GA Minutes Tue June 4 2013

Minutes for 4 June 2013

Details

Location: Community Church
Time: 7pm - 9:00pm
Note taker: Dana

11 people attending.

Summary

Reimbursed for travel to Bradley Manning Support Event

We had a discussion about future of GAs

Announcements

Carlos announced that he will be starting an "Occupy 2" on July 4th of this year. His focus will be on creating a 501(3)(c) non-profit organization under his personal control.

The next Strike Debt meeting is tentatively set for Tues June 18 at 7PM at James' house again. "We had a really good meeting last night working on a draft for the video and we went into considerable more depth on a number of aspects of student debt/other debt etc all of which are important background for a short video. We will be working in the interim on furthering revising/developing the draft in various forms and hopefully some of that can be distributed before the next meeting so people can look at it in advance."

Occupy Boston was invited to be guests at the Episcopal City Mission's 2013 Annual Fundraising Dinner at Boston University’s George Sherman Union. (The keynote speaker is to be Occupy Wall Street activist: Rev. George Packard, Bishop of the Armed Services and Federal Ministries, Retired.) (2 OB members left the GA early to attend this.)

Report Backs

Veteran's for Peace Memorial Day event.

Mass Rally for Bradley at Ft. Meade, on June 1.

Proposals

There were four proposals:

• (Carlos) requested $10,000 for an "Education Campaign" associated with his creation of "Occupy 2", a 501(3)(c) non-profit organization under his personal control.
• (Carlos) proposed that OB endorse Republican candidate Gabriel Gomez in the upcoming special election for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts.
• (Linda) Proposal for reimbursement for travel expenses ($233 -for gas and tolls only) for 3 members of OB to attend the Mass Rally in support of Bradley Manning at his trial in Fort Meade, Maryland.
• (Carolyn) Discussion of current and future state of OB and GA's

Carlos's proposals were taken out of the consent bucket and then not discussed.

The proposal for Bradley Manning Support travel reimbursement: Proposal passes in the consent bucket.

The discussion about the GA was inconclusive. Several issues were discussed including re-distributing all or some of the remaining funds in the OB accounts to worthy organizations doing work for which the funds have been ear-marked (e.g. Mutual Aid, Direct Action, etc.) Concerns included impact on OB's ability to support future actions that would have, for example, bail and legal costs, -and also a fair means of re-distributing funds as the actual attendance at GAs might not constitute a quorum for making such decisions. We decided to continue the discussion through the Community Forum Mailing List and emails and try to move toward making some decisions at next month's GA. Resolving some of the issues (especially financial ones) might be time-sensitive as Carolyn indicated that she is "nearing the end of her tenure" as the person taking responsibility for organizing the details for the convening of GA's.