NOTES:
On the call:
Joan, Gordon, Walt, Larry?, JackRabbit, Andrea, Steve, Tammy, Jay,  Jovanni (sp?), Brandi,

  1. Recurring Reports – max of 3 minutes


  1. Previous General Call summary and coming call plan – Steve
  • last call had 23 people, peak was 33 low point was 16, call languishes, think we should put it to bed,
  • JR appreciates where steve is coming from, feels like monday is an opportunity for people to get involved, successful the other night when people spoke to big issues, maybe we can get more interest if we take it on as a forum to speak Occupy issues.
  • jay – we had facilitated breakouts – awesome, almost consensus that people liked that, happy to help with this just needs advance notice.
  • gordon – also likes the monday night calls
  • tammy – can we get a sense of experimentation
  • steve – fac breakouts make a lot of sense, time involved with topics and arrange people, not going to do it anymore, hot topics are more interesting. thinks monday call is boring, we had it scheduled and planned, we had five facilitators, 20 mins discussion, reality was that people liked the discussions in facilitated forum, others on the team need to step in, he’s going to step back on it though.
  • JR – problems number wise – comparing numbers now with when we first started, doesnt think the numbers are necessarily negative. propose we rotate people in the team to be responsible for the monday call.
  • walt – along the linesof JR – we should do that and find out who on this call or off the call would make the commitment, knows what the commitment is, if we do have the energy and vols then it can continue. if we don’t we should adjust accordingly (bi-weekly for example) – appreciates steve for carrying the water on this and his position
  • Tammy, turn this over to other people, do it every other week
  • Jay- TA do heavy lifting, IO there to back-up, a kind of rotating role for IO people
  • JR- Wrap this up, a proposal here?  Do what walt said.
  • Who is interested in committing to being on the rotation to do the IO part of delivering the Monday call.
  1. jay, larry, tammy, jackrabbit,  cliff volunteered to put together calls
  2. Next steps, Andrea will get dates to the names on list and they can tak it
  3. walt – volunteer should meet with steve and do a hand off and cover considerations, maintain consistency, do’s & don’ts if steve is willing to do that.
  4. Steve: There is work to do to get each call set up and we have about 30 TAs
  • Admin Subgroup – Andrea
  • FAQ, please contribute your ideas to the worksheet andrea described.  Let us make it comprehensive without going overboard.  Gordon is a life saver.  Joan and Hassab getting trained on inbox soon , with a cheat sheet from andrea too.
  1. Web-Tech Subgroup – Jackrabbit
  • JR not much to report, need to get a call schedule, no feedback for the menu schema he put out
  • Tammy, outreach willing to help, let us know
  • Walt
  • JR is willing to bottom-line the Web Tech team
  1. Outreach Subgroup – Tammy/Larry
  • Tammy
  • Cliff, larry has talking points, contact list gone around, calls being made, juicy roster on the site, forms are getting refined, a form is live now on the site, give feedback on the form to cliff and outreach team, sorry for any confusion.
  • Tammy, infrastructure is getting worked out, coc communication getting worked out,
  • Joan, Judith Butler has been contacted and will be on a call and will be a big draw to IO
  1. TA training & staffing – Steve.
  2. Larry: Dividing into geo regions:  Harrisbury, Utica, others; Intl call initial work
  • Come back
  1. Tammy: from Global Democracy Group; need people for the task force
  1. Old Business


  1. Draft Call Program Guidelines are available for broader review.  http://bit.ly/call-guidelines
  1. Future of Call Planning Subgroup – Jay
  1. Discussion on future of General Call – Larry
  2. Outreach – New tasks, Volunteers to distribute Andrea’s tasks (website postings, Calendar, Call Roster, email processing)
  3. Web Tech
  4. Future of Monday General Call


  1. New Business


  1. FAQ Decision from Andrea
  • DONE LAST WEEK
  1. National Strategy Call (not IO but of interest for lessons learned)
  • DONE LAST WEEK
  1. Acceptability of Occupy PAC call, candidate discussion & endorsements
  • JR – politics, politians, money in politics, contentious issue in the movement since the beginning, concerns with people involved with IO being associated with PACs, glad we didn’t do Occupy PAC call
  • Joan – in order to maintain neutrality – we have to be strategic in our approach, solution to publish working groups of call requesters, whose accountable for call content, better descriptions of call purposes, tighter policy in our own relationship to politics in general
  • larry – bridge the 2 gaps with specificity of politics call, from whom section as long as that’s there it has some measure of accountability inherent ability to state whether its occupy or not
  • cliff – aware Occupy PAC call? but was not publicized?
  • steve – stay clear of this issue entirely.  go for issues, subjects, stay away from dems, repubs, and politicians
  • Andrea don’t know about PAC call, how it was being publicized, we did not promote it.
  • Brandi, on a politics call, someone had started a PAC, may be that was confusing.  About politics in general, lots of opinions about all that, perhaps a general topic/call on politics
  • walt – last thursday call – boundaries for acceptable calls, what came up in the interim, call came up with fraudulent premise, in disgesting of that, we put a disclaimer, metion on website so that people know IO committed to having all calls be within our mission, we reserve the right to disinvite the call, month long inquiry with where we draw our boundaries, if a work group in a ga wants to talk about politics we have nothing that says they can’t do it.  are there certain topics off the table?
  • jay – Occupy Politics Info call – informational call, separate from Occupy PAC, has info about it – can email it encourage him to use free conference call instead of IO, dividing line between calls for movement  or not. if an organization, its own entity, its own legal structure, it has to meet its own needs, resources and contacts, all of our calls are people in the movement who want to talk about topics. politics in general: open to everyone, be non political, allow them to organize however they want to. the occupy politics info is about revolution, evolution, reform and how to work within the system.
  • steve – its difficult to draw lines, if occupy republicans want a call its difficult to cover itself, huge sensitivity in Io of its reputation. we either have to stay clear of it or let it happen but there’s no campaigning.
  • cliff – to jay – offered a possible rubric we don’t support calls requested by legal entities. 1. some legal entities that we wouldnt want to shy away from. Occupy the Dream. 2. occupy volunteers/partiicpants that our connected with outside entities.
  • joan – statement read by TA during the intro to the call that announces to partiicpants stating who instigated the call, IO is not responsible for content, everyone should be mindful that their partiicpation doesn’t require them to do anything, its just for skills and info. there are occupiers who want to talk politics coming up in elction season.
  • walt – ditto joan
  • tammy – calls on specific issues
  • steve – dilemma we’re having is the elections are coming, we will be confronted with it more and more, the calls are being hosted on the platform we have to be more specific beyond titles and statement. is it reasonable and good for the movement to discuss supporting one candidate. that’s the discussion we’re having.
  • jay – changing the name is a valid idea – we will bring it up at the next call
  • walt – to steve – joan’s idea of a disclaimer as a good practice has merit, if you have a string energy about this, call for a proposal from anyone if you feel stringly about doing something about it. to jay – great to rename the call, nagging discomfort with you being part of being IO and then instigating the call, hard to discern if you as an IO took the initiative to create the call. share that i have a mild uneasiness, it seems that that call was not born from the process
  • cliff – move forward with the conversation, support walt’s sentiments, coming up with proper time place andmethod to have that conversation
  • tammy – statement of autonomy about supporting candidates, specific political parties
  • jay – understands the uneasiness of it. we can talk off line from it – i hear most of the controversy and conflicts
  • larry – moving forward -
  • suggest, we rename the call,
  • make the disclaimer to be safe,
  • we add from whom,
  • add 45 minutes on the agenda in political and social boundaries of IO call requests.
  • also take up the dynamic/behavior that Jay takes  personal initiative to organize calls that he thinks the movement is wanting to have conversations about.
  1. Maintaining our neutrality as IO
  • tammy – put this on the agenda last week – harmless comment on monday night about non violence someone took offense, issue its controversial everywhere, we need ot be careful as facilitators not to make comments while we are facilitating. people start criticizing IO as spreading propaganda.
  • hard block live -
  • walt – goes back to last item, pertinent here too. according to larry’s proposal talk in 2 weeks about things.
  • jay – organizing should be a freedom, if people want to work with people want they should be able to, that should be part of our system and the movement, allow people to organize
  • JR – as an org, as member so fIO, its inappropriate for us as workers at IO to push the boundaries, one of its greatest success is its maintenance of neutrality, we should consider at length, important to remember  that we go to our local occupies, working groups, deal with things through them. very easy to see how perception of IO as not being neutral can grow quickly and could be damaging. its a fundamental issue.
  • joan – reiterate the point of that as call facilitators – we have to be more neutral in the tones we take with people on calls. there’s a lot of paranoia about co-option, encourage broader conversation
  • jay – personal feeling about neutrality in opinion and in organization, orgs can’t tell people what they can and cannot do.
  • brandi – can be a balance found, all of occupy is trying to figure out the boundaries with violence and poltiics.
  • joan – for the broadest possible partiicpation, possibly idea that IO call planning members can’t request calls. not trying to focus on jay, questions raised when nate left – he resolved the situation for us, we still have to talk about politics as it surrounds neutrality, we have never accepted a donation, be proud of that, we don’t turn down calls, we give the platform for people to talk about difficult issues
  • jovanni – i came with a call with ethnic studies, what does it mean for people not to request a call.that’s how i got recruited. people need to come to IO feeling like its a safe place. we have to feel safe and inclusive, fair gender balance on calls.
  • steve – i made a comment about not aligning with anarchists and it set off mark and other people got alarmed.
  • larry- its not a matter of comment, we do not weigh in on these issues when we are facilitating.
  • JR – clear that as facilitators – we have to get out of the way – the call just has to happen. when we are associated with IO – the things we say represent IO, its important to keep in mind. distinction between individuals and as IO.
  • walt – IO clear internal boundaries about what we can and can’t do. we can’t initiate calls, and cannot speak our personal opinions when we are facilitating or representing IO, having boundaries within IO and being consented on. if people want to pursue initiatives they can do it by resigning from IO to pursue there personal initiatives and opinions, would like larry to draft something.
  • jay – likes the idea of guidelines – i would propose the non discrimination statement be moved up,
  • TA guidelines
  • membership guidelines
  • tammy – travelling, there are a whole lot of anarchists in this movement, what’s made this movement interesting is its diversity – fighting for credibility of IO and personally. we have to be really careful with this. various working groups i’m in, people come to me to request
  • walt – IO call partner,


  1. Joan – IO Sponsored calls with academics/Hard block live
  • spoke to ian, mikal kamil launch HBL, tshirt, radio and Tv show, taking mp3s of our calls, he claims to be part of global square, taking good parts of the movement, mining them for content, edit the mp3s and do his hard block intro. 4 profit enterprise. ian didnt have a lot of info. he claimed he didn’t know anything about it when he moderated chmsky call.
  • walt – question where do you stand issuing point of clarification
  • joan – lend curiousity and credibility to something when you call it out before it happens, emailed people asking them about hard block, they knew about it but didn;t want to stand its way – skeptical about, not actively prusuing it. confuson with OWSJ, of relationship of his content to their content. waivers need to be signed in order to use other people’s content. we need to mindful how we interact with other entities.
  • jay – mikal talked with him
  1. Emergency response plan for IO
  • NEXT WEEK
  1. IO newsletter
  • NEXT WEEK
  1. International Subgroup
  • larry – people’s assembly network – 2 calls
  • tammy – good way to build our team, onboarding 3 or 4 people
  • walt – impressed with osborn has done with action lab, direct action network evolving and formulating, using that kind of network, hosting PAN on IO, what tech to use that on, set something up that is not IO. give it good time on an agenda. IO becoming a point of contact for the rest of the world, providing channels of communication, would like international function to be on next thursday’s call. would like it to be ad hoc. mission of occupy, it should be a regular agenda item so that we can have input on the scope of Io’s participation
  • tammy – when we talked about this in person in NY this was something we felt like we should do.
  • jay -
  • cliff – friendly amendment to larry’s proposal to form intl subgroup, temporary subgroup, 6 week shelf life, walts concerns resonated with me, its unclear what IO’s role would be, it would be made of IO and non-IO, attend calls with larry, figure out what reasonable role for IO.
  • larry – subgroups are live as for as long as its useful.

 

STRAW
larry’s proposal
forming a international subgroup
passed

andrea proposal
approve request to add “FROM WHO” on call links.
passed unanimously and 2 abstentions.

check outs.