GA Minutes Sat Jan 14 2012

Jan 14th 2012

Copied from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FAcg6Z0PFygroMbT29VhI3E3oc1db-QqTeKG2HrD9iI/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1

Beginning with going over processes

Proposals

Individual Stacks

Working Groups, explained.

Greg: Conduct in the allotted space, The Community Church

Issues

Church: We are supported in being here, 2300, 2500, to fix the broken window. The downstairs restaurant, owner has shown concern. Not a good idea to continue smoking pot in their doorway, in their space, in their business. Cocaine distribution, also a concern. We have been asked to confirm video footage, by the restaurant owner, of the occupy members who are being accused of these activities.

There are suggestions. Bouncers, have someone at the door. This person would ensure that there would be no stragglers or trouble makers representing OB.

Space Working Group (formerly HQ)

Exists to identify the problem and solution to find a common space to continue successful work for OB.

Meetings are always on the calender. January 19, 2012. Thursday at 5, E5

Ideas of different sources of occupying spaces, outdoors and in. A space where all working groups may meet and converge. Maybe storefront. A converging space for a economic activity, artistic, educational, etc. what E5 was intended for.

We want to continue transparency.

Greg, John, and others.

Carl Williams and fund raising. There has not been a second meeting set up. A community assessment is necessary for development of Space. No presence yet in the WIKI page. We will firmly establish ourselves in the Occupy Architecture.

Richard is doing Door Duty. Richard is presently our Bouncer.

Financial accountability Wiki page, all financial transactions and moneys spent are exlained.

Anna

Putting the safety team back together. Keeping safety a known presence in meetings, rallies, marches, etc.

If you have specific ideas to suggest for reworking our Safety, you are welcome to come to workshops and the conversation tomorrow from noon to 12 at Chow Chow’s in Chinatown.

Chemical assault

Someone claimed that roofies were put in her drink. We don’t have hard evidence, and it is currently in GA, WWW, and the public forum. Please remove the information regarding this issue. (whoever may be responsible)

We cannot police you. This is about community. If you have something to say about an issue, write it down and hand it to Anna or to another member of Safety, or email safety@occupyboston.org.

Al, descalation. We ask that mediators work patiently with AL. We must all do our part to keep an open dialogue with the Occupy community, as to minimize gossip.

Talk to Anna individually, suggested.

If you have been in the team prior to this meeting, you may be contacted.

Eli

Texting Network:

text@obupdates23559

       expected updates, ex. Harvard Raid, change of GA time, etc.

FSU Dunkin

Sunday, Jan. 15, 1 pm. E5 - Discussion about what is actually going on in Iraq.

Wed. 7 pm Radio Show

Fri. 6 pm Harverst Coop, Central Sq. Zinn speaker series Occupy to Workers Control, Harvard Labour Rights Study Center, Black History Month

Kevin

Wed. 7pm, TBA, focusing on communication information regarding the financial institutions.

        kevin@occupyboston.org

Individual Announcements

Rachel

Passing of the GenAsem Collective Journal, if you would like a personalized one for your working group, Rachel will make you one. Ask Rachel.

Forming a Youth Working Group, rachelbp@gmail.com

Dance - Occupy Movement for the Movement

Stephanie and Skyler

Boots of Solidarity ...

Bil

Photo taking, facebook, commenting, reaching the outer Boston community, Bil made a book. Bil is a writer. Bil is giving us a heads up of what he refers to as misaligning us. Bil invites us to take a peek at it.

A woman

Friday night, St. Paul’s church, campaign reform, money in politics, power mapping, drum circle at St. Paul. Left wing liberals are highly encouraged to come.

Friday, 4-8

Saturday, 10 - 4

Another woman

Proposals

2 new proposals in addition to the rollover proposals from the last genasem.

       - Obid and others drafted a statement against OPEC, etc, 

- take too, FAWG proposes to freeze the wknd stipend budget temporarily until things are reinventoried.

GA is asked their opinions.

Safety Proposes trip to DC

Stephanie Fail

Occupy Congress, est. over 100,00 participants, to have a national assembly

We came back from ONH, making stride of our reperesentation of OB. We come before the GA to rent 2, 15 passenger vans 500 each (1000), 500 for food, 500 for gas, 500 extra

Occupy Boston Mobile Brigade

DC for OB space

GA - is there a specific agenda for going to DC this time, as things happen in DC all the time, is this going to happen more frequently in the future, and would it be cheaper to just take a Mega Bus, etc.

Stephanie: This is a unique agenda!!! This is the first Occupied Controled

We have 23 confirmed as of before today’s GA.

Tara

What is the Process of selecting who the DC goers will be, It is important for us to understand how horizontal democracy works, and to apply it here in GA for this trip. How will this be organized, who is doing what, how so is this work self-selecting.

Shane

When?

Stephanie:

Monday 3 am, and 10 am (circa)

Everyone is asked to pay as they are able. ⅔ of the people going do depend on OB funding.

What should happen to money that is left over?

FOOD FOOD FOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OB has 57,000 at the moment. By the end of January, a projected 13,00 used.

Efforts for outside GenAsem fundraising?

Tomorrow’s plan is to negotiate the best price for a rental.

Break up into small groups to touch base on the DC proposal, and discuss opinions.

Statements of Concern:

Tara proposes that the chosen persons should be based on lottery.

Shane.

Eli. cannot support this proposal, not because it isn’t worthy, but because we are in a deficit.

Many speak about financial concerns, regarding this proposal.

Statements of Support:

Bil. We should use the money now, that we have it now.

Skyler.

Candice.

A Gentleman. We are becoming increasingly internal, by not being a part of what is going on in DC, we are cheating ourselves from the movement. We must be visible!

2nd Gentleman.

3rd Gentleman. The strength in OB is in the movement itself.

4th Gentleman. Logistics man who’s driving the van. “Why isn’t OB in DC?!”

a woman. it’s incredibly awesome that people put this together and that so many are excited about this movement.

a gentleman. OB is a part of a Nationwide Movement! We are trying to take action, this is a proposal of Action!

Shane. Strong support of getting our message out there through committing to this proposal.

DC demonstrates more than geography.

A gentleman.

2nd gentleman.

3rd gentleman. This is the strongest action we can take!

4th gentleman. We need to make sure that our local needs do not interfere with the local needs of other Occupations. Without going to these large movements, we may lose a lot more than gain.

5th gentleman.

A woman.

A gentleman.

A gentleman. This is hard work. HARD WORK GETS FUNDED!!!!

facebook, tweet, speak, do it all!!!!

Amendments:

Martin. change the ammount to 500. screen who goes. in support of going, and money should be aloted to people who genuinely cannot afford to go.

a man.

a woman. change the ammount to 1500. and let the goers fend for themselves to get back, by “fundraising”.

Tara. 3 amendments. Send out an email via the entire email list, and if more than the 25 goers should present themselves, they be chosen by lottery. 2, ?, 3.?

A gentleman. Suggestions, car pooling and van pooling and volunteers of cars, ect. Gas money is crucial! 450 for gas roundtrip DC by car.

Eli. manage money replenishment.

A woman. We take one bus, through a lottery, and when the group should come back, they present to GA projects and explanations of the trip.

2nd woman. ?

A man. ?

A man. twitter the OB FAWG Travel transitions. twitter hashtag talk.

A woman. Fundraising, button sales, etc.

Candice. Create specific working groups within the Travel group, as to properly present to GA upon return what activities took place.

A man.

A man. Money is replenishable.

Individual Stacks:

Sage, as per Al Suarez

I spent 7 hours with him today. This is a very troubling situation for the community, it is also very troubling for the accused, as well. We cannot just assume one way or the other, and the guilt or innocence of anyone involved.

Sage reads letter written by Al Suarez via email.

       “I generally believe that those that talk a lot do little... I was informed before hand that I would be investigated... yesterday I spoke to Zoe who is also the person who mic checked me out... the people who accused me have no proof of me putting a roofie in anyone’s drink... i went to E5...  I was told i would be beaten until I told the truth... This is where I first heard that I would not be allowed into GA...”  SEE TRANSCRIPT OF AL SUAREZ’ LETTER

(Paste actual letter here)

I spent many hours with him today in mediation and probably will in the future, too. if anyone else wants to help, talk to me in a serious way.

Anna: we are getting the team back together, also need people who want updates, send me an email or phone #, join safety 3.0 by talking to jamie or anna. i can’t coordinate this case with al, so looking for someone else.

CQ from Carolyn: Can i understand whether theres a process in place to deal with the letter that we just heard?

Anna: mediators and sponsers, the rules have changed now as we are no longer in Dewey Sq. in tents with direct internal conflict. Good practices. Goals in descalation. Open for suggestions here in genassem, through workshopping, talking, phone calling, emailing, etc.

PROPOSERS (J17) RETURN

Matt: FWG needs more facilitators!! i’ve been up here a lot the last few weeks, my face needs to go away so we NEED more facilitators, lots of mundane things that you can help with but also good to get lots more faces. This is really EASY, to be neutral. the hard part is making decisions. 5-7pm T-F at CityPlace, 3-5pm Sat, Sun.

AMENDED PROPOSAL: $2500 for 25 OBers to Occupy Congress in DC. Mindful of statement of autonomy, so they are individuals in a mvmt. Fundraising to offset costs. #OBDC to follow progress. Gas $ available.

Eli POI: OBmedia got an email from the editor of the Daily Dig suggesting they would like to cover some costs, so there’s some interest there.

Stephanie has been in touch with him.

CQ: why a specific # of people? why focus on reimbursement, rather than general fund replacement?

will be taking care of more than 25, 25 is just for transportation.

Amended: 2 vanloads of activists, any other OBers are still part of the family.

CQ: proposal amended for reimbursement?

If people want reimbursement for gas, this money could be used for that. With leftovers.

CQ: 30 can fit on vans, why 25 in proposal?

We did budget planning on 22, but lots more have been interested since. More economical to go with 15 passenger vans (gas-wise) than 12 passenger vans so looks like it makes sense to have those. There are 4 spots left in the vans. Nothing in proposal to say what happens with those seats. Issues with dogs.

CQ: do the numbers include room for individual bags?

Can use Jason’s truck, or the roof.

CQ: can we be more process-oriented about this? blast out more evenly...open meeting transparency

(sounds more like a concern)

POI: John was the one in NH who was being frugal with the money.

CONCERNS:

(if someone says your concern, let it count as you speaking)

Charlotte: no accountability back to the group worked into proposal, can there be a reportback?

Eli. Voicing in support, however, we do ourselves a disservice by not planning. This is criticism towards us all as a group, in the bad habit of planning when we are not proactive in our fundraising.

Statement of Support

we will be frugal with our money.

we will be frugal with our money.

we will be frugal with our money... OCCUPY!!!

Monica. This is very cool. We started this in very opposing sides, and now we are actually performing consensus.

This is about getting out there and taking action!!! We must voice ourselves to Congress, as that’s who brought us together!!!

Eli. This is an opportunity to do fundraising right now!

We are getting the message out!!! This is key!!!

Dana set a donation trend. DANA IS THE SH*Z!!!

Money donations are the new amendments. 105.00 collected in less than 1 minute during GA. (WOW!!!)

Connections will be made!!!

Amendments

Martin. Money only go to people who cannot afford to go. (repeated.)

Vacant seats should be aloted to people from neighboring Occupies.

Fundraising for G8 in NATO in Chicago in Feb.

Jason. Can we have a text code for cash donations.

Eli. That’s too expensive. (perhaps in the future)

John, rereads the Proposal.

Blocks: NO BLOCKS.

PROPOSAL PASSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yeyeah!  :)

Anna, Mon. MLK day, 6pm

John Ford, proposal, Absent. (next meeting)

Next Proposal, OPEN

Brandon, Seth, Dana, OBIT

Forms were administered and read aloud to the GA.:

“A Proposal for Solidarity in Condemnation of Legislation to Destroy the internet in Favor of Corporate Interests”

3 part proposal

1. To join in solidarity with other internet communities in a “website blackout”, Jan. 18, where all visitors to occupyboston.org will be directed to a page containing info about SOPA. Functionality of the website will not be disrupted.

2. To encourage and implore supporters of Occupy Boston to write to their Senators and Congresspeople concerning the detrimental effects of both SOPA and PIPA.

3. To condemn the poroposed legislation know as SOPA and PIPA for fundametnally crippling free speech on the internet, stifling social movements and creativity, recklessly destroying jobs and annihilating small businesses, and as an example of the endemic corruption which permeates our legislature in the interest of the 1%.

Concerns/Support...

Concepcion Piccioto would say yes.

Concerns/Objections: NONE

Statements of Support:

Alex. This is massive!!!

Rachel. This is time limited and totally doable!

Martin. Exactly what Alex said, and is shutting down his two personal websites.

Matt. I support this, and will be doing it himself as well.

Anna. Total support, and Anonymous should be the face.

Amendments:

Eli. all social media posts should be SOPA related, and that we change our profile photos that day to a uniformed photo.

Rachel. Spread the word of an Android app to boycott SOPA.

(we must be out by 10:30. Facilitation is clean up crew. Everyone else must leave.)

POI and CQ

Eli. This wouldn’t be too radical, as others are performing this too on that day.

Response. We will do what we can to make this effective.

Statement of Support: Wiggly hands up!

Blocks: NONE.

PROPOSAL PASSED!!!!!!

Saturday night of a genassem proactivity productivity magic session. HOLLA!

Headcount:

• 7:15, 42 people
• 8:15, 66 people
• 9:15, 57 people
• 10:15, 27 people

as per Mark.

Citations: CandiceA.