Minutes for Monday, 11-14-2011
Scribe: Ross
Facilitators: Patrick & Zocera
Timekeeper: Natasha
Stack-taker: Jayson
In attendance
- Ross
- Sumumba
- Terra
- Bill
- Zocera
- Natasha
- Ted Schulman (new member) — Introduces idea about “Occupy Earth.”
- Dorje
- Patrick Conway
- Ted Hall
- Isaac Silver
- Jayson
- Nick — I like FLO (Free Libre Open-source).
- Camille
- Catherine
- Ed
- Abe
- Raoul
- Margaret
- Harvey
Proposed agenda items
1. Bill’s proposed vision statement (11)
2. Sumumba’s idea of a purpose of the group/mission statement; Natasha seconds this (10)
3. Dorje interested in going over the consented-upon structure of the document; Terra seconds this proposal; Ross seconds this as well (10)
4. Natasha on the new meeting schedule (11)
5. Ted Hall on DIY “visioning” kit, how to dialogue with other Occupy groups (8)
6. Ted on the specific vision of Zuccotti Park sub-committee (9)
7. Terra on need to include freedom of speech, freedom from harassment/intimidation (6)
8. Ted a proposal on how to “chill” (13)
Order of agenda items by vote
1. How to “chill” (5 min)
2. New meeting schedule (10 min)
3. Bill’s proposal (5-10 min)
4. Mission statement (15 min)
5. Structure (15 min)
#1: Report-back on yesterday’s meeting
Sumumba gives report-back
Basically the meeting revolved around someone from the GU who put up a block on Jim’s proposal
Talked about how V&G could relate to the vision of the GU as well as the GA
Work closer with people in the park
Zocera elaborates on Sumumba’s point
Part of a larger discussion on the group’s purpose
Elissa was the person from the GU
#2: How to “chill”
Ted: Jayson brought this up earlier about how we are part of a beautiful awesome group
We need to build solidarity together. We have a number of personalities that come into conflict over process. We should all hang out
Bill: I think it dovetails great with the new meeting schedule
Terra: I think it sounds great. Let’s have it off-site in a bar or something
Zocera: We could do this through e-mail, not wasting group time
Margaret: I’m from Pittsburgh; I hope to align our vision with NYC’s
Nick: I’m down at the park a lot
Harvey: I’m also from Pitt. Extremely contentious there too
#3: New Meeting Schedule
Natasha: We meet too often. Not enough continuity. We don’t get much done in all this time.
(Reads proposal)
Sunday: 4-6pm
Wednesday: 6-8pm
Point of process (Abe): Facilitator needs to step back
Point of process (Ted): We should follow process
Zocera: Don’t backseat facilitate, Abe; we are opening up for questions
(Back-and-forth heated argument; Patrick calls for minute of silence)
Clarifying questions
(none)
Concerns
Sumumba: Wednesday might conflict with PoC caucus
Dorje: We need more than one day off, but we need more time than this to get writing done
Abe: Skips
Raoul: I like the variety of days
Zocera: Skips
Rich: Need to prepare by reading documents
Ted: We need to define what meetings are for…consensus
Ryan: More hours per meeting to compensate
Zocera: Don’t want it to conflict with GA or Spokescouncil
Response
Cool with moving it back to 12-3pm on Sundays
Cool with Bill’s idea of 1 day of discussion, 2 days decision-making
Will resume Wednesday (tabled)
Points of process
(chaos and confusion)
Exeunt
[disclaimers and notes]
[it was my first meeting so i flubbed a few of the names and entries for some names may not exist for some of the minutes]
[the first part I was being taken before I got there and there's a gap in between while the switch of minute taker was happening]
[spelling errors abound since perfection is not my thing, someone else can make a cleaner version of the documen]
[my comments after the fact or about physical non-verbal transactions at the time appear in these brackets]
[the "john" i refer to may have a different name. i couldn't hear it very well]
[minutes were less detailed early on and then i started typing fast]
[the ted spoken of is tedward. another ted left before part II of the minutes began]
visions and goals working group minutes nov 14 2011
ted – seconding that a third day that doesn’t have any communication with workoing groups or discussion parallel
figure out a day where there’s an hour of hang-out, an hour of chill is encouraged
accepted by the proposer [natasha]
bill – tabling the amendment for broader internet discussion consensus on dates and times
natasha won’t be back for a long time so can’t table it but working online would be good
bill – using vision as a verb instead of a noun with action instead of a description. it also became clear that there are certain words that i assumed were good words like consensus which can be time bombs because the group hasn’t consensed on what consensus is.
of course we can use “democracy” but there’s all sorts of time bomb words. i haven’t been here for the whole time. finding the words. common language. word smithing form all these viewpoints is kind of difficult.
if anybody doesn’t have a copy [of a flyer being handed out] i think it’s a great idea that we let these things sink inf or a coyuple of meetings that we propose things because there’s such a variety of movement
[quoting from the flyer as follows:]
the new york city occupy movement is visioning a new world by demonstrating the power of the people. we vision peace equality and unity in a society whgere everyone’s voice is heard. we vision a sustainbalbe future for alol formns of life on our earth mother. we carry tahis vision with a good message to all the peoples of our planet. our visioning process inclyudes but is not limited to: continyued pressure on oppresissiuve forms of economy and goverment. desmonstrating the power of a unifieid group of 3epople iwth our presence in zucotti park. creating an open living society with freeddoms for all. creating an open living document to express oureselves. looking to the natural world for answers. maintaihing a dialog with all of the occupy movements around the world. the vission and goals group is committed to frfining our vsioin statemen tiwth a wiki style doucje nt using input aform all over the world.
[not sure the name of who said this]– people outside the movement would be tripped up by “earth mother” and “natural world”. we may want to start meeting outside the group to build
[zoera, (I think?): ]i see this as being just one more document among the many documents. we have to now start getting together a process by which we can workshop these documents and hopefully synthesize them as need e. i think it’s very dangerous to say there’s a few things we are about.
john – i thought this was going to go to the GA as a vision statement
bill – some day but not now
ted – there’s a lot of great content in here i like the idea of making this about the visioning and i really like the focusing on zucotti as an exemplar laboratory our entire piece of the movement. that we really focus on that on the ground. we made a statement that went to the foley square thing. we’re supposed to be getting peoples’ feedback. it’s kind of more of a process. i think there’s great stuff in here that may feed in to how we create the structure that we may consense on immediately.
natasha – i agree that “earth mother” and “natural mother” are exlusionary. and i’m not sure i agree with using visioniong as a verb. “envisioning” instead
there are cases
for the sake of moving a document like this i like the idea of workshopping in smaller groups. i’m not sure that would be effective. i’m not sure a group this size would be able to workshop
john – take it to the GA. see if they like it enough to consent upon it. not as a vision document but as a vision statement.
facilitator – it comes up from time to time that we should do workshop style breakouts can we agree that we will go 15 minutes on the mission statement
natasha – in two minutes i just feel like having a clear statement of wher we’re going is a good idea. i think one sentence is a good idea. “visions and goals seeks to blah blah blah” for instance
facilitator – i’d like to take a temperature check on breakout groups.
zocera: i think there’s already some sort of unstated understanding of what hte mission of this group is. i think there’s value in articulating that. i don’t think anyone is prevented from devising a mission statement that we then propose to the gropu and then adopt but —
ted – there is an existing statement of purpose and i think it would be great to do breakout groups with it. i really don’t like how i’ve just noticed that when an individual comes in without a group to discuss it prior we kind of get lost in the discussion. ir eally like working in the group with a lot of time to craft stuff together. i think we should make an agenda point maybe for a future meeting that we look at the existing proposal and write different versions.
facilitator: i have a clarifying question. you mean there is one already?
ted: there might be two of them actually
will: i had a cool thought that relates to what was saying. if we could weave other ideas about what the working groups into what we’re doing it would be cool
john: i believe our mission is in there. all our work would get scrapped. i’m all for withdrawing it and making it our mission statement
i didn’t know there was something that had kind of been drafted. i think it would help us. sometimes we get stuck on “is this what this group should be focusing on” so if we had a mission statement it would allow us to know. history of the group should happen at the beginning of the meeting.
abe: the goal of this group is to create a unifying document that everyone can vouch for that they want the vision of the future to entail. that’s why it’s so difficult so we start small.
natasha: by everyone at occupy wall street do you mean new york?
abe: the vision and goals working group is a document of the NYC GA. if other people want to contribute on the internet they can but this is occupy wall street not occupy other places
tara: i think there should be a clarification. if you go on nycga.net there is a discussion going on because there’s a convoluted undrestanding of new york city occupywallstreet.org and nycga.net and occupy wall street. all on that one site there is a conversation going on and it appears that occupy wall street.org cannot articulate who they are, when they established themselves and i have emails from them that are very confusing and it has to be articulated if they’re running parallel
facilitator: we’re running short on time
ted: a recap of the mission statement of the group is to serve as a modular document that can be non-hierarchically woven to other assembly’s processes and visions. so we don’t speak on behalf of the whole movement we just create a metavision that the movement can use throughout
facilitator: i don’t make a habit of doing this, i think facilitators should facilitate but in this case i’ll say “point of information, it’s there, so it already exists” is one way but i think this is a good conversation to have and i’d like to see it continue. although i think people hate breakout groups except for me, i love breakout groups
we should not be here to reinvent the history of the group or to reinvent the wheel. we’rehere to build the history of the group. i hate to say it but all this stuff to me is not big question stuff. the big question stuff to me is coming up with the document itself.
ted – i move to hopefully get this on the agenda for the next meeting. that the existing statement being presented or what was iterated here. do we have minutes? (yes) that we could have what me and abe were saying that people could do breakout discussions and people present back what those breakout discussions yielded and people could present a strong statement of purpose.
abe: point of clarification
ted: well it’s on the minutes. that what we were just talking about
natasha: if someone who knows what the thing is could email it out to the group
facilitator: what i’m hearing is that there’s confusion about wh?? if people could online and via email try to put the history as best as they canonline that would be good