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The Transparency working group seeks to facilitate horizontal organization and transparent communication between and within working groups.
Next Meeting:
On October 31, 2011 the Transparency WG agreed to meet from 8 pm to 10 pm every Monday and Friday. Meeting sites to be determined, rendezvous at the Big Gandhi.
Minutes:
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Monday, October 31, 2011
Notes from 31 October 2011 meeting held in South Station approx. 7:30 pm – 8 pm Submitted by: @JSDwyer
NB - These are notes from the meeting rather than minutes of the meeting, mostly because I didn't know the names of many attendees. About 9 people were at this meeting, structure was informal.
Electricity – Media controls access to electricity and this creates major tensions within camp. Media can turn off power to whole encampment and new people coming to camp do tend to notice that media fully controls access to power. Logistics might be a more appropriate to handle this, but Logistics Tent also has lots of heavy stuff moving around all the time and there's likelihood devices left for recharging would get lost or damaged. Food tent needs power for cold storage, etc. It was suggested that the Generator Tent should ultimately become the tent for both bike generators and access to the power grid.
A/V Equipment – This is expensive stuff to replace if lost or stolen. It was suggested A/V equipment might become the responsibility of Tech or Logistics rather than Media. It was also suggested that WG dedicated to A/V might be appropriate.
WiFi – It was suggested this should fall in the purview of Tech rather than Media if this isn't already the case. If not, this is another thing that Media can theoretically turn off at their discretion, thus denying access to the whole encampment.
Events Calendar – Suggested that all WG's should have a password so they can update it themselves, i.e. make it more like the wiki. Concerns: vandalism if many people get password, consolidation of power if few people get the password. People off-site can help patrol for online vandalism and, if it happens, we can discuss it at GA. Tech backing up the site regularly would also be a defense against vandalism. Someone noted “a ton of people” already have the passwords and, still, events aren't well-posted. Also, we need a semi-public computer for use by WG's; the laptop in the library may or may not qualify. Question raised, “what should and shouldn't go on calendar?” Noted that Outreach WG has formed relationships contingent on mutual support and that posting events from outside groups is part of this. It was said that all Occupy the Hood events should be posted.
Meeting Spaces – Listing nothing more specific than “Dewey Square” makes meetings hard to find, increased off-site meetings during bad weather will add to the confusion. One or more tents dedicated as meeting space would solve some problems but would also generate scheduling conflicts.
Transparency WG – Having canceled last meeting due to weather possible factor in low attendance at this meeting. Group meetings have tended to be irregular and Transparency WG is an example. It was agreed that Transparency WG would henceforth meet from 8 pm to 10 pm every Monday and Friday, Meeting location not specified (rendezvous at Big Gandhi seems a fair guess).
Adjourned - At 7:04 as some in attendance wanted to attend a 7 pm Winterization meeting.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Link: Transparency Meeting Minutes
Monday, October 17, 2011
• Intros (photo of group taken at 9:36p photos 2,3,4 on iphone)
• introductions
• 9:40p rollcall - greg, matthew, rene (logistics, finance, it), bernie, sid (info & finance), anna, matt (it), brandon (it), eden (free school), david (media press & pr, music), Farhad, Alex (the guy) (media), Steven (general colenteer), Ravi (it), David, Dan (food), grania (legal, it, facilitation), Alex (the girl) (media), Jessica (occupybostonglobe), Ross (it), Katie (outreach), Jason (media)
• NOT HERE: safety, direct action, free speech (howard zin), medical, spirtuality, arts & culture, signs
• create a flowchart of org
• identify gaps
• possibly reform into a seperate group, possibly not
• media and logistics having daily meetings now
• Goals for today
1) intergroup coms
2) set up staffing models
3) identify the structures of existing groups
• many folks joined after some confusion about location about 20 minutes late
• jason is diagramming a possible workflow for new Welcome Tent (picture ipad)
• media flow is being discussed by Jason (picture 1 iPhone)
• internal comms need to be facilitated by media or IT
• internal emails with self-service mailing list administration
• List of all current Groups @ #occupyBoston (iphone pic 5)
• this group and all future groups like this should never dictate process to any other group
• some of the smaller groups seem to be forming ad-hoc authoritarian structures, as a habit. There is some concern.
• Agenda for next 10 minutes
• points of contact, group description, inititaives.
• splitting groups up into more managble sizes/functions
• Alex(M) - we don't expect changes to the system to happen overnight. take the time to do things right the first time.
• Ravi - temp check on proposed agenda, moving towards new agenda now
• Point of Contacts, Group Descriptions, and key Iniiatives need to be done by all the groups.
• groups not represented will be contacted by Robbt so that they know to work on this (please)
• group should be called "transparency"
• Group to meet once a week in the evening
• Jason - we need to document our process flow in each of the groups to identify interaction points.
• Eve - we should't wait until next week. to get this moving
• Facilitation needs groups to be more active in populating online sources (wiki or cal) to ensure people know where/what to do
• Alex(f) - no will have a problem with getting stuff online... this is a no brainer, and it's ok to move forward as quickly as is relevent
• We should be on free and open source tools for all backend things
• Eden - are we ambassaders of sorts helping other groups get organized. we should actively work with those not in transparency
• Ratified request for more information on the items on iphone photo # 6,7,8(?)
• Dan - E5 is availble to use for indoor meetings
• rene - we need the GA to authorize working groups
• Alex(m) - we're only asking questions, not requiring responses. we should also be sensative to private information
• Farhad - internal flowchart are a process which may require training
• we need to focus on transparency, therefore we should ask for the infromation.
• NEXT MEETING THIS THURSDAY AT 9:00 PM @ GANDHI
• meeting ended 10:49p
Sunday, October 16 (Structural "pre-meeting")
"We are setting a precent for structural ideas in the movement."
Discussed what each working group has to bring for the meeting monday
Terra discusses the Info table
Roles:
Welcome people
Answer basic questions
Master list of tents
Master volunteer list
Talk to functional tents.. do you need volunteers? What kind of skills do you need?
Sign people up for the mailing list but prefer to do it online
Update whiteboard calendar once a day
Proposal idea: all donations should go through one central place. This is in response to one of the groups turning away laptop donations that other groups needed.
Proposal idea: A sub-GA for big ticket items
Proposal idea: Going to the GA once to approve responsibilities and standing orders
Theresa got with DA and they will give her daily texts about marches, etc.
DA hasn't been telling people about when the marches. Where does DA derive their authority to organize the marches? Things like this should go through the GA.
"This factionalization will tear us apart if we can't do it at the GA"
"Let's get working groups talking at the GA about GA. Put the GA issue on the agenda and bring the working groups together there to work it out."
Discussion on the PA's power. The power of people's mic is that people will stop repeating if who ever's talking is breaking process. It's self-regulating.
Concern about not being able to hear people's mic. Possible that newer people don't get people's mic. If we did away with the mPA, it will get the whole meeting using it. Then it get's people getting. Everyone can hear and everyone is involved. The energy of people's mic is stronger than a boring PA system.
Discussion on using iterations. Defining the iterations of people's mic can be eyeballed by facilitator. The way NYC does it. Let's try iterations. Let's play with it.
Terra mentioned Facilitation group gave "ten different answers" about instructions on how to use the GA and it's process. Concern is that being in the facilitation group takes all day long to be involved with. Two-hour meeting, then the GA, then another long meeting after the GA while answering emails all day long. This promotes people quiting.
Proposals should be ideology-less. Get to the point and talk about occupy boston. Too many people, too many proposals, not enough time.
"We will use this process to define our values."
Proposal idea: to meet at the national level to come up with a value system.
Proposal idea: to "get our shit together" before we start talking about proposals on national level issues.
Suggested that we focus on streamlining the proposal process. We could write proposals that easily go through to set an example and setting natural selection. We don't have to make a policy if we can figure out a better way to pass proposals.
Terra's proposal to the GA didn't make minutes and couldn't pass because the scribe wasn't there. It didn't get on the wiki and there wasn't any discussion.
"Shouldn't recording the GA count as being a scribe?"
Proposal Idea: Propose something like "Recorded video counts as scribe"
Idea: The person making proposals has the choice to use people's mic or PA.
Concern: The livestream is inaudible and hard to see.
INFO: (nycga.com :: occupywallstreet.com>livestream>archives>facilitation training)
10 minute break
Other random discussions:
"Always defuse"
ACLU building as an offsite storage place. On something like moving to the ACLU building, it should go before the GA. It should be noted that we're not endorcing people that give us donations.
"Tents are a wall from the community". Discussion on the idea of tents and working groups as silos. PA and tents could be considered benefit/detriments. A good way to break down silos is to have a meeting and go to the GA and tell people what we're up to. It will help the idea that there's secret meetings all over the place. The less-transparent will be identified when the moe transparent are more transparent. Using flowcharts to show the process in each group should ease tensions between groups.
decentralization discussion. if any portion of structure gets targeted our group should be able to not be affected. If many people get training in other roles then there is more horizontalization.
First place to start new people is facilitation training.
Let's agree to talk about notes at the GA. Let's call this a temporary workgroup. Now we can talk about what we talked about here. This was a meeting to look for a ledge to grab on to in addressing the problems addressed in Ravi's email. Ravi's email should be copied into the minutes of this meeting. We're looking for ways that each working group uses consensus to do their stuff and then sharing the best practices between groups.
end of meeting
Announcement to be made at the next GA (this annnouncement was never made)
- "This is an announcement about the flow of information in our group. The police want us to be paranoid and factionalized. The less open we are the more we as a group promote secrecy and paranoia. Factionalization is promoted with closed information. This is a reminder to share and be open with ALL the information and knowledge you have with others and to have the patience and initiative to explain to how we work internally."
Contact Us:
Transparency@lists.mayfirst.org
Based on: Transparency at wikispaces