GA Minutes Sat Jun 30 2012

Details

Location: Community Church of Boston
Time: 5:30 - 7:00pm (approximately)
Note taker: Steve

Summary

Between 11--12 people attended. We passed two proposals, which I'll summarize as

• To hold the April 14th general assembly at the Southwest Corridor Park (near the Stonybrook T station in Jamaica Plain).

• To cancel GA on Tuesday July 3rd and Saturday July 7th; and to dedicate the Tuesday July 10th GA to a discussion about Occupy Boston's decision making process.

Minutes

Working Group Announcments

Chess. We're thinking about moving our meetings outside. It's nice out.

Bank Actions. We're having an action on Monday that should be really fun: it's a Going out of Business Bake Sale for bank of America. We'll meet at Dewey square, 4:00 pm, then head over to the Bank of America building at 100 Federal street. We'll be at Bank of America from 4:30 - 6:00. For more information, see http://www.occupyboston.org/2012/06/29/bake-sale-for-bofa/

OBIT. A couple of weeks ago, the calendar submission form on occupyboston.org broke. The plans to fix it fell through the cracks. In the last week, we were able to identify exactly what's going wrong. We hope to have it fixed in a few days.

Question: in the interim, what should we do for calendar event submissions?

Go to http://wiki.occupyboston.org/wiki/Media, and find the link for "Calendar Admin List". Calendar admin list takes you to a google spreadsheet, which lists the calendar admins. Find someone you know, and ask them to post your event. (Note: the spreadsheet may be somewhat out of date.)

Individual Announcements

Carolyn (on behalf of Greg). Tomorrow at 3pm, there's a meeting at E5 to discuss their eviction, and plans going forward. See https://www.facebook.com/events/384661094928966/.

Carolyn (on behalf of Angela). Angela has cancelled the discussion that she was planning to lead at the July 1 SAA. A new date hasn't been scheduled yet.

Matt. We're moving day camp from Saturday to Sunday. Day camp will be held in Copley Square, starting at noon. There will be whiffle ball, aka the Occupy Boston Red Sox.

Consent bucket

Mike reads the list of proposals that we have on the agenda.

1. To move the July 14th GA to Southwest corridor park, in support of the Bastille day event (Carolyn)
2. Immediate freeze on new expenditures, and to reduce S17 allocation from $7 -> $2k (JS Dwyer, on behalf of Greg Murphy)
3. Set aside some money for E5. (Jen Mazer)
4. To cancel 7/3, 7/7 GA. Dedicate 7/10 GA to a discussion of decision-making processes (Carolyn)

We have previous proposals from Joe C and Terra. These proposals will roll over.

Proposals (2), (3), (4) come out of the consent bucket.

Proposal (1) stays in the consent bucket.

Proposal (1) Questions

Question: is it worthwhile to have the July 14th GA at Southwest Corridor park, given the low turnout at recent GAs?

Proposer: The GA would happen after the Bastille day event. People could go from one event to the other.

Mike: Is there a special organization or structure planned for that GA?

Proposer: No

Proposal Passes

Regular Proposals

Quorum Check

Rich calls for quorum check.

Carolyn reads the definition of Quorum.

Some members of the group want to discuss the quorum check before taking a vote.

Steve: Could we have quorum for making some decisions, but not others?

John: This process is as ritualized as a Greek Orthodox Mass. It used to work for us, but now it's just a manicle.

Dana: Maybe we should talk about Carolyn's proposal, to get a larger critical mass on the 10th, where we'd be discussing decision making processes.

Mike: we can make decisions and hope they're upheld. But this is stretching the process.

John asks if people agree with Carolyn's proposal. Uptwinkles from nearly everyone.

Rich: If we cancel two GA's, then we'll spend the next two weeks getting attacked for doing it. But then, no one is showing up anyway. So F-it.

Rich withdrawls quorum check. We proceed to order proposals.

We decide to discuss Carolyn's proposal first.

There's a facilitation switch. Mike would like to step back from his role as facilitator, so that he can discuss the proposal. Steve offers to facilitate.

(Notetaker: I will summarize a few points from memory, since I was facilitating and not taking notes.)

Proposal to cancel 7/3, 7/7 GA; and Devote 7/10 GA to discussion about OB's decision making processes

There was a concern that cancelling the 7/4 GA would inhibit S17 planning. Counter argument: September 17th still several months away. If the planning starts a few days later, it shouldn't hurt.

There was an proposed amendment to cancel GA for the rest of the summer.

Carolyn: That's a bigger decision than I want to make. This proposal is concerned with getting us through the next week, and with starting a discussion about what we want our decision-making process to be. I don't want to go further than that. Amendment rejected.

Proposal Passes

Quorum Check

Rich asks for a quorum check. GA decides that we do not have quorum.

There is a very heated exchange after the Quorum check. GA ends shortly afterwards.