GA Minutes Thu Jan 12 2012

GA 1/12/12

Copied from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EEena9_m6moDq96xD-982uZYOwWJh9p65c1kYaS3Iqw/edit?hl=en_US

Note taker: Tricia

Note: I’m new at this, sorry if I miss things. Also sorry if I got what you said wrong.

Announcements
[missed some getting this set up]

ideas (noah) - we have sorta been in close relationship w/ outreach. We aere going to be increasingly involved in actions. The project we’re working on is a collection of concerns they have about our society & their ideas of how to fix them. we are wanting new people to give ideas too. We’re planning a big meeting to get ideas out there. Wed @ 6 are meetings.

citizens united - Jan 20 & 21 is a weekend of action against citizens united decision. We’ve finalized schedule. Will send out detials later tonight. Afternoon of 20, rally outside courthouse? Sat 21 more speakers are coming. From 10-4. Proposal to ask for $900 to pay for this.

Also, there’s a huge movement with Move to Ammend that’s not just Occcupy but many people involved.

People of color - had a big event planned for St. Pauls Cathedral, but turns out they’re closed for MLK day. Need a space

POI: Greg, we have a space. May Community Churc or may be Arlington St church

If you know anyone who wants to perform or anything, let me know. Will be from 6-8:30

Safer Spaces (Elizabeth) - She has been working with folks on Safer Spaces in OWS. It’s a group working to make OWS a safer space for [bunch of minority categories]. Make it as safe as possible instead of Rely on criminal justice & police. I think we need this here. Email: sherlock@

Community agreement they just brought up and I hpoe to bring it here. bit.ly/obagreement for more information. OWS have been working on this a long time and I want help to bring it here.

Co-op Housing (Cherie & Austin) - New working group Co-Op Housing within OB. The focus would be looking at housing solutions that would hopefully take elements from existing co-ops in boston and look at how they did it for extremely low or no rent. Maybe use community members within it. Sat Noon at E5 to discuss it. Want to research this possiblity. Also would like to have guest quarters for visiting occupiers.

Occupimos El Barrio - 6pm Fri, at E5. Proposal meeting. Talking about deportation.

Faith and Spirituality - Speaking for Occupy the Primaries. We should be so proud of all of them. Protesting gingrich. Huntsman. Santorum. Did a Die In at ??? Was really a good thing. Some people went up to stay others went back and forth. A church provided a place for us to stay. The money we brought provided us pizza to eat. Want support money for this weekend occupy the congress to support the folks going down there.

$200 of the $600 we had went to pizza. Another $100 went to food. $20 donated to the church that put us up. $80 at a resturaunt. Each time we spent the money, we decided with all of the occupiers there. The printshop got $75 in donations for what we did.

Community wellness (bill) - trying to document what we’vebeen doing in OB. Making a book. He wants if you have things that he hasn’t included to give them to him.

Last WG announcement.

Individual announcements
Elizabeth? Occu-puppy is peeing

Rita - need to suppport solidarity with Occupy Nigeria. Marches or whatever it takes and we’ve got to do it now. I’m also gonna submit a prop to support sothern Yemen

Elizabeth - come back to me?

Angela - Hi! 2 announcements. 1) how many are aware of 3 strikes and what’s happening? She urges us to become deeply aware of it and what it means to us. On the surface it appears criminal legislation, but in fact it has strong ties to economic realities of our country. it’s being pushed and promoted by the prison industirial. Was supposed to be a hearing today at state house, Occupy the HOod had a great teach in on Saturday. The legislators said that they decided to reschedul that meeting to get more organized. We think they actually got told how repulsive this is to a lot of people and they knew a lot of pple would show up. Canceled. Different views if people should still show up. I will make sure how to use the lists that we have to start getting resource lists to this legislation. Informed and ready to act if it gets back up. Wants to link to outreach and direct action.

POI bill: 20 went to state house, met w/ 3 senators an of black & latino cacus. I was one of the people of the group.

POI (ridgely) - Can’t hear her. Something at 2pm.

Angela: SO IMPORTANT

POI Elizabeth - an occupy is facing life threating issues relating to 3 strikes.

Angela - what it means for us to take it up as our own issue with leadership of POC in the greater boston community who have been organizing already.


 * 1) 2 - Solidarity with POC, she found out a great site on FB, occupy the Dream. It’s a congolomeration of organizations of POC across the US calling for a national action. Please go to Facebook - Occupy the Dream and you’ll be really enheartened.

John Ford - using national/international occupy to (missed) equity and capital from doing this to form a people’s uniion out of occupy. Talked to 50 to 200 people about this so far and has been able to defend it every time so far. Asking people to try to come with him with concerns. International cooporation w/ every occupier as a board member.

Elizabeth - Trying to come up with protocol for like EVERYTHING. Wonderful cause everyone knows what you should be doing. You know when to act or not to act. It’s beautful and simple. bit.ly/obagreement. Other proposal: we talk a lot about banning, we don’t talk about re-entry. I think we should all be here. bit.ly/obreentry workshopped at e5 sunday 12-2. Lots

Saturday @ 3:30. Info @Obgorillainfo to twitter with information. (kinda missed what he was saying)

Announcements done.

Proposals: There are MANY. Some new, and many roll-over on stack that have built up over last week to week and a half.

POI: Not supposed to have food and drink here.

Props 4 roll over..


 * 1) replace GA meeting per week to make a DA
 * 2) freeze WG stipends

New ones - brief summary

$600 for occupy congress

John - Occupy Boston reserves rights to refuse services or admittance to any OB event on an individual basis as decided by GA.

Carlos - group change to old people and bring back the dead [not sure if I’m understanding him]. Compare information $250 for government research? [Sorry couldn’t understand him]

Martin - My prop was originally meant to be an Occupy Boston to issue a formal apology to Sarah. So that Occupy Boston issues a formal apology to ANYONE who was hurt by the issues surrounding 2 weeks debate over the sex offender proposal.

Rita - ?? Can’t hear her. Solidarity with Southern Yemen. A march.

Voting to determine order we’ll cover these new proposals.

Clarification from Facilitation: Proposal from Carlos is about supporting Ron Paul

Order:

Rita’s - Yemen


 * $600 for occupy congress
 * John ford - safety to refuse admitance if needed
 * Martin - apology
 * Carlos’s - Ron Paul’s

Going over process for proposals.

FAWG is up first...

Announcement: Occu-puppy supports the proposal

POI: people can’t hear in the whole room, please use a mic

Noah: I’m generally loud, but um...sure...

Anyone who has a paper in your hand, that’s the newest version. If you read it, you’ll see the changes we’ve made.

Reading it: Dropped the political part of our name, but sure, call us FAWG

Modify one GA per week to creat a strategic actions assembly. We propose that OB modifys format of one GA per week to make a stratigic action assembly (SAA). Brainstorm, facilitate, and plan actions. Will not make decisions for OB movement. Since it might change our GA process, only a 2 week trial at first. Develop powerful and thoughtful actions and campaigns that will help maintain public conscious in post Dewey era. Enhance cooperation between WG and to aid in formation of afinity groups. Affect Sunday GA. Will be in same place that the GA would’ve normally occur.

Some Justification for the Proposal: We take very seriously the importance of the GA. We don’t propose this as a disrespect to GA. Quite the opposite. But we feel that there’s not a space to propose outward facing actions post Dewy Sq. Since 2 us proposers are in Ideas working group. We get ideas for actions a lot (which actually isn’t what we’re doing) so we need a place to funnel this. We do this as an understanding that we don’t want to impact GAs either. It was suggested that Sunday because Sunday is usually the least attended GA. It’ll have a different, but extremely necessary purpose.

POI & Clarification

Martin - How many proposals have we passed in history of OB that say “OB should do this action or that action...” a member of FWG said...?

Yes, Mat has a document of all of the proposals. Jorge 30% were mostly outward facing. Document can be spread to everyone. That’s part of why we think it’s so important, most action based things are currently regarded as autonomous actions and CAN be done without GA approval. That’s why we feel this format is important as a community to talk about actions we might not normally talk about.

Jorge - after the 2 week period, will you come back and re-propose or what?

I forsee...uhh...yes. We will talk to facilitation to figure out best way to do so. Maybe a temp check if we should continue? Or maybe brief reportback with feedback?

Katie - will you propose things at this assembly with formal proposal process?

Brainstorming actions and fleshing out actions, etc. No formal proposal process.

Patti: if it passes tonight will this be the next Sunday if passes today?

We are open to the following one since there is a big backlog of proposals right now.

Patti - will there be time for announcements?

We are envisioning starting the meeting with a report back of of past events and how they went.

We have thoughts on format, but don’t want it to be part of proposal so that we can get opinions from people AND so that it’s flexible for what we find works best.

Q: Is this going to be an actual action or a strategizing meeting?

2nd one

Angela - please sharem ore of your thinking on procedural thinking regarding content or types of issues actions might address. How different issues will be talked about? How will it be managed? Etc.

Our thinking, and this is subject to change if needed,

1) reportbacks.

2) proposed actions, both NEW ideas at begining stage and also ones that are mostly planned where they’re looking for more involvement of the community. Recruitment. Etc. Multiple stages. Individuals, affinty groups, or WG are all welcome to make suggestions.

Managed: minimally facilitated meeting. That will be hammered out with the newly formed WG for this idea. Anyone can join this to take part in managing it.

Facilitation would happen mainly at small parts, but others are more fluid where people can move among discussion groups with less facilitation. Fairly minimal.

Alex - want to get the feeling for if you think actions will be fully fleshed out here or will discussions spin off to finish. Concern regarding actions that we might want to be slightly less transparent.

Either, whatever you want. People are welcome to consider security culture in deciding how much they hope to speak about it with that in mind. We’re just creating the space to talk.

Q: this trial period is 2 weeks, only 2 total meetings.

Yes. Then we’ll temp check to see what people feel from there.

Q: Community gathering, and there was an attempt there to incorporate some ideas from this proposal. Could some one who was there like to fill us in more. I feel awkward hearing a hypothetical discussion about something that has already happened.

[can’t hear]

Sarah - format will allow for roadmapping to be presented in large group. [can’t really hear] something about other groups doing the same things

We’re not quite sure what you’re saying. There may be some overlap with the road mapping group. You can bring any actions that road mapping may consider to this to be discussed and ask people to help you.

Alex - clarifying that the 2 week trial IS in the proposal right now?

Yes. If it’s not consented to after 2 weeks, then we’d have to re-propose.

Q: Individuals/wg/whatever will have same chance to propose their action? Then temperature check? or...

We’re getting bogged down in process. We’re just going to break into small groups to discuss. It won’t be a big issue. We can probably accomodate up to 30 action proposals at each meeting. We might have to have some time in …

Q: soemthign about afinity groups

Many actions may be similar and might want to combine with eachother.

POI: can we focus on how it’s written

Jorge: since Monday’s meeting operated off this, how did that go?

Went well. This started actually back in Dec with that sunday community action. Was a simple process.

Statements of Concern:

None! :) Laughs

Bill - same I suggested earlier. Too early to grab a GA and take over. Maybe take an hour of a GA. He thought Monday went OK, but doesn’t feel it’s ready for “prime time”

Statements of Support:

We’re in dire need of solidarity and this is a great way.

Person: Strongly support. At monday workshop, witnessed first parts of excellent possibilities. When people do autonomous actions right now, it may not consider all perspectives of ALL parts of the 99% this would allow us to better do so and form better actions.

Person: out of the words & into the actions [chanted several times]

Person: Support because ...can’t hear

Martin: proposal strong support. At Occupy boston...something like that...

Alex: there were too many ideas on Monday. That’s GREAT problem to have. This will give us a great way to do this. IT’s amazing and we should pass it.

Person: I support this strongly because it’s like the last weeks it seems like we’ve become occupy the meeting and I’d like to be occupy the meeting.

Person: second everything Alex said.

Ammendments:

Alex - Move up the temp check threshold - normally it’s 75%, but this would be serious to keep it. 90% to continue it past 2 weeks.

Person - Make it 3 weeks, not 2 weeks.

No other ammendments. Group discusses. Individual stack right now.

Anna - I wanted to say that there’s been a conversation between different people who have walked out of the room Sunday afternoon and between the people who stayed in the room. Talking about a possible proposal to nulify the block based on the information we recieved after the block. It’s going to take some time. It’s a conversation that has been happening. If you want to take part, let us know. Paul Shannon didn’t disclose that he was reflecting Reform Our Sex Offender Laws. It was a breach of our trust for him to not tell us this, and a breech of our autonomy statement. Unhappiness that people didn’t know who they were joining when they voted for the block. Also a discusson of what it would mean for the process. Would it mean we continue with blocks? would we continue with the proposal? THat’s our discussion right now. If you want to get involved, let me know. I can give you contact of who’s having this discussion.

Patti - 2 things. First, some people are talking about coming up with guidelines for speech and behavior durring OB & assemblies. Several to make it clear that as a community, this is what we expect for behavior, action, etc. Just so that everyone knows that this is in the works and that people are talking about it. Elizabeth has one. Possibly changing Good Neighbor policy as another one. Second thing, new informal WG. Reoccupy Dewey when you’re drunk and have sparkles. (many laugh) Did it on NYE. Temp check to do it on Sunday since Monday is a holiday.

back to proposal:

Did change to 3 weeks, starting this Sunday. Will have an 80% temp check after 3 weeks to continue.

POI/Clarifying questions:

Person: This coming sunday or following?

THIS

Jorge - alex proposed 90% why didn’t we??

There were some squid fingers. We wanted to compromise. Wanted to make slightly stronger. Occupy Philly uses 80%

Concerns:

We’re not occupy philly.

Angela: politics of autonomus actions. Possible competitiveness if we don’t have an explicit process. I know we’ll figure it out, but still wonder about it.

Jorge: Concerned that this proposal, i support this, but i’m concerned in 3 weeks that it’ll be JUST a temp check. I don’t think it’s good enough. I’d rather we repropose as a change to process from here on out. Will make ammendment.

Rita - again, out of the words into the actions [chanting again]

Support:

Person: Best proposal we’ve had since proposal to take Dewey Sq

Angela: I LOVE this proposal and can’t wait till Sunday. My support is slightly different, I think it’ll let us become a bit of a luxury to think through what they are. Developing what we’ll do wit them.

Jorge: I support this saw it modeled monday night. I don’t think so many good ideas bundled up in such a short period of time. Fantastic idea.

Elizabeth: can’t hear - really excited for this.

Person: reason DA was most directly scrutinized by FBI (I think that’s what was said, not sure)

Martin: Empower people in boston. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, etc...add the pressure to them.

Ammendments:

Jorge: change for 4 weeks. Also, go through full reproposal process since it’s a fairly radical change.

Rita: support it extended for a month.

Martin: ???

Person: if extended to 4 weeks, make sure that 75% today, not 80%....

They’re discussing ammendments. Onto individual stack.

Nevermind...

we’ve decided, and we hope you’re not upset. Not to accept those proposals. We are proposing this as a permanent change NOW with an opt-out later. We’re deciding this based on the twinkle/squid fingers we saw while we were listening to ammendments.

Explaining block process.

Calling for blocks...none.

Conscensus? Yes, looks like conscensus!


 * applause*

POP: Angela asking for quorum check.

Fac: there were 70 people. But we can make a check.

POI: At 8:40 there were 83 people.

Fac: counted 55. If you believe we have quorum, raise your hand.

If you believe we have enough people to speak for the movement, rais your hand.

Decided we do have quorum.

Financial Working group proposal:

(talk about do people have copies? Passing papers out, etc)

the reason we’re addressing a temporary freeeze on WG stipend. We’ve got a diminishing revenue problem post Dewey Sq.

Cause cash donations post eviction and costs have risen.

We propose WG stipends be temporarily frozen.

After 2012 budget discussion we will bring a new

3/6 GA will bring new proposal.

Fixed cost (for meeting spaces at churches): 2,062$

Communication (email, phones, etc): $440

Community gathering @ st pauls: $600 (something)

[missed one]

$3,000+ total

Incoming: about $3000 -- almost even

Jan expenses

Mutual aid

Storage

Total: 2,000

Income: 4,000 for Jan

Including WG stipends, will have -$1,200 balance

70 WG @ $100/week.

Asking for temp freeze.

Will be presenting our financials and developing a budget. Will happen Jan 26 with participatory budget.

Questions:

Person: Status regarding replacing Community Church of Boston window $2500?

Not sure. We’ll obviously pay it.

Person: Balance on the whole checking account? Total assets.

YOu can look on wiki. I didn’t look it up. Greg should know. (I think I heard $32,000)

Q: Looking at the numbers, I’m not clear what you did to get those numbers. He can’t get $3250.

I didn’t put together the paper.

[sorry guys, with numbers being thrown around, it’s tricky]

Angela: several questions...hope you know that i will be asking challenging questions, but it’s NOT a challenge to your group’s credibility. Can you say on average what you allocate out to WG?

There’s tracking for that. I don’t do the books. Greg has been & others. Here, it was figured for Jan, $4,000. I think the figure...the estimated for this month would be...$5,329, but that was with other costs. I don’t think he spread it out.

POI: only about 7-10 WG have been taking the full amount.

Angela: that the spcific information isnt on here is troubling. Am I correct htat mutual aid has a cap of $5,000.

Yes.

Angela: So next month, we won’t necessarily show the full expenditure of $4400. What is the $1,000 for logistics storage?

I wish Greg was here to help, but he had to leave. All I can tell you, is it’s all of the information is verifiable.

Angela: I cannot vote on this without that information

It’s on the wiki (some voices of frustration at that answer)

[side conversation]

We can table this so that Greg can propose it with the better details. It’s just a priority to do this, and it keeps getting put off. We need to save money to be prepared for a headquarters and plan for future.

We will not vote on this tonight, but will workshop for a bit. We will continue to discuss & Rita will write down and convey to Greg.

Martin: total cost $3000, net total is $71? There’s a proposal coming up asking for $600 and other proposals asking for more money.

This is just WG stipends.

Martin: my question though is do we have that money?

Katie - this is just until …..2 weeks, right?

It’s till the 26th at that budgetary discussion. Actually, it’s till 3/6 where we cover all of 2011. (missed all of it)

Q: What are the astricks in the proposal, but don’t see corresponding notes with them.

One relates to the last 3 weeks I’m seeing...but I can’t really answer that. I don’t know what his intention was.

Q: All transactions - can we see the account information & details.

They’re all online.

Q: I mean can we get a print out from the bank.

POP: this is taking long and we’re not voting on it. Can we move on. We have so many other proposals tonight.

Lots of back and forth I missed.

Rita is stepping down and tabling it. If you have questions go find her.

Moving on...

Prop: Citizens United

Be it resolved that OB protests protests at the court by move to ammend. Goal is to rally ppublic around getting $$ out of politics. In addition, OB will allocate $970 for the summit. $400 for facility at St Pauls. $570 for facility for Saturday’s event at Suffolk University.

POI/Clarifying Quesetions:

Q: what’s the point again?

Rally people around the concern of $$ in politics. In a second anniversary of Citizens United decision. Theere’s also other groups involved too.

Q: Who are the speakers?

(not hearing names well, might be wrong)

Corey Atkins

Lawernece Lessig (professor, i think she said Harvard)

Jamie Eldrige (state Senator)

Q: why are we paying for it if others are involved?

Because we want to have control. If others are contributing, they might expect THEIR issues to be discussed.

Noah: I know it’s a reform movement, and I’m fully in suport of it but have we...(missed)

Listing off groups involved: can’t really hear Move to Ammend …

We have people coming to talk about fully taking money out of politics.

Move to Ammend wants to end corporate personhood and take $$ out of politics.

Q: Have you researched ways tobe cheaper.

Yes, these are what’s available and will fit the ## of peple we’re expecting. Looked at many places, but this seemed like best.

Q: Reaching out to student groups at Suffolk to help pay? We’ve done that before.

Have not, but have connection w/ Suffolk professor who’s trying to help.

Anticipating 300-400 coming to the event. Will be putting out a donation box at the event as well. Feel like we might be able to get as much as $10/person from about half that.

Martin: Occupy Harvard has approached OB before w/ statement of.....(can’t hear) have you contacted them to see if they can help.

not yet, but this is coming up in 2 weeks. We need to get this settled.

Q: is this coming from a specific WG?

Yes. We’re the Citizen’s United WG

Q: Will we pay for all of it, or will other groups help?

As we said earlier, we want the control.

Q: Will we extend an invitation to them to donate?

We can now I guess that the agenda’s set. Q: Will any $$ we don’t spend go back to general fund?

Absolutel!

Q: Any $$ you might make from donation jar come back to general fund?

Absolutely!!

Q: So in a way this is a fundraiser?

Wsn’t intended to be that way, but some one suggested donation jar, so we decided to do that.

Q: Have you thought a way to get other WG involved in ways that could help earn money? Like knitting group or something.

Friday night is more social. Will be a community gathering. Maybe we can play music or arts and crafts and stuff. Saturday will be a bit of a training/informational thing. Then breakout with next steps.

POI: Decisions process. Activists that have been doing this for decades.

Concerns:

Alex - don’t object necessarily, but concerned about bringing outside groups into a space under our name, funded by us. People might associate their message as our message. Need a way to address that.

Elizabeth - if we can’t make money out of this, we’re spending about $25 per person to show up. That’s a lot.

Person: Something about outreach, shows you didn’t outreach enough. Assume there’s enough churches around here that’d be willing to do it cheaper. Or at least a group that could do it cheaper because they support us. Throwing $$ at a university that doesn’t support us.

Person: seek other funding.

Elizabeth - similar concerns. I’ve figured out events before. Long events and done it for free. There’s ways to do that.

Person: can’t really hear him...

Statemetns of Support:

Bill: support this. Concerns of funding are reasonable, but we’re here to spend that money to make statements. We need to just do it. I’ll be there.

Noah: I love this proposal!! We’re sitting here controlling our purse strings and it’s starting to feel miserly. Poeple gave us $$ to address these issues about how society is so screwed up. This is one of the big ones. This can create new interest in us and get us support. If you have connections, then YOU didn’t do the effort (Elizabeth: They didn’t talk to me!!) They said they’ll bring back any extra money. They said they’ll bring fundraising back. Don’t want it to NOT pass because of money.

Rita: we need to keep moving ahead and this is a good way. We have a fundraising metting on friday. We know how to mobalize. We’re looking at money as a dirty thing so far, but we’re chaging that. The fundraising group is big with lots of ideas. We need to move ahead with things.

Person: talking about actions without doing much. Is it radical enough? The way you make it that way is by meeting up wtih those hwo aren’t as radical adn talking with them rather than passing them on the street and not talking .We’re not here to keep our balance with $$ we’re here to use it. Opens up discussions in what’s wrong. Coilition building. Even if it costs $970...I’ll make it $960 and throw in my own $10.

Alex - good way to get lots of liberals into being radicalists. Get them to undrestand that it goes beyond just the politics. Do this and then get MANY of us there to talk to them.

Angela: I ask all to support this. I repeat Noah’s stuff. I am really tired of people saying what we are about spending our money. What Noah said about spending our money is right on. I know friends who gave money asking what the hell are we doing with it.

Martin: I support this. Normally I am the guy who says we’re spending our money in fiscally responsible ways. I feel this is not the case, but we have the possibility of making money too.

Patti: I think it’s a good idea. When we were talking $$ to Occupy NH. People werent concerned. But this is more, but it has potential to get money. Have to spend money to make money.

Person: major action. where’s our voice. people want to hear us.

Elizabeth: this is a chance for us to co-opt others.

Tricia (me): this can brign in some of the people telling us to focus on political sides of it

Ammendments:

Katie: (missed most of it) wording one

Stand in solidarity

Person: will be at event, I can talk about statement of autonomy. That these people are there, but we’re not endorsing their organizations or whatever.

Martin: Ask that you approach Occupy Harvard or Harvard Univ to ask for (money?). Or Simmons.

Person: Question, have you already booked this room at Suffolk.

We’ve asked them to reserve it, so kinda.

Person: something about don’t go to universityies that don’t need money but go to places that at least need our money.

Brian: ammend seek out funding in a broad email. Something about free PR.

Martin: talk to memebers of media team, i’m not one, to fully publicize this before hand might get you some additional things.

Person: create fliers in your outreach.

No more ammendments. Take time to discuss. Individual stack.

Martin: mostly i just wanted to try to clarify something and make an apology. I think full disclosure, which is important, I joind all blocks on Sunday. I wanted the original proposal to pass. In the GA, the GA just passed this and would like this to announce this as quickly as possible. I saw a tweet go off that the 2nd proposal was written by a man. I corected, it was by a Woman, not man. Apology part: morning after and thining about it more, had i had a choice then, I would have taken back my actions and re-do I would have waited until, i’ve never written a blog on the OB page yet, I would have waited and written it and said that this was proposed and blocked and this other one was proposed and passed. Acknowledge both proposals. I wanted to apologize for not thinking of that. I decided to now focus on other parts of OB and I am no longer a member of Media WG.

Skylar - Hi, from Occupy Tampa. It’s cold here! (laughs) Working on Boots of Solidarity. Just spoke with OWS. Traveling around speaking to all US Occupies. Talk to all, network. Take part in actions and GAs. Just want to say thank you to those we’ve spoken to so far. Been very hospitable. Here till 16th then off to DC.

Carolyn - Can people hear me? I’ll try to use the mic. Hmm...mic isn’t working. Will try to be louder. I want to talk about this issue if there was a violation of our statemetn of autonomy when we were discussing the sexual assault awareness proposal. The discussion about Paul Shannon (guy who blocked). statement of autonomy if you are representing or being compensated by an organizeation, please disclose. Many of us owrk in other organizations. People rarely if ever disclose those afilitions at GA. Many don’t disclose them at GA. It might be because our resolution on Autonomy is buried on the website (hard to find). Many join our movement, and many more we hope will do for. As a transparent organization, if we want to hold accountable, we need to announce this at the start of a GA and then restate at start of each GA all afinities. Concerned that if everyone isn’t disclosing, and the statement of autonomy isn’t obvious on teh website, how can we hold him to a higher standard? I hope we’re not going to selectively apply rules in this case. I need to beleive we’re commited to fairness. I don’t know him personally. I know he’s well respected activist and been working as activist for MANY eyars, the type of person that we’d want to have working for us. I would point to many things, like having his phone and contact information distributed online. Another person saying he’s a documented support of NAMBLA, but that document doesn’t actually say that. NAMBLA = north american man/boy love association. That association is mis-information. On his website, it states that he is not, they do not support NAMBLA. They do not condone it...blah, blah, blah. He had identified himself as having years in the filed, but I don’t feel like an expert. He had asked some if he should disclose his associate by email, but got no response.

POI: I have that email chain. He was informed he should disclose and chose not to.

Response disagreeing.

Facilitation: This is their chance to speak. This is their opinion. Can’t bring POIs to this.

Some shouts back and forth.

Facilitation: IF you want to bring corrections, please do, but get on stack.

POI: Some said he’s been working in this field for >40 years, not 30 years. Just a fact.

Rita: I wanted to make some points and didn’t get a chance. On his letter, he was reforming, people like Howard Zinn have signed this. It’s not just some crazy people. What i see is a culture of censorship and exclusion instead of freedom of speech. If we want to enter exclusivity and that’s misdirected.

Proposal again: address some concerns. As far as spending money. We meet since oct and meet every week. We RARELY use our stipend. If this is successful, if we do more of these, we will look into VFW space. We hope you’ll help us in the futurue.

Be it acknoweldge we stand in solidarity with Move to Ammend.....(missed) ….goal to organize public around getting money out of politics. OB will allocate $970 to the events. $400 to (first place) and no more than $570 to (second place). We are working closely with Media and television folks within OB for publicizing and approaching others for help with posters, fliers, etc.

POI from Union Iron Worker: lots of support for this. Lots of people showing up. Those connections that can be made will be great support for movement.

No concern.

Support:

Martin: (couldn’t hear)

Ammendments:

silent. Proposers don’t need time, now moving to conscensus. Do we need to re-read block?

No.

Asking for blocks.

None.

Moving to consensus vote.

Passes.

[transcriber has switched, it’s now Katie]

Signs and Radio being asked to come up for proposal, doesn’t seem like they are here.

On to individual stack.

Anna: I’ve been helping people transition to the May First interface for their groups and for individual email addresses. If you need email address for group, need occupyboston.org private email, if need to link into gmail, if want to link into group site, if you need anything like this, I can help you! I’m days behind, but let me know and I’ll get to you in a bit. I also apologize for something I said about individual stack before. (Not sure exactly what statement she’s referencing. Oh, was talking about mentioning that people were talking about bringing back a prop to nullify Paul Shannon’s block ) ‘don’t hate me, I was just making annoucement - didn’t mean to come off the way I did.

Quorum check.

About 50 people are still here. Do we have quorum? Counting now. We don’t have 75 percent of the people that agree, so we don’t have quorum. People asked to count again, some doubts about the count. Counting again. Still don’t have quorum. So, no quorum! Many people just left.

Individual stack now.

Angela: I just have to get my notes, then I’ll be there quickly! Please hold on one moment, I’d appreciate that, but you don’t have to! Okay, so first of all, I want to say that many people who I wish could hear this statement are long gone, but I’ll keep making this statement so people can here it. I’m talking about session on Tuesday; I was deeply honored to be a part of that process on Tuesday night. I feel that for all of its warts, it was very positive and forward moving. I’m glad we returned to process tonight, but still have some concerns. This is why: I’ve been doing this kind of work for 40 years, I’ve been a facilitator, a trainer, a consultant around issues of social justice and process of change. I was blessed to work for an org. that was run by and founded by black women. I worked for them for 16 years. I learned so much from them. One of the things I learned was that. . . we built [something] on a triangle. Most of the time, social justice work has been somewhat effective in terms of having an affect on what people’s behaviors are and what they do, what we think, how we learn, how we unlearn. What orgs and groups haven’t been successful in doing is dealing with 3rd component of that triangle: feelings. And if there’s anything more obvious to me than dealing with social justice and oppression, it’s that we have to deal with our feelings. I liked Tuesday night because we said feelings are just as important as actions. My voice really travels well in this church! My concern is, that when people say things about touchy feely things or during therapy sessions, but in terms that are meant to dismean or discount the importance of dealing with feelings, I’d counter by saying that I have really watched organizations turn themselves around to action when they’ve first stopped and addressed interpersonal barriers that prevented them from being unified or getting consensus. The reason I’m staying so deeply committed to OB is that I think we have a chance this time to get it right. With the intergenerational aspect of this thing, we have young people, middle aged people who have new experiences - inc. with technology- combined with people who are older who have other experience. And let me tell you, not dealing with feelings that are brought up because of oppression,. . . (couldn’t hear). And I don’t think GA was right place for that necessarily, but please be careful when you use terms that demean or diminish what we did on Tuesday night. I’m really committed, I’m choosing .. I’m really choosing to keep open and to keep learning and growing and I really want to ask all of us to realize the importance of what we’re doing and thinking, but also what we’re feeling and to take responsibility in that respect.

Stephanie: I’m one of people interested in going to DC and want to see how many OB people want to go. So lets meet before Saturdays (?) GA to come up with a proposal that can get us money to get us down there. I want to know who’s coming, who wants to come, who needs help, who can afford. Come to me now, let me know.

Question: What’s the action that’s going on down there?

Stephanie: Well, we’re planning a Direct Action that we can’t really reveal what we’re doing for security culture reasons. But about 2,000 people will go to DC (occupiers) from Jan. 17 to Jan. 20. I just came back from Occupy the Primaries and it was awesome. If anyone’s interested, I totally want you to come so we can support you. Let’s meet 1 hour before next GA at place where next GA is.

POI: It’s called Occupy Congress

Question: What day?

Stephanie: It’s the 17th, if you went by yourself it’d be about $30 each way.

Elizabeth: OWS is coming, yes they are! We need help, I need help, hosting them. I could really use some help! Not that I couldn’t do it, but I have a lot on my plate. Plus, this is a great opportunity to work with people who have changed my as a person quite permanently and I can express to you how important this trip is to me knowing who’s coming to visit us.

Question: When are they coming, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth: They’re coming form the 27th

NOTE: Internet might disappear on me soon

Rita: …. has to do with what happened with Paul Shannon. The targeting that happened to him and smear campaign was unacceptable. We need to check ourselves on that, never do that again, and really fix that culture. I mediated with him, or tried to hold a mediation. When I met with him I did a lot of fact checking and went on Twitter and did a lot of fact checking, and there were accusations and misinformation campaigns that aren’t acceptable because we have to work with truth. And truth was compromised, thrown out the door. Paul Shannon never worked with us? He gave us $3,000 and was in GAs, even in Common. He felt so devastated, asked if he should never come back. I said no, come back, that’s not where we are as a movement. He wants to help with bank actions, but scared to come back to GA. If we’re going to start targeting people because of their speech, and when it’s actually done with information and background to educate us, how are we any better than the people who vilify us at Fox news? I talked with Paul this evening and asked what he could do this Saturday. He’s bringing an Iraqi friend to E5 (missed stuff). . he wants to come back, help with bank actions. If we’re going to target people because their opinions might be uncomfortable, there are two sides to every issue, … (didn’t catch it) … I mean Howard Zinn supports a reform of the sex offender laws. Where are we at if we’re using a kind of separate but equal doctrine, if we’re buying into what the police say about the levels of sex offenders? Why would we just accept that stuff and just do a type of exclusion policy that no other organization does? Do you understand what I’m saying? It’s censoring and not allowing free speech, and not letting in all of the 99%. Is that where we are as an organization? So how do we feel about welcoming Paul Carnes back? [laughter]. I MEANT THE OTHER PAUL. There are two many Pauls. So can we welcome him back and tell him we can come back? I almost feel like we need to make our own judiciary because there are a lot of cases we’re having that we need to resolve where the GA isn’t needed for that. Can I ask Paul to come back? He doesn’t want to come back and break the movement.

John Ford: If we can get behind an internationa; campaign to donate $1 to specific date, then go to NYCGA to spend lump sum, it could be an interesting way to show how to get a lot done with $1, it could be interesting way to show people stuff can get done with $1. I don’t know how to do anything myself, don’t want to be a tyrant. Help me!

Seems like we’re done.

Notice: Internet’s going away soon.

Group hug!

Still group hugging.

GA’s over (well, it was before kind of with no quorum, but people all leaving now!)