Ideas

Working Group Meeting Times

• Meetings have been set for 7pm Wednesdays, and Sunday night 9:30. The active times we have generally had public discussions are Monday nights at 7pm in the GA area and Friday nights at 7pm in the GA area.
• meetings are held across Atlantic Avenue in the Federal Reserve Plaza. As it gets colder we will meet there then go somewhere else, such as South Station.
• Ideas working group meeting notes

Upcoming Public Discussions

• Held in the GA area, unless otherwise specified
• Topics set based on suggestions collected online vote here and on the whiteboard outside Media tent

Want to set the agenda for future Public Discussions? Vote here

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Public Discussion Minutes & Notes

Wednesday, 16 November

• Announcement/Get the word out about Occupy Declaration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Percent_Declaration
• Proposal to create an information card for how to discuss the Occupy movement with families on Thanksgiving.  The information card could give suggestions on how to talk about Occupy, but also remind to collect ideas from family members which can then be brought back to the camp for discussion.
• Discussion of possibly wording statements so that they are not as inclusive, by using words like "most of us", etc.  Debated whether this is a good strategy, no position was taken.
• Discussion on the purpose of statements of purpose, and how it can guide its development. Mention that it can act as a guide to how we live responsibly with each other in the camp (internal purpose), and how we may bring people into solidarity with the movement (external), or how it will guide our actions as we move forward (intermal/external).
  • Also it is noted that most of the good work that is done within Occupy Boston needs no Statement to happen, and that a multitude of different occupy movements have a wide range of different statement sizes, breadth, meaning, or do not have any statements at all.  No position was taken, however it was consented on that if we did draft a potential proposed Values statement, it might mention the internal and external purposes. (Note: google doc of all Occupy statement's movements here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RsPuWV2D8UjB-N5WrmxZM7QxGJIABHON-ya3YtGawx0/edit)
• Discussion of what the proposal that we will raise at the facilitation testing of the new GA process on Friday.  We decided that it will be to propose that a values statement to be added to the Statement of Purpose.
• Discussion of what values to start off the discussion will be (Tess has the list, i forgot to write it down)
• Decision to set the date of the GA for the real proposal is Tuesday Nov 22.
• Decision to table the discussion of the whitehouse.gov/petition discussion of what petition to create until Sunday's Ideas meeting.
• Decision for a topic of discussion for an Ideas Public Discussion sometime after the Summit:
• Discussion of all of the Authors that have drafted Mission Statements, Declarations of Occupation, etc. to offer their ideas to the public and garner feedback in a discussion format.

Friday, 11 November

VALUES that came out of the meeting:

• knowledge
  • education
  • awareness
  • information
  • transparency
• unity
• change x2
• respect
  • diversity
• making "freedom" bigger
• non-violence x2
• peaceful
• consensus
• horizontal democracy x2
• solidarity
• equality
• fairness
• concern for others x2
• freedom
• positivity
• generosity
• compassion
• sustainability
• honesty
• unity
• cooperation
• mutual aid
• resistance to oppresion
• kindness
• empathy
• dialogue
• civility

SENTENCES that came out of the meeting:

• In an effort to create a more just and sustainable socitey, we will strive to embody the values of: inclusivity, honesty, non-violence, comapssion, cooperation, and ecological integrity.
• We seek to foster a cuture of inclusivity, a practice of sustainability, and a spirit of compassion.
• We beleive that in working towards change, we need to pread knowledge while maintainin a unity based on respect

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Original word cloud that was used to start the evening's discussion (word coud data collected from surveying the camp to answer the question "What values do we, as Occupy Boston, all share?"

Friday, November 4

Facilitator: Marty Facilitator: Forest Minutes: Mallory Stack Taker: None

The discussion followed this format:

• Introduction (10 minutes)
• Breakout Group Formation (individuals on stack) (20 minutes)
• Group Discussions (45 minutes)
• Group Stack/Presentations (10 minutes per group x 3 groups = 30 minutes)
• Conclusion/Summary

Breakout groups were formed after an opening discussion about what people wanted to talk about. The three breakout groups were:

• Local Issues
• Occupy as Paradigm Shift
• Functional divisions in the movement and occupy boston (i.e. offline/online, onsite/offsite)

Some noted questions/comments that resulted at the end of discussion:

• How does occupy reach into rural areas? Also, what about occupy gardens/farms?
• How to include people whose time is filled with work obligations (i.e. how to occupy time the same way we are currently occupying space)?
• "laboratory space" to describe our ideas discussions.

Two functional issues with discussion format identified by facilitator (Forest) were:

• Breakout groups for the most part lacked facilitation, stack taker, timekeepers, or minute recorders. In the future groups should ideally follow an established process for discussion.

• People who tended to agree seemed to clump together in the smaller groups. Maybe experimenting with starting groups with members randomly assigned and *then* applying law of two feet would be worthwhile? Also, instructing group initiators to make sure their group has someone taking stack?