Minutes for Visions and Goals workgroup meeting 10/21/2011 12PM
Suggested topics of conversation
The process for this group (carry over from yesterday’s agenda)
Looking for emerging themes in visions and goals from what we already have
Any other suggestions for discussion for today’s meeting?
Are there printed documents that we would use to search for the themes? – No, only the document we read yesterday that was compiled by 200 people, that could be a part of it
Agenda point suggestion: talk about developing a way to handle the paper material and digital material we will get in. A program for processing. (Sub-point under process point)
Let’s focus first on the people here at our Assembly and in our locale.
Temperature check for discussing the process of this group as our agenda item today? Unanimous
Temperature check for limiting the meeting today to 90 minutes? (It’s 1pm now) Unanimous
Suggestion to further specify what aspects of the process we are going to discuss today because it is a big topic
Review of facilitation/process, hand signals
Temperature check for moment of silence, and holding hands (unanimous)
Reading the introduction and invitation to the group
Q: Is Open Source a website?
A: It is a working group, and the web platform is still under construction
What process are we discussing? How to run these meetings? How to gather data and formulate a document?
Clarification: The discussion about the process of this meeting was to suggest a somewhat less formal structure (agenda points, point of process, etc.) Can we talk about this? (Unanimous to talking about it, with stack)
At least maintaining a stack is important so that people all have a chance to speak
It’s a daily meeting, the people are not the same from one meeting to the next, and it is important to follow the GA structure
It’s good to have order, but also to have a separate space for people to say what they are passionate about apart from the agenda points
Suggestion: how to use the time efficiently, maybe at the end of the meeting let’s consent on an agenda point to start the next meeting with.
From Occupy Richmond, gathering information, looking for ways to connect different occupations
There was a huge amount of work done on the existing document, then that was put aside and “refreshed”, and the new version has a different scale – the original was an invitation to all assemblies to work on together. Concerned about lack of continuity with new people coming to the meeting every day
Talk to info desk about all the other working groups to get ideas about how they work to take back to the other occupations.
There were concerns with the other document, with the language, we wanted to continue on with the current group
Suggestion to have some space at the beginning of each meeting for one person, by turns, to share their ideas
Concern that there were a lot of bullet points lost from the original document and that there is no continuity and that the meetings should be more focused on writing things, on discussing what was written and continuing to write. Concern that the scope was limited from all general assemblies to just this one, and that actions were taken out. Visions inform the goals, which inform the actions.
Likes the suggestions of opening and closing moment of silence, and a closing agenda item to take to the next day
Feels that the group supports slightly friendlier conversation model without hand signals but with stack.
Would like to summarize the end of yesterday’s meeting? Temperature check? (Mixed, negative) Okay no. Second point: let’s focus the end goal of this group more than the facilitation process of this group
While it’s still a tiny group like this (15 people), it’s a good idea to do a less formal structure like we’re doing now (although we still are using hand signals and basically following GA procedure) but maybe it’s good to be more formal if the group gets larger
Did not think that discussing the process for this meeting was the only agenda item, thought we were going to discuss the process for gathering visions and goals
Really just wants to discuss and write a new constitution to be read to the world in Liberty Square.
There is an impression that people are coming here to share their visions, and that needs to be discussed/addressed… is there a space in this meeting for people to share their visions?
If we consent to use a modified, less formal structure, then we don’t have to re-consent on it every day. The facilitator will explain at the beginning of each meeting.
Moment of Silent
Agenda item at closing
Make a space for people’s ideas in this meeting
Talk about the last document and the invitation
Talk about??
People should be familiar with the document we’re working on or else there will be some redundancy
Amendment: recognize or give priority to people who are new or only going to be in town one day… Or increasing to 15 minutes, going around the circle, and having a time limit for each person
Amendment – progressive stack
Aware of the difference between continuity and focusing on the existing document versus expanding, is this idea compatible with Ted’s original idea of the meeting?
We should have a hard copy of the documents for people to read
Clarification of the earlier amendment: At the beginning of the meeting, have 15 minutes and open a progressive stack for new people to share their ideas, divide the time between them
Amendment to the friendly amendment: have some time within the 15 minutes when a person who has signed up from a previous meeting can have a chance to share their ideas.
Is this meeting for discussing OUR visions and goals or to be collecting visions and goals that are representative?
Extremely frustrated that the process is all we’re focusing on and we’re not in tune with what’s been written, there are a lot more things to write, feels like the last three weeks of work with 200 people has been misunderstood and brushed aside
Point of Information: the way that the group shifted focus is when, two days ago, 50 people met and read that document and had small group discussions about the response to that document. The feeling from that meeting was to change the focus away from that document to expanding and bringing in more input.
Worried that we did not even get the right version of the document, and that the invitation to other general assemblies was lost.
We wanted to open the document even more and get more input, use the tech infrastructure, etc. The purpose of the group was to do more with the document, now we feel like we’re spinning our wheels a bit.
It is cool that one thing that came out of the discussion two days ago was to present an invitation to our own GA before sending it out to all the other assemblies.
We need a link to the document
It’s necessary but not sufficient to have a link, we also need hard copies for everyone. As people are waiting for the meeting to start they can prepare themselves by reading it. People really respect the document, it’s very cohesive, and we should not just scrap all that work and reinvent the wheel. Continuity is a big problem because there are different people in the group every day. Would like to volunteer to make copies and make sure they are at each meeting, but cannot take that responsibility every day so how can we make sure it will happen? Integrating new people in the group: have some time to say things about their own visions but put it in the context of we are here to work on this document.
This situation illustrates the human nature of the movement. Not by ill-will but just by discontinuity, sometimes the intent gets misunderstood or things fall through the cracks. Respect for the document that was created so far. How can we now integrate the original intent with what has happened in this meeting in the last few days, and also go forward with a document that is inspiring.
Doesn’t really understand the purpose of the invitation to the GA. Why do we ask people to come to this meeting, rather than bringing our document to the GA, have breakout groups for feedback, then compile them? This group shouldn’t be writing the document, merely compiling and representing.
Suggestion for facilitation to announce agenda items in advance so that people can plan to be there for things they are interested in.
Talking about two things: the preamble/statement, and the larger statement. Misunderstanding about the geographic scope of the statement: New York, or global? 200 people is not representative… not a big enough sample. Not randomly selected. Self-selection of this sample is a big problem. If the purpose here is to come up with a document is inclusive, but we need to have a way to draw in more people. The work so far is very good, but it’s not wise to be attached to the document as it stands, its language, etc, because we need to integrate more input, and the document will change in that process. The more we draw in a broad geographic input, the less representative of “the 99%” we will be.
The goal of the “blueprint” is to leverage your local resources as much as possible in your location for a global impact. What we focus on in this document won’t be the same as what other locations will focus on because we have different leverages and resources. It was a major concern that the document is not representative, but will never be perfect or set in stone, and will remain adaptable. We need to focus on the amending process in this group as a test run so we know how it can be amended after it’s public. For this meeting, being more inclusive may mean being less effective.
There is an issue with staying on focus, but that is also a political/control issue to keep things on focus and we need to be aware of what that means.
The focus should be empowering, not monopolizing.
Never is going to get passed with this document in the GA and that it represents OWS if it’s never been presented in the GA, with chances to contribute, there in GA. It’s disrespectful to the GA to bring it up if it has not been presented as a working draft in the GA without its contribution.
Agreed – that was not the intent. We are planning to have breakout groups and GA participation.
Reemphasize local autonomies and the freedoms of different areas to represent their own local interests, that way it doesn’t have to claim to be representative of everyone everywhere.
Talking about process is empowering everybody, Open Source/online input is great and powerful, but actual conversation is a unique way to generate visions and goals.
Stack is closed for that discussion.
Let’s set the first agenda item for next meeting, then a moment of silence.
We never finished the proposal about the five minutes sharing time. Let’s revisit that?
Suggestion to work more on the blueprint document so we can bring it to the GA for initial feedback
Suggestion to draft a process that includes newcomers and people’s visions.
Suggestion to break into two groups with those who want to stay and create those things to bring to the next meeting.
Tonight might not be the night to bring this to the GA because there is a major discussion about structure on the agenda for the GA this evening.
It’s worth having a conversation about the menu of approaches we want to take going forward. There was an understanding that would be today’s agenda item carried over from yesterday, and didn’t happen = frustration.
We will have a hard copy of the document draft, distribute to the people with a pen, while they’re waiting for the meeting to start.
No need for that to be just in our working group, it should be done in GA. So that everybody has equal access to it.
The group’s task is to take care of the document, make sure it’s inclusive, get it out to the people so that it can be inclusive.
We need to be able to share our ideas for how to get it out further?
Tomorrow’s agenda item: prepare to facilitate the spokescouncil model? (Disagreement).
Discussion of creating time to share at the beginning of meetings will be moved into the smaller group that is going to figure out the process.
Agenda: review and approve the proposed process for the meetings – 20 minutes
Get the document ready for present GA for discussion (including focusing on the financial monopoly that is not yet included) - 30 minutes preparing, then working
Facilitation tomorrow? Yes. TBD at start of meeting.