• There were 79 people on the call.
  • Call Host:  Occupy Boulder
  • Call Facilitators:  Andy Rose of Occupy Boulder & Na of Occupy Oakland
  • Maestro Board Manager(s):  Steve Letsfixit & Andy Rose
  • Note Taker(s) :   Maya Solis <agent99ows@gmail.com>
  • port closure in Nov. want to go from occupy 1.
  • 0 to occupy 2.0 police raids 1:30 am shopping carts with corporate names
  • richard occupy san francisco made prior comment
  • josh hayes this week in occupy, amazing amount of activity action in Oakland
  • this week in occupy will take photos of the movement and release it to media and any other outlet skipping the big media
  • send any photos of the port shutdown alot of activity around the country
  • 4pm east coast?deadline update occupy santa cruz
  • 28 union members and council members on their side and then a group of people
  • went and occupied th wells fargo, city has now pulled out support. removed dome to keep people warm. curfew on free speech in santa cruz 10pm-10pm
  • authur klien has mic now 3 things to report on persuit of happiness santa monica college, hes film maker
  • pursuitofhappiness.com He will be talking about the occupy movement and the students loved in. hes a streamer occupyjournalist. he wants to know if he can stream a general call. occupy the holidays is his next idea, all religions together
  • andy any response? great question, making send inf
  • baheed brown has mike occupy princeton, mic checks at morgan chase gold man sacks
  • occupyprinceton.net
  • martin has mic occupyboston occupyboston.org
  • learning to use the tools, city wide town hall meeting historic, direct democracy for the city of boston.
  • lance national radio broadcast network 48 hours of broadcast for occupy sites, commuinication 2 occupations sites nonprofit training legal services media training, seat on national broadcast board working groups being formed phillly denver sf boston occupybroadcastmedia.com?info@
  • tammy dec 18th ny chase university training day 2-7 vision conversation where we are going from here occupy.org
  • scott martindale occupymer, hudson wilkens 1st meeting
  • jordan created action 3 prong petiotion for bank reform non demanding revenue act, needs GA support, working on it now, out after holidays bankreform
  • jennifer harney occupyLASVEGAS clarification of dc action last week, struggle within the movement, have permit for area that they are occupying, county is now controlling

amy johnson

  • national conference madison w aug. sept economic want support from the movement rounttable discussion how to get coccupyeducated.orgoncrete action for occupy mov.
  • bryan practical _occupyeducated.org, 6 required books, authur interview q&a occupyeducated roud show, encourage occupations get involved looking 4 volunteers
  • matt occupyclairemont 1st month of occupation city counsel ruled they are not breaking any rules. tea party group is coming tomorr 630 need asupport occupyclaremont.org
  • charles question camping permits occupysaltlake city showdown with police
  • chad moore DR occupykansas city found clause if too poor cant afford permits the city will pay
  • johnasen alleducationmatters connect more with occupy colleges financial resource freelance journalism @cjohnasen
  • Jay global esl assembly meeting planning meeting global day of action agreement needs to be 4 months out, may 12 could be date multi language format date still open, planning meeting sunday thurs 7, 7upc, friday at 6 isirc, sunday, 7utc, global tech meeting 19th push global
  • johnherring has mic from sacramento student employess of calstate excited innteroccupy
  • 99% declaration the99.org list of reviences gather july 4 in philly delegates from congress districts to come together and put sumthing together to go to congress, new political party
  • marget ocupydc national  m
  • Notes
  • Walt GA Structure design Proposal in works in Portland.  Anybody Interest in a GA to GA Call on this subject. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PE84MmDj_KoRBtGZ3CmgAdsQaf1UusLKPzFFLw-j6j4/edit
  • Gina
  • Ben yield
  • Chris NDAA  Action  senators offices Facebook page Occupy1867  occupy
  • http://interoccupy.org/december-17-candlelight-vigil-honoring-mohammed-bouazizi-3-months-of-ows/
  • Na Brief Procedural Comments (see Call Participation Guidelines at bottom, # 5 especially)
  • Summer Ning siteglobal action lots of occupation
  • summer invite mic check updated site social occupyhope.ming.com social networking similar to face book all options noteably general sswemblies online submit proposals have discussion interactive GA, real deal people created come be a part occupyhope.neg.com
  • rhonda occupytexas reaching out texas occupations united occupy unitng the occupations wants to know more, call 972-948-5657,
  • scott martindale, hudson, teachin this friday future actions
  • amy johnson annoucement madison national conference economy 706-814-1129 need volunteers discuss local economy and regonal economy
  • occupy newyork state DR occupycongress seperate action, jan 17 in DC facebook searech occupy congress statewide hubs for direct access for each occupation in the state reaching out for support for occupynewyorkstate.org click contact communications teamwill give admin access
  • brent occupysf election reform opensource paper ballot voting election reform, contact
  • chad moore occupykansascity economic crime scene reenact being performed  dec jazz funeral for socual safety net jazz funeral down the streets biggest building kansas city where all corporations are
  • tammy DR action to interoccupy, name change, occupyDC was not organized by ows
  • lauren DR occupycongress no id on facebook page, no GA has endorsed that action affentity , stradgey page organization need more, occupy de been plannying for months to go to DC making mistakes actions splinter the movement want the occupycongress to identify herself
  • auther klien DR July 4th kind of thing for occupycongress wants to bring everyone to congress o
  • andy
  • media press kit any response?
  • breakout groups
  • small occupyoakland fund raising  V for vendetta at Grand lake theater in Oakland
  • occupy pueblo regional gatherin g dec18 occupy denver occupydenver.org
  • small group breakout topics
  • consensus vs decision
  • privacy vs sharing email address 6 on stack
  • auther klien interesting in fund raising for renegotioation
  • b
  • occupycongress action reformist movement
  • bill gellermin group on stradegy for movement what is it, going in different direction, key to stradegy is contact, profile the contacts, what is our vision?
  • walt roberts general assembly spokes councel effective conversations
  • lance national broadcast network denver chi boston la
  • occupynewyorkstate networking with nearby occupy groupds support
  • summer change?
  • candlelight vigil for mohammed dec 17
  • charles bernard emergency repsonse networking with preexsisting organizations
  • chad moore breakout occupy the railroads one day strike
  • chris shameless dec 14 national defense authorization act info on the bill cordinating for sumthing
  • KC breakout for stepping back looking at  public relations powerful movement for marketing OWS
  • gina direct particaipationb democracy constitution
  • rixchard osf PR side of things getting message out to the public sent email to interoccupy
  • brent turner election systems and reform
  • JJ combine 2 or 3 stradgey and oped pieces out churn them out send them out to newspapers
  • process 5 topics only 13 sugestions press #2 on pad paraphrases
  • count twinkles #2 please vote
  • 1st consensus vs decision making 10 tinkles
  • 2 managing email lists interoccupy/ privacy vs sharing email addresses
  • 3 national gathering 7-4 in dec or philly
  • 4regional organizing expert state conferences
  • 5evolution of movment revolution stragedy conversation bigger picture
  • 6national broadcast network occupyfm
  • 7not reinviting the wheel, using exsisting groups share resources
  • 8direction action re railroad networks RRyards, RRtracks
  • info@interoccupy if you would like to help out
  • 9marketing and public relations mechanics winning hearts and minds editorials like the other side does
  • 10 direct democracy
  • 11 election systems and reforming voter suppression paper ballots verifying voters
  • breakout groups topic winners national conference , revolution or reform, marketing and public relations group, not reinvi
  • ning the wheel, state organizing press group number breakout for 15 minutes 1 consensu decison making
  • 2 atinal gathering DC/Philly
  • 3 what kind of movement rev. or refor movement stradegies
  • 4 state organizing no reinviting the wheel
  • 5 marketing and PR for occupy movement stradegy
  • if you dont pick a room one will be picked for you iof you want to go to a different room press 5. appreciates patience be consences of each other 1 person report back 1 to
  • stand by
  • groups of 6 groups of 5
  • dennis kKC fort collins lorenzo from davis ca andy? richard from SF Marthas vineyard
  • richard read email interoccupy maybe jays points about the marketing national public media occupy channel KC from fort collins marketing public perception of occupy broklyn lots of support we need to try  to put thing ways to get people together
  • andy talk to the woman trying to get into this room
  • andy is putting her in the marketing group
  • chris marketing jays idea on marketing PR thought it would be one group
  • ash? marketing and pr group
  • marketing taking all the data from all of the occupy from meeting minutes no twitter trending analisis take all the info and contact media nationally media sytem built one official communication for the media, no fact checking from media you cant be a part of it. take all the topics, 1st thing media hears are the top 5 topics, you  notes that interrup
  • when finished say that facilitation meetings, jumping in, response, no disrupting group
  • complilation on what is being talked about working group nation wide good ways bad ways how the public reacted thru website, best practices liked, say check when down, occupysf main problem, no articles, that educate the public, national sunday morning  spoke articles being written tv shows focus on homeless and educate the public on the m ovement in sf he feeds occupy meals taking the feeding process out to the city of SF they just do it. offering free medical services, anything you need, what is the message
  • jay and walt wanna go somewhere lorenzo in davis  walt can you hear me, davis is kind of split encampment and then campus event happen, ficialtating groups longer term visioning for where we want to go, what do we want to create  a set of  1 page docs that thell the truth but are not complicated but could get results, things happening on the weekend, central park can be a meeting place, letters to the editor, what does the movement care about?
  • GG occupy santa rosa website educational occupysantarosa.org go to learn tab at top, 4 drops news and anaylsis 3 dozen articles bill moyers business cards with website that high lights news and anaylsis, something smae inexpensive and familiar, a quick reference guide to direct people to the website press democrate newpaper hard time
  • figure out how to go around local mediacompliation of all media take anything we have copy and paste, put them on your website put them anywhere
  • think tanks person? releasing certains words to the press, anything we can do to work together occupysantarosa, oped published on blog on wall street journal putting together a news paper in this area, anybody, compact legnth of article rules for opeds, 550-660 words, shorter the better general guidelines occupysantarosa.org not new website, infastructure, can we echange emails and continue discussions richard
  • staks summer has mic rev vs reform direct democ consensus money out of politics possibly no money in politics, direct democray weed out too much info on proposals 100 people behind you before it can go befoe  the grpoup any issues facing go before the group. hand number 3
  • reports in order
  • gina has mic
  • step forward as spokes man for group
  • stacks for next group ingred thoughts on facilitaion better way to hold GA and what people are doing GA spokes consel how to better conduct GAs no blogging block process, required to work with comittee majority rules is not clear percentage didnt have 80 or 70 % every ones voice heard vs
  • consensus vs decision
  • tammy national declation thru any GAs afinity group different democracy respect for proces  many GAs on board, guidelines? decisions? election season, national decisions pass a proposal for a national GA
  • 7-4 giving tammy address nabout the national agenda hit #4, giving her the email address
  • martin marketing group, what are the no splitting up came to interconnected education connection all groups on general theme
  • JJ marketing public relations trying to build relationships with the local media, media is owned by 1% terms of reaching out good actions for peoples needs educate the people occupysantarosa.org public eduicational resources news and ayalisis articles there on the site aobut the issues business cards with website to hand out in the public.
  • jennifer rev vs reform revolution of the way we see ourselves and the way we see the world, view of the whole world in the minds of everyone, expolsion of all togethef transformation, reform revolution of the mind new world view. closing
  • show of hands share info to group
  • will share list host occupations for next 3 weeks 3 fresh occupations interested in being one of the host for an occupations for the call you can olearn about the occupation and the mastro system
  • walt agenda annoucement mistro tech assistant hit #2: tech assistant3
  • last item thanks to agenda is posted on your counsel, anyone who made annoucements please post them on the annoucements page
  • anyone who would like to make a comment about the call in general step up and make a comment send thoughts to info@interoccupy
  • summer working groups, someone to speak, nobody speaks anybody from the working groups speak up, non violent revolution
  • bill dont mean it as critique rought spots and cluimsyness but we are all creating something new for our society
BREAKOUT GROUP – GA PROCESS AND STRUCTURE
Portland Oregon 12/11/11The Process and Structure Committee met for the first time this morning (12/10/11) (with nine people).  We mainly discussed the meeting structure proposal.  The revised version is attached.  I will be presenting it on Tuesday (SC) and Wednesday (GA).  We are really excited about this proposal and feel that it provides the types of meeting with the frequency that is appropriate to the movement.  Let me know if you have any comments, concerns or questions.  And please come and Tuesday and Wednesday to support this so we can move to a more sustainable schedule both for our team and our movement.DavidProposal to change and mix meeting types and stylesRationale:
Making sure that our meeting structures and styles are truly meeting the needs of our new and growing movement is important and will require ongoing evolution. Many factors including: decreased participation, less dynamic discussions, facilitator capacity, weather and the holiday season leads us to believe that this is an appropriate time for some changes.

Other occupations nationwide are having similar problems and are working to make changes that will facilitate more space for open discussion, connection and affinity building, instead of process heavy, decision making meetings that sometimes stifle new ideas that need a more open space to foster. In light of this the Process and Structure Committee proposes to change the mix of different meeting types and styles. This will not change the time and frequency of meetings. What will change is what happens during the meetings.

* Please keep in mind that this will be an ongoing process. The Process and Structure Committee was recently formed and is open to all.  It will continue to look at the big picture questions about how to meet the needs of our movement through process. Tonight’s proposal is designed to meet the immediate needs that have come up, in a timely fashion, with more to come as both our process and our movement evolves.

* This proposal was announced at the General Assembly on 12/5 and the Spokes Council on 12/4.  It was brought for a decision to the Spokes Council on 12/6 and tabled for further discussion.  All were invited to the 12/11 Process and Structure Committee meeting where the proposal was further evolved.

Schedule:
MON – Agenda Setting,
Proposal Announcement
and Discussion
TUE – Movement Building
Open Forum
WED – Open
THU – Spokes Council
FRI – Cultural Events
SAT – General Assembly
SUN – Idea Discussion Circle

At risk of spam, here is 10 reasons I LOVE the meeting restructure proposal!

  1. Attendance at meetings has become so random. Basic continuity of discussions, central for growth and momentum of efforts, is at an all time low.
  2. There is not – at least by historical standards – what feels like a “quorum” to make decisions on behalf of the movement at many recent GAs and SCs. Having 1 / week of each, should work wonders to restore quorum at these meetings.
  3. Most of the 99% cannot attend several OP meetings each week! This proposal allows people with families, work obligations, a social life, other political work, etc. to choose the meetings they would like to attend by focus and content rather than “rolling the dice.” As it is now, it is very difficult to engage in OP decision making in a consistent way unless you are spending 10-20 hours / week.
  4. Having a proposal announcement day will dramatically increase the ability to publicize what is being proposed at the GA and SC each week, fixing a long standing problem.
  5. Having meetings focused on brainstorming and evolving proposals creates a much needed space and flow for proposal evolution outside of the GA and SC meetings, making better proposals which take less time at GAs and SCs and that involve more people in their creation and development!
  6. Right now most committees do not have enough people to follow basic practices of how a SC is supposed to work – there are “committees of 1″ due to inability for most committee members to make 3 SC meetings / week, violating the spirit and the letter of the consensus model we agreed to.
  7. As a practical matter, the facilitation team [and possible peace and safety?] simply cannot keep up with our duties at 6 meetings / week. Furthermore, meetings are better when the facilitation team is well prepared and can divide up roles more. This would allow all of our GAs and SCs to have much stronger facilitation teams.
  8. The GAs and SCs are constantly a scheduling conflict with other occupy spin off projects – the various action spokescouncils, the neighborhood GAs, and committee meetings would not be forced to conflict, making scheduling of cross-occupy collaborations much easier. As it is now, many people involved in occupy spin off projects have little or nothing to do with the “central” occupy meetings anymore.
  9. As is continually voiced, not everyone likes the GA style of discussion or SC style of discussion. This proposal gives more prominence to alternative ways of discussing things that many people have really enjoyed and to experiment with alternate models.
  10. Separating proposal announcements from GAs and SCs will allows GAs and SCs to focus nearly their entire agenda on decisions and coordination.
BREAKOUT GROUP – GA & Facilitation
Jay in Stanford

Walt Roberts Portland

Robert from Austin

Leo Philly

Susanna Port Townsend WA

Jeanelle Occupy K Street Washingon DC

Misha Occupy Toronto

Inga Pittsburgh

What is going on in people’s group

Robert: looking for miccheck.com. Looking to make GA more inclusive…cloud GA.

Leo: GA in Philly….has to be a better way to have decisions made…to be more efficient.

Misha: question about blocks and consensus…blocks used as stall maneuver…how can move forward when people unwilling to move forward.

In DC: daily participation was decreasing in GA’s and facilitation team is having decision-making days and other times are for performances, movement building, etc. Having stack is not the only decision-making tool available. They are looking at other tools in consensus building.

Consensus is not an either/or proposition…they are using breakout groups.

 

Ways to GA better

Janelle: organizing neighborhood assemblies trying to focus more on the community….GA does not work due to bogging down of process…looking at a hybrid

Walt: Stucture and Process has a week cycle with GA and spokes council proposal for a document for ideas.

Leo with Philly does not recognize blocking, they take a straw poll when a block is introduced.

Jeanell: in DC when someone blocks, they are required to work with the committee they are blocking to have their needs are addressed…not sure how it works when the block is not addressed successfully.

In another occupy location: When a proposal is brought up and there doesn’t seem to be an immediate consensus, they break out into smaller groups and have a discussion then reconvene…this seems to allow for most issues to be resolved.

Jay is working on a model which works with smaller groups but there is a concern about scalability into larger groups

 

Consensus wisdom:

Majority rules not sure of the percentage.

Having everyone’s voice heard is not the same as having all the needs heard.

Is there a quorum everyone is using? No one aware of this.

Developing Ideas in Portland is less about consensus first.

 

BREAKOUT GROUP – MARKETING & PR
marketing and PR

ParticipantsGen - WeAllOccupy.com website (new landing page - YouAreOccupy.com - to non-occupying people – inviting)Martin – Occupy Boston (part of the media team)Cryn – founder & exec., All Education Matters, activist, freelance journalist

Cryn: freelance journalist, write several outlets, occupy – written about it for various places, etc.
Misinformation?Gen: Yes. One of the dangers – watching the whole the movement, and tracking everybody. Stressful. So simple what we need to do, and people aren’t doing it. Things to connect 99% – eat, place to sleep, etc. Connect us all. We need to connect on us all. People are working hard to fragment, and exclude people. Key – do that other issue but not occupy issue; so straight forward. We agree to do it, but don’t not co-opting, but don’t require that everybody believe in that particular thing. We need to keep the big tent.
Get that out there – not sure
Simple – stay together

Martin: Uh, I think that something like that more people on too. Having something like that would help. Here in Boston, same issue of . . . getting to point (interrupted). We having that issue in Boston, we are trying to think of a few core issues. Folks who have their own things they want to push. GAs that gather everyone, and then allowing folks to meet each other. We agree on this issue to be a big deal.

I feel like, uh, we had a meeting tonight, and the main issue we were all thinking about how everything is so interconnected, and yet our economy has become fragmented. We don’t see . . . create so many other problems. The solutions we are aiming at are more like offshoots and topical things to do, but main issues and main problems, and we have lost sight how we things are interconnected. Can’t get things by itself, but fix plenty of other things in order to fix one things. We all basic things, but just how do we communicate that one thought . . . for more PR strategy, I think, handing out these . . . . [pamphlets] Talking points and sending them out to editors and for press releases and keep that in the papers. So people are reading on a constant basis – all the different issues. Definitely way – we are bringing up a lot of diff. issues, might think we have no issues or aim, but our singular issues is that everything is so interconnected, we can’t just fix one thing. Single issue politics has proven to not work.

CCJ: Introduce Debtors’ Strike – how it’s all a systemic problem etc. Student loans, housing problem – related to the banks, and so forth
What do you think, Gen?

Gen: I am not sure. Student debt with an action? Affinity groups show up to support – enough of occupy movement, it could be an occupy thing, and it could be action about the Fed, and enough affinity groups that supported ending the Fed, they would come and support. But anybody who didn’t want to come, wouldn’t come . . . no one would say Fed is a good thing. There are other issues are not simple. Human rights, what you think are human rights – huge issue. Palestine will split the movement. Period. If what you are doing is going to fracture movement, you need to do it separately. It seems that simple, but I don’t know if it is. I don’t want it to fail. How do we help it? How do we nurture it?