Strike Debt Meeting - 11 Mar 2013
11 Feb 2013 Strike Debt Meeting
City place. 10--12 attending. Steve's notes below. Rich's notes here: Strike_debt_3-11.docx
Reports
Kendra, Rich, and Ian participated in a political roundtable discussion at Salem state university, talking about strike debt. We'll received. 40-50 people attended, and only one nasty note about the presentation (from a member of the English faculty). One question raised about forgiveness of student debt: "I went to Salem State because I thought it was a financially responsible thing to do. Why would I want to see an Emerson College student have their debt forgiven". "Perhaps they got mugged and you didn't?" One of the professors at Salem state introduced himself as having over $100k in student debt.
Dana found an organization called the National Consumers Lawyer Committee. They give legal advice, and have one staff member who works on debt issues. However, no one from the organization is able to speak at our April 6th event.
Strategy/Goals for April 6th
We'd like the event to trigger people's interest, and get them to start thinking outside the box. One of the main goals is to attract people. People may come in and out. We should bring this point up a few times during the event, so that people are around to hear it.
Perhaps we could save some steps, by building on work that Strike Debt NYC has done? How do we turn interest into true commitment? Not everyone with student loan debt is a student, but perhaps some students would be willing to take this show on the road to their campus.
If we take everyone in the room, and add their debt together, what is the total amount? Would that amount be newsworthy?
What is our next step after April 6th? We'd like to have some idea, but we don't want to spell out a complete agenda. We'd like new people to help us build that agenda. We don't to come across as having all the answers.
Dana points out an organization called "iamnotaloan.org". It's sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. We should be aware that people might get confused by different debt groups out there.
Student debt is not an isolated issue; it's a structural one. We should mention some recent acts of debt resistance: Quebec, NYC StrikeDebt, iamnotaloan.org. We can connect student loan debt with other issues in the economy.
There's a video depiction of wealth inequality in the united states, http://mashable.com/2013/03/02/wealth-inequality/. Perhaps show a few minutes from this.
There can be different tiers of engagement. Some people might want to take part in planning committees. Come might want to be on an email list. Others might be strictly interested in events and actions.
There's legislation in congress that would make some student loans forgive-able via bankruptcy. However, only private loans would be forgiven; that's only a small portion of all student loans.
Do we need more Debt Resisters Operations Manuals? Probably not; we have a few hundred left.
People should come out of this event with a feeling of home. We don't want them walking away with feelings of depression or despair.
We'll have a sub group to make post April 6th plans. Kendra, Steve, Joe, Carolyn, Rich.
Event Planning
We'll have two music acts. Assume 30-minute sets.
Dan Clawson (UMass Amherst) will give a 20-minute slide presentation.
We can try to find someone from NYC to speak, or someone who participated in the Quebec Student strikes.
Kendra knows a Berklee Student who's willing to speak about her student loan debt.
We have Larry and the Lawyer show.
We can do three testimonials, but let's not do them all at once. If there are two musical acts, we have three non-musical spaces to plan. We can do one testimonial in each non-musical space.
Kendra gets in touch with Food not Bombs. They'll provide food for the event.
Dana and Ian came up with several flyers. We passed them around, discussed, and chose two we liked. Dana and Ian will work on combining the two designs into a final flyer.
Publicity: Facebook, Act-MA, everyone list, spreading around flyers. When we have a flyer, Steve will ask DSB to create a Facebook event.
Steve will set up strikedebt.occupyboston.org, as a redirect to a page on www.occupyboston.org, or voices.occupyboston.org. He'll try to do this on Tuesday night.
People were receptive to having Cambridge Community Television Cover the event.
We can talk to OpenMediaBoston about coverage. Also try to get in touch with Steve Annear from the Metro and Chris Farrone from the Phoenix. We'll need to write a press release.
Tentative Event Schedule
Begin with food and music mingling DJ (DJ) 2:00-2:20
Testimonial 1 - 2:25-2:30
Dan Clawson - 2:30-2:50
Testimonial 2 - 2:50-2:55
Music Set 1(30) mins sets - 3:00-3:30
Debt collection skit and speech with Larry, Joe and debt boulder - 3:35-3:50
Testimonial 3 - 3:50-4:00
Last Speaker (NY or Montreal) 4:00-4:30=20
Mingle and Tabling 4:30-5:00
Next Meeting
Monday March 18th 7 - 9pm at Encuentro 5.