Community Gatherings

Community Gathering

Background
Starting on October 23, the schedule of Occupy Boston’s General Assemblies was reduced from seven nights per week to four nights per week in order to allow “all Working Groups (to) hold at least one publicly accessible, weekly meeting, during one of the non-GA evenings” . . .

Now, non-GA evenings are completely filled with working group meetings, and little free time exists . . .

Occupy Boston is a new community and we are in our formative stages and still getting to know one another . . .

As members of the 99% we are from many divergent populations representing a broad cross section of American society . . .

Many of us have identified a need for ongoing dialogue to get to know and better understand each other and to learn from each other . . .

Post eviction, as a community, we have a great need for structured, non GA gathering time to discuss and plan our next steps . . .

And,of utmost importance, critical to building a resilient, wide-spread and inclusive social movement is the work of discovering, examining and dismantling the way multiple forms of oppression continue to reproduce themselves in our organizing structures and general fabric of resistance   . . .  therefore,

Proposal

The Facilitation Working Group proposes to host weekly Community Gatherings, the first of which will be held on Monday, December 19, 2011. Initially, these Community Gatherings will be held at St. Paul’s Cathedral, on Tremont Street, in Boston.  These Community Gatherings will run from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM.  As additional spaces become available, FWG reserves the right to change the location and meeting time of the Community Gatherings, (but still scheduled for Monday night.)

The intention of these Community Gatherings is to build and strengthen the Occupy Boston community.

The first half hour of the Community Gatherings is to be used for social interaction (perhaps a continuation of Monday’s Community Cuppa:  http://wiki.occupyboston.org/wiki/CommunityCuppa), or brief Working Group meetings.

Every Working Group and every individual is free (and encouraged) to sponsor and produce a Community Gathering. These Gatherings can take many forms, e.g., presentations, workshops, facilitated conversations, open dialogues, movie screenings, etc.  No Working Group or individual may produce more than one Community Gathering, over a two month period.

FacilitatorsWorking Group will maintain a public Community Gathering Calendar* to allow WGs and individuals to post and advertise their events.  In the event that no one books a Community Gathering, FWG will sponsor that eveinng’s Gathering.

Facilitators Working Group  is available to facilitate Community Gatherings, upon request.

$100 per Gathering is budgeted for snacks, and $50 for St. Paul’s.**  Providing the food is the responsibility of the sponsoring Working Group. Half the food provided must be of vegan nature, and food from the Food Boycott List shall be avoided - http://www.eatnoshit.org/indexe.html

•   mechanics of Community Gathering Calendar is still to be determined
• $ for food is available from FAWG, before CG, or after CG. FAWG will reimburse St. Paul's Cathedral, directly.