WG/Strategies/Ideas/Minutes/4 Nov 2011 (2)

2011-11-07T22:34:49Z

'''IDEAS WORKING GROUP PUBLIC DISCUSSION 11/4'''

'''Forest '''–overview of what the ideas group is—not decision makers, but aiming to create times and spaces for discussion *Want to create the right structures that would allow people to start initiatives on their own-working groups, task forces. *We don’t talk about ideas, we talk about facilitating discussion.

'''Marty'''—Tonight’s discussion-- experiment with open space *The premise is that everyone has something to bring to the table--whoever comes, are the right people, whatever happens is the only thing that could have, when it starts is the right time, when its over its over. loosely structure topics, then invite you all to prompt discussion *“Law of two feet” –don’t like the discussion, must use their feet to move to a more productive place. Invite a stack system, Introduce the three points of discussion and then start--this meeting has three themes—overall strategy for occupy boston, specific actions and tactics, addressing the growing divisions in our movement/promoting Unity in our movement.

'''Forest'''—This is also in regards to online offline, onsite, offsite, seeing and doing divides.

'''Marty'''—Introduction of marker and paper, idea of stepping into different spots for discussion

'''((Interruption))'''—Announcement about stolen green fly and orange footprint of tent, camper traveling from Canada—contact info at Logistics.

'''((Interruption)''')—Man talking about Mitt Romney, fall river, paper clips on the poor’s teeth(?) Want to organize a “strike team” about this.

'''Duncan'''—Want to discuss shift from old paradigm to new paradigm ((distinguished location for small discussion))

'''Oryan''' (sp?) – Want to have a discussion on unity – functionally—look at spokes-council model @ occupy wall street—could talk more broadly about this—discussion on functional unity

((distinguished location for small discussion))

'''Chris '''– Marching to the school board meeting and protesting the closing of schools –connect with more local issues—especially poor working class and communities of color—local issues action ((distinguished location for small discussion))

'''Individual''' –talk about the camp itself to increase communication—to help us all get along a little better—((went to oryans group with functional unity))

'''Tom '''– in the labor working group—forming more practical links with labor groups—interested in occupy oakland resolution supporting the occupation of foreclosed properties—may fit in with local issues, fits in with anti-oppression ((opted to join local issue group)) Forest—temp check to see if everyone had a group they wanted to meet with—looked good

            ((Individual Discussion groups:

             Group 1– broad messaging

             Group 2—functional unity

              Group 3– local issue action))

'''Individual''' – has anybody planned for thanksgiving— Marty—Point of information-- we are invited to the American Indian national day of mourning—more info available….Remember the law of two feet – move freely!

'''((Small group discussions split off ))'''

'''….'''

'''((Small group discussions report back))'''

'''Two Individuals representing Group 3''' - local issues Occupy the DOE success in NY—“it was beautiful” Defending foreclosures—we need to organize a working group around this—intent to come to GA on Sunday with a statement and proposal on it

'''((Point of Information))''' – vida urbana Response– meeting with them on Monday--Occupy Oakland passed a res in their GA—we support the occupation of foreclosed properties—“if there are people without homes, there should not be homes without people”

'''POI''' – there is an existing listserv that sends out announcements – foreclosure defense Monday meetings

'''POI '''– SF has a service that is basically mass text message – we could use this

<u>'''(RECORDED DIALOGUE TO BE TRANSCRIBED...)'''</u>

'''**NOTES ON POSTERS'''**

'''Local Issues & Actions Poster Notes:'''

Educations/Schools

Healthcare

Foreclosures/Defense

Living wages/working conditions

MassUniting—Jason Stephany

GA Resolution in solidarity w/people facing foreclosure/bank action, encouraging such people to contact #OB-- #OB will join other orgs in mobilizing people to defend others in foreclosed homes

Ambassadors/Delegates from #OB to attend community meetings (like school committee meetings)

(mobilizations to such meetings, & mic-check to disrupt/make statement, joined by community members?)

Occupying public spaces/buildings (like public representatives/politicians offices) & opening them up for GA’s/consensus/true democracy—GA in city hall?

Walking picket lines getting involved in local labor issues

Occupying empty/foreclosed homes?

Phone # for emergency foreclosure assistance

Campaign for “vacancy tax” to prevent foreclosed homes from sitting vacant

Pressure on sheriff’s departments to keep them from enforcing evictions?

Work w/City Life but as broader coalition?

<br/>'''Old paradigm/New Paradigm Poster Notes (written as an idea map):'''

Old paradigm/New Paradigm

Working together

Emphasize commonality

Realization of collective consciousness

Unity

Everyone has a place

Greater awareness of interdependence

Cosmological shift

Finding a path of love

Forging tribes

Transformation of species

Come from the heart

Accelerated change

Occupations are manifestation machines

Better communication

People need to come to terms with change

Some people do not understand that humans are not inherently bad

Moving past domination

Moving towards cooperation

Different societies have different tendencies

Realizing our commonality

We’re all in this together

Big shift coming to a head

Inreach convincing each other of our common goals

Big picture common denominator

Human connections

Less value on work (“success”)

'''Unity Group Poster Notes:'''

UNITY… Functional groups

Campers Passive but concerned—mobilizable Web interactions—wiki, boards

Trying to come at key moments

Framework Moblize, make decisions

Non-hierarchical possible?

Passing things in GA—hard, now near impossible

Interactions with other occupy groups

Fragmentation “off-putting”

There is unity….Brendan

Spokesperson Perceived as fractioned—come out with mission

How could spokes-model aid long-distance participation?

Constellation & spokesperson model compatible

Frustration with communication/ability to get involved

Boycotts effective, Demands→success

Google groups

Laboratory for democracy

Not easy (external communications) → wiki Get mission statement → GA ideas process

Give options for how to get involved

Demoralized, no solution evident, keeps people away

Goal—open the discussion

Frag→ stay open & friendly

Reps to Philly, july 4, 2012

Not enough doers, no project managers….can’t just say this is broken…not democracy

Constellation? Model for social change

Consensus/new process is a demand

Problems only unify to a point

WG/Strategies/Ideas

2011-11-07T22:22:08Z

Malloryapril: /* Upcoming Public Discussions */

== Upcoming Public Discussions ==

*Held in the GA area, unless otherwise specified
*There will be FREE HOT FAIR-TRADE COFFEE AND TEA!!
*Topics set based on suggestions collected online [http://wiki.occupyboston.org/index.php?title=Vote_here&action=edit vote here] and on the whiteboard outside Media tent

'''Friday, November 4, 7-9 in the GA Area''' Topics:

*Overall Strategy
*Specific Actions & Tactics (formation of task forces to implement the best ones!)
*Addressing the growing divisions and promoting unity within the movement
*[[See notes from this meeting]]

'''Monday, 7 November''' Order of Events:

*Explain goal of the evening: have everyone collectively generate a statement of Occupy Boston's values that can act as a guide of what to add to the [[Statement of Purpose]]
*Why not focus on actions, demands, methods tonight? One of our goals in the Ideas group is to ''try'' to help grow a statement that all of Occupy Boston can get behind. One idea to do this is to start with VALUES.
*Examples of switching actions, demands, methods and statements to VALUES:
**"go after your congressman!" ->  value: accountability
**"correct fundamental inequalities" -> value: fairnes
**"shouldn’t demonize conservatives because they disagree" -> value: inclusivity

*We will have 3 parts of the meeting:

1. Overview of collected responses for the past few weeks to the question: "What are the values that we, as Occupy Boston, all share?" here are word clouds made from this collected information:

[[File:Ideas values raw.png|300x358px|RTENOTITLE]][[File:Ideas values reworded.png|300x383px|RTENOTITLE]]

We will break out into groups and add change, and discuss this list. We will then come back to the larger group and report on small group break out discussions.

2. We will break out into new groups and decide on what values on this list do people feel should go into the [[Statement of Purpose]]. This could be any amount of values, but we are suggesting 2-5 for this first attempt. We will then come back to the larger group and report on small group break out discussions.

3. Lastly, we will split again into groups and see if we can write a sentence or two that expresses the values collaboratively decided in Step 2 into the [[Statement of Purpose]]. Groups can start:

*with a BLANK piece of paper
*a copy of the [[Statement of Purpose]] to edit, or
*have an action question that they are answering: - What are the values, that we, as Occupy Boston Share? or: - What is the mission, that we, as Occupy Boston Share?

We will then come back to the larger group and report on small group Statements and edits. This will go a long way to adding to the [[Statement of Purpose]]

'''Followup''' We will post all of the Statements and notes from this meeting in a new page called [[Values Addendum to Statement of Purpose]] as well as post the proposed changes to the [http://main.wirite.org/documents/20/ Occupy Boston Statement of Purpose] on the site [http://wirite.org Wirite] where the changes can continue to be worked on:

[[File:WiriteForOB.png|400x194px|link:http://main.wirite.org/documents/20/]]

<br/><br/>Want to set the agenda for future Public Discussions? [[Vote here]]

[[Join the Ideas email list]] - email your ideas, join the online conversation, and view the archive of discussions

[http://wiki.occupyboston.org/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin&type=signup&returnto=Main_Page Join the wiki]. Have some ideas you are developing? Consider putting a link to them in the group workspace: [[User:WG-ideas]] You can also create your own user page by clicking on your name in the upper right.

File:IDEAS WORKING GROUP 11.4.pdf

2011-11-07T22:15:49Z

Malloryapril: Notes from 11.4 Ideas Public Discussion

Notes from 11.4 Ideas Public Discussion

User:WG-Ideas

2011-11-04T16:04:21Z

Malloryapril:

'''ORIGINAL MISSION STATEMENT:

The Ideas working group will actively seek out the contributions from the Occupy Boston encampment, its community of supporters, and from society at large. It will develop transparent and inclusive methods of organizing these ideas in order to facilitate their exchange and development. We will also host open discussions on widely held concerns and values, as well as around important questions of strategy.'''

Potential edits:

-Add in statement about striving to harness "creative capital"--our richest resource is the collective thoughts and ideas of the 99%

User:WG-Ideas

2011-11-04T14:46:54Z

Malloryapril: Created page with "'''ORIGINAL MISSION STATEMENT: The Ideas working group will actively seek out the contributions from the Occupy Boston encampment, its community of supporters, and from society ..."

'''ORIGINAL MISSION STATEMENT:

The Ideas working group will actively seek out the contributions from the Occupy Boston encampment, its community of supporters, and from society at large. It will develop transparent and inclusive methods of organizing these ideas in order to facilitate their exchange and development. We will also host open discussions on widely held concerns and values, as well as around important questions of strategy.'''

Potential edits:

-Add in statement about harnessing "creative capital"--our richest resource, the diverse thoughts of the 99%

WG/Strategies/Ideas/Brainstorm

2011-11-01T20:16:10Z

Malloryapril:

==list of ideas==
Add your idea with a* in front of it
*coffee break in the afternoon
*free cigarretees
*what happened online
*can we pass anything? or are we just building our bureaucracy?
*strategic ways to vote with our dollars
*affinity group email alert system to protect the camp, see disc.
*peace song radio call in day, 6/19, see disc.
*big national demo june 19, emancipation day, see disc.
*move most of the camp once a week all winter to symbolic indoor locations, see disc.
*add How We Will Change It word cloud
*move to St. Paul's in the name of Jesus the Healer, see disc.
*Name the camp wind turbine, Cape Wind
*Aim a digeridoo at the Federal Reserve, see disc.
*Camp Protectors Pledge of Resistance, see disc.
*Tea Party Tax Debate Challenge, see disc.
*Pen Pal a Stock Broker, blog, see disc.
*"die in" at Health Insurance Co. annual meeting,see disc.
*24 hour reading of health insurance horror stories, see disc.
*Ranked Choice Voting for this poll
*addressing the Online/Offline divide
*Random Acts of Kindness Working Group
*Long Term Tactics
*Appreciation Board/Ritual to recognize work not violating our leaderless ethic
*Welcoming Committee
*Non-leadership leading to small group covert leadership
*Continuing Move your Money with Move your investments
*"Occupy" the vote
* Do we really live in a "Democracy"?
*Communications wg to solidify with other "occupiers"
*Increased self-sufficiency
----
Back to [[Ideas]] Page