes8/edit?usp=sharing


6) Citroën status : unclear. Dead or alive ? We will know soon : The mechanic has suspicions of further defects. The piece to be replaced should arrive soon and he will let us know whether it’s even worth it once he gets to work on the car. Discussion about what to do if the Citro is dead is adjourned.   


7) To prepare for the MEGA FEELING_MM VISION ROUND, a suggestion is made to make a group reading session to look at the current association’s Statues and Chart from December 2019. This is meant to provide a shared understanding of the background and this cannot replace the process by which all must position themselves in order to identify and actualize the collective vision. 



8) Martin announces that he wants to pick up on the drapes/curtains project this week



9) Finding an Equilibrium between Residents (Rs) and Permanents (Ps) for access to workspaces. 
Vicky suggests we could schedule priority access for Ps to the workspaces ? for example 7-10h Barbook reservation for Ps. She would gladly use that.
  • + Pros : easier organisation for Ps, less negociation with Rs. Indirect benefit : restricting access a little bit makes residents wait a bit and might give them the time to get in touch with the MM.
  • – Cons : Rs tend to come for short, intensive work. if Ps become too strict and inflexible or simply too active there’s a potential that Rs interest in MM drops. 
Decision : none taken, but a feeling that experimenting with such small organisation constraints for the workspaces is probably cool to some extent.