- Welcome
- Intro to purpose and length of call, agenda and date of next call Janelle
- Note-taker: please send any and all notes from everyone to info@interoccupy.org
- Brief Procedural Comments (see Call Participation Guidelines at bottom, # 5 especially)
- Communication using phone keypad (go through numbers 1-5)
- 1 Stack, 2 Twinkles, 3 Disagree, 4 Direct Respond, 5 Point of Process
- Be concise so many can speak (tone is sign to wrap it up)
- Say “check” or “I yield” after comments so we know you are finished
- Request volunteer to take notes in real time on the Agenda & Notes
- Direct Participants to the Agenda & Notes page at http://bit.ly/OFCC-Agenda-Notes and post link on Participant console
- Encourage everyone to check InterOccupy Arts FB page for call updates
- Proposed Agenda:
- Proposed/possible items:
- 1. Process for this call. 10m
- 2. Reports from FL occupations 30m
- 3. Working Group break outs 20m
- 4. Reports back 20m
- 5. Announcements 20m
- 6. Next Steps / next call 20 min
- 7. Open Discussion
- Final Procedural Call
- Show of hands for those who wish to share their contact info for the call
- Invite volunteers to join the InterOccupy Arts Call Planning Committee
- Need more Maestro tech assistants
- Request volunteers for occupations to host the Jan 25th Arts call
- Big thank you for the note takers
- Closing Comments
- Ask Participants to stack to make recommendations to improve the Call.
- At the tone, the call will formally end. Those who wish to stay and chat can remain and will be on open mic for another 30 min. This is a good time to give facilitators feedback on how the call went, ideas for next one, etc.
- Working Group Break Out Groups (some possibilities depending on interest)
- People’s Plan
- Process
- Foreclosure
- Interwebz
- ?
_________________________________________________________________________
NOTES
1. Process for this call. 10m
Keypad interface
1 – Get on stack
2 – Twinkle
3 – Down-twinkle
4 – Direct response
5 – Point of process / technical difficulty
When you’re done speaking, please say “I yield” or “check”.
There is a link to the agenda notes on the participant dashboard.
2. Reports from FL occupations 30m
Nathan, Tampa: getting ready for RNC, taking care of camp; refiing process, everyone who’d like to visit is welcome. Tried to mic check Romney, but couldn’t get in because they were in a group.
Katarina, Tallahassee: keeping up with bills in senate, and with the city commission; most bills passing will be enforced in July, dealing with privatization. Modest numbers, a group of travellers from LA came through. Keeping up with privatization of correctional facilities; march each time a bill passes through a committee. Mic checked during kids’ day at the capital. Consolidated some working groups into super working groups, meeting in sync with GAs to streamline events. Everyone’s encouraged to come out, plenty of space at encampment. Going to meet with attorneys tomorrow to renew lease; outlook is very good, got a week extension due to scheduling issues, the actual extension will be at the end of this week to the end of the month. They want a definite date for when Occupy will end.
Dana, Occupy Daytona Beach: mic checked Romney, got national attention (article in LA times, picked up all over the internet, video has over 9,000 views). Meet once or twice a week. Started a foreclosure group. No progress with the legislative people’s plan. Not camping, but working with Occupy the Land.
John, Occupy Ft. Lauderdale: foreclosure group is still going, defended 3 evictions and doing teach-ins. On Thursday, had a teach-in with 62 people in attendance, attracted some new people. Hoping to get some more people on the foreclosure email list to share information.
Betsy, Occupy Citrus: still trying to grow numbers, had some press exposure, meeting every Saturday. Decided to have positive action to support local banks during farmer’s market. Working on connecting with a group to start a collective garden. Also working on doing more outreach, and which organizations and groups to connect with.
Sylvia, Occupy Tampa: for Tallahassee, there’s a bill moving through the house, HB213, with matching senate bill, regarding foreclosures.
John, Occupy Ft. Lauderdale: was in Miami today, drove past former occupation; cleaned out, not sure where they’ve gone. Nothing about it in the news.
Scott, Occupy Ft. Lauderdale: 99% video had a clip of unrest in Miami, lots of civil disobedience. Current mainstream media focus on foreclosure and fraud. Successful eviction blocks have been picked up by the MSNBC, Huffington Post; perfect medium to expose the situation. HB213 is a major game changer; speeds foreclosure process, complicates our efforts to protect foreclosure victims. Direct action on that front will create notoriety on a national scale.
3. Major topics discussion 30m
Foreclosure activism
John: at People’s Convention, volunteered to head foreclosure coalition. Please contact for more info and to get involved. Sylvia has been organizing a Tampa location for a statewide teach-in, with a foreclosure attorney, for Occupy and other activist groups. Rally in Tally, 16 Feb; transportation available at no charge, buses moving up each side of the state to pick people up and return them home the same day; but you must register in advance to get picked up.
Sylvia: HB213 – already passed through a subcommittee 14:1. Florida Sales Foreclosure Act of 2012. Better name: Florida Citizens’ Worst Nightmare Act. Specifics can be sent out via email. If you know of groups interested in the issue, please help them contact John.
Dana: clarification of date for Rally; request for phone/email list for legislators in HB213 subcommittee.
Time extended for this topic: +5
Brit, Occupy Jacksonville: two teach-ins scheduled, 100 people invited to reserve conference room, March 13 and March 27.
Evan & Katarina: clarification of bus route – bus will be traveling to Tallahassee from the southern end of the state; not organized by Occupy, third year of the event.
Sylvia: attended the rally last year; buses stopped in Nature City, Sarasota, Tampa, among others.
Scott: 73 Occupations on conference call regarding foreclosure activism; working with Take Back the Land, who are working together to unite and coordinate groups for Spring 2012. Encourages everyone to tap into national conference call.
People’s Plan
Dana: difficulty engaging people in legislative discussion and action. Might be difficult to reach mass consensus amongst Occupations. Maybe we should deal with it by city or county individually, and work upward to the state level.
Katarina & Evan: how often will Florida meet in conventions? How can we ensure that cities/counties are working on their demands for the People’s Plan? Concerns regarding representation; need to establish process for the state, frequency of meetings, and keeping everyone informed (particularly smaller Occupations not involved in national level).
General Florida coordination – statewide and interstate organizing
Nathan: to be taken seriously, we must meet and conduct direct actions to attract media and public attention. Conventions need to happen often, and we need to be talking all the time.
Betsy: Do we have a comprehensive list, and contacts, for every Occupy in Florida?
Katarina & Evan: [direct response] Occupy is too amorphous at this point; we need a stronger foundation
Dana: important step – compiling a list of all known Occupations in Florida
Katarina & Evan: first, we need to establish a system of organization
Besty: need individual points of contact for each Occupation to coordinate statewide actions and communication.
Denise: Occupy Gainesville is hosting a South Eastern Regional Convergence of Occupations in March; OG is in contact with people in the region
Evan & Katarina: Evan is working on putting together a software package for Occupy coordination, based on wiki; rennovating to facilitate Occupy process; anyone interested in developing it is welcome to help out
Katarina & Evan: need to focus on meeting up and in what capacity will each Occupation work on statewide issues; necessary to progress in Florida, rather than working exclusively on our own local issues; we need a solid foundation, and to do that we need concrete answers to the questions we’re posing tonight
Dana: face-to-face is logistically difficult; maybe each Occupy could host monthly events for networking and coordination
Nathan: until Evan’s system is up and running, we should have conference calls every week; people who can travel should do so as much as possible–visitors in Tampa have greatly aided their process
Katarina & Evan: in the capacity of working as a unified Occupy Florida, we need more comprehensive representation
At Brit’s behest, Lars will set up a Florida Facebook page
Katarina & Evan: as OF, we need to establish our plans for progression and organization, and establishing representative goals
Betsy: asked Katarina for clarification
Evan & Katarina: unanswered question – function of coordination – establishing a separate Occupy Florida organization, or a collective Occupy Florida?
Scott: need bigger emphasis on conference calls for now, and build people and participation to get consensus on moving forward with goals; move to weekly call, and try to engage other groups throughout the state to clarify organization and moving forward
Lars will request weekly FL conference calls; we’ll try to set it up for the same time next week
Nathan: communication is crucial to coordination, but we should also focus on big, high profile, local direct actions. Perhaps organize around Oakland’s call for action.
Michelle, via Denise: F29 is a potential date for a statewide action.
4. Feedback on call, ideas for improvement
Betsy: suggested an earlier call time
Dana: likes the idea of coordinating notable statewide events. Thinks the call went well for a first call, and appreciates the team’s work.
[Clarification: no point of information sign; you can either get on stack with a 1, or direct response with 4. We can accommodate 200 people on a call, so please encourage people to join us.]
Nathan: call went well, but we should keep working with the process before we can tweak it effectively
Scott: maximize direct action; weekly call is vital. If we all reach out to our groups, and surrounding groups, we should try to max out the call to really build consensus and momentum.
Clint, Occupy Bradenton: willing to work on list occupies, and we need a list of who’s represented in the conference calls.
John: call went well, time frame for each person was good, and facilitation was fantastic; hopes, that if the time is moved, it won’t be too much earlier. State regional actions might be more realistic than statewide actions.
Lars encourages everyone to get trained with InterOccupy.org so more people can participate in facilitation and the technical side. Lars will send out a link to the meeting minutes.
Scott: great call and facilitation went well
5. Open Discussion, announcements
Scott: Linda Epstein – foreclosurehamlet.org, and on Facebook; one of the first to call out robosigning in the foreclosure industry; doing lots of teach-ins in West Palm Beach, Ft. Lauderdale and Miami; encourages everyone to check her out
Dana: technical point – link to agenda wasn’t working [Lars will work on it]
Evan & Katarina: encourages everyone to think about the scope of our operation and our goals before the next call
[Lars will set up the next call and the Facebook group; call ends at 10:50. Thank you everyone for participating, talk to you soon!]
