02/26/12

M17 action spokes council feb 26th

Present: facilitation, medical, health justice, DA, chess, logistics, decolonize, radio, interoccupy, research, inreach, media. Jay facilitating.

J. Murphy (DA) giving brief explanation of how spokes works & giving overview of last week. Last week it was proposed to do a radical tour of the freedom trail. Also the idea of having an alternate GA- somewhere else/different format. These ideas were sent back to spokes’ WGs.

Agenda points


 * Intros
 * Report-back
 * Set other agenda points based on report-backs

Report-backs


 * Decolonize: tomorrow we are having presentation by chief member of wampanog tribe @ First Church Cambridge
 * Logistics: group likes idea of radical history tour. Have talked about donating logistics’ supplies to the community, maybe we can incorporate this into the action
 * Chess: meeting tomorrow 4pm 27 yarmouth st
 * DA: approves the radical walking tour
 * Health Justice: putting together position paper on health impacts of MBTA cuts.

(point of process- this is report-back and intros, not announcements)


 * Medical: not at last council meeting. We do first aid, basic care, and public health outreach
 * Facilitation: if we do radical history tours, we need to differentiate ourselves from other radical/alternative tours. Facilitators are in favor of having an assembly, a good way to model our horizontal democracy process. Also the idea of period costumes was brought up, not sure if that would be offensive to some
 * Media: we document and publicize OB. We like the idea of a radical history tour & alternative GA
 * Inreach: we’ve absorbed Info. We were unable to discuss this at our last meeting
 * Research: researching and writing about Occupy movement, qualitative and quantitative. This is our first spokes.
 * Interoccupy: we haven’t met in 3 weeks, have no report-back
 * Radio: trying to build a radio station for OB. Publicize OB & facilitate communication within the movement.

Agenda points based on report backs


 * Synopsis of what spokes has done, recap/intro
 * Details of planned action: who will lead, where will it go Discuss modified GA for that day
 * Consensus as to whether to go forward with this action
 * Timeline/deadlines of planning process
 * WG we want here- inreach, and outreach to general community
 * Logistics idea of giving stuff away

Temp check for order. Results as ordered above

Intro to spokes

Each person around the table is speaking for a WG, caucus or affinity group. We are approaching the central topic (M17) from the position of our WG. Bringing your WG’s specialty to the table. So far we’ve talked about what M17 action will look like. Decided since it’s also Evacuation Day, something around that- do radical history tours. Fun, different, can outreach to people who aren’t in Boston as much. We can’t make any decisions without consent of our WG so we bring ideas back to the groups for consensus. We will do that again tonight.

Inreach: elaborating on our powers- we are not empowered to do anything we can’t do as WG- example we are talking about changing format of GA, we are only consenting to bringing a proposal to GA.

DA: people behind spokes (fishbowling) can switch between groups they are a part of. The spoke can switch out with other members of the group and can be recalled by group

Jay: POI, you can’t spoke for more than one group in a night

End of stack

Details of action

DA: are we consenting to do this action?

Interoccupy: we could have someone leading the tour and speak to each group, or have people posted at stations to do the history as people walk through their own guided tour. Why are we doing it on march 17th?

Inreach: M17 is 6 month anniversary of OWS. Also evacuation day, the day the british siege of boston ended

Facilitation: the American revolution was as much against the british as it was anti-corporate- against tea taxes, against the east india company which was involved in colonization. This is one angle we could take

Logistics: have any other decisions been made within spokes? And, what else is going on in Boston that day?

Media: there is a small march in Dorchester around the area where George Washington set up his cannon. Uphams Corner?

Facilitation: only decisions made were about tours and changing GA

Medical: have any other details been worked out?

Inreach: we are talking about several different ways to structure the tours

Medical: do you want medic coverage for each tour?

DA: can we vote to do this before we talk about how to do it?

Radio: do we have enough knowledge to do this?

Inreach: groups were committing to learn the history. Now we have to figure out what a “radical history tour” looks like

Out of time. Temp check on adding five minutes: no. moving to consensus portion.

Consent to action

Doing a radical history tour on the freedom trail: yes

Propose to GA that we have an alternate assembly in lieu of GA on M17: Yes

Several WGs saying they may not be able to contribute content to the tours but can support in other ways. Lots of discussion about how different groups can contribute.

Question: can other occupies be in spokes council? Answer: yes they can come as an affinity group.

Occupy UMass Boston is joining the spokes council. They offer their outdoor encampment planned for 3/15-3/18 for people coming from out of town.

Timeline

Research: we need to figure out how many people we can realistically mobilize. Maybe a decentralized thing?

Facilitation: this week find out from our WG how many people want to be involved. Then next week figure out how centralized or decentralized this is going to be, once we’re looking at concrete numbers. Encourage people to start working on what they want to do.

Facilitation: I need to leave.

Research: propose to remove what we have from the agenda and talk about how to frame the day now

Temp check: yes

Brainstorming for M17 action framework

Research: take the freedom trail, figure out how many stops there are, station people at certain stops to catch tourists as they go along the route

DA: Have each group at a location waiting for tourists to come to them, holding a sign with a fact on it as a way to catch attention, mike check the paid tour

Decolonize: we don’t want to mike check Martha Washington, or whatever costumed character is leading a paid tour. This will piss people off. Can we find ways to supplement that without interrupting

HJ: agree we shouldn’t try to highjack from other tours. We should station at places where we can give history, which we need to commit to learn

OUMB: like the stations idea. We can reach more people, they don’t have to come to a tour at a certain time. Next step is doing research, figuring out what stations are going to be our targets

Inreach: we can ask WGs to pick a location and a subject

Media: concerned about having stations completely taken by WG, as media we’d end up covering ourselves. We want to cover everyone.

Medics: we also can’t own a station due to tactical neutrality

Research: half day training to get people into affinity groups to own stations

DA: don’t think there is time to do a training. There are already WG and affinity groups in place. Go with them.

Media: we don’t need long term affinity groups, we need affinity groups just for this action. Have a training- propose taking over and SAA? Break into groups and discuss each group taking a station.

HJ: interested in having street theater somewhere in the action

Decolonize: this is a total OB event, it should be brought to an SAA so everyone can be in on it

DA: propose we talk to our groups and come back next week with map of freedom trail and pick what spots to do. This week our groups will talk about what they want to do, lets make sure it’s a good spot.

Medics: do we need marked medic coverage?

Temp check is medium

Some agreement that this is a relatively low-risk action. Not quite a consensus on whether to be marked or not.

Outreach/Inreach discussion will rollover to next meeting.