Event:2017/04/20 Delegates Meeting

Omni Delegates' Meeting - 20 April 2017 7pm-9pm

Agenda

 * Introductions, Meeting Roles, and Delegates Count [10 minutes]
 * Announcements [5 minutes]
 * Bans [5 minutes]
 * Working Group Report-Backs [15 minutes]
 * Member Collective Updates (10 minutes)
 * Proposal: Safer DIY spaces as OC fiscally-sponsored project - project model [15 minutes]
 * Proposal: GCEA to put a padlock on the doors to the classroom [15 minutes]
 * Discussion: Omni Presence at Temescal BID meetings & events [15 minutes]

Introductions
Introduce yourself: Name; Preferred Pronoun; Affiliation
 * Laura
 * Marcus - ABDC, working groups
 * Isaac - DIY
 * Jenny - sudo, working groups
 * Lori
 * Mary Ann
 * Robb
 * Ken
 * Helen
 * Julian - BAPS, comms / sec
 * Almaz - GCEA, commons/finance/cleaning

Meeting Roles

 * Facilitator/s: Ken
 * Explanation of hand signals: "deaf applause", "raised hand", "point of process", "direct response"(wildcard), etc.
 * Stacktaker: Lori
 * Timekeeper: Jenny
 * Notetaker/s: Laura, Jenny
 * URL of this pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/omninom
 * Vibe Reader: Marcus
 * Next meeting's facilitator(s):

Delegates

 * ABDC: Marcus
 * BAPS: Julian
 * CCL: Ken
 * CSC: Mary Ann
 * FNB: Helen
 * GWS: Lori
 * LL: Jabari
 * Sudo: Robb
 * TIL: Inactive
 * Quorum: 8/8 active collectives

Announcements (5 mins)

 * Ken: June 11th Sunday Temescal Street Fair requesting Omni participation.
 * Ken: May 20 event by Kat Harris talking about mushrooms
 * Lori: Passes card around to promote event w Maryse Narcisse benefit for  Haiti Emergency Relief
 * Almaz: 1st monthly Tues eve cleanup! several folks worked on stuff or volunteered for tasks. Will email the date of the next Tuesday cleaning at 5:30. There is a lot of stuff accumulating. We will write notes on items and then throw away if no one removes.
 * Helen: Who owns the stuff in the basement pantry next to heater?
 * Robb: Some stuff is Omni event stuff, some useful stuff, some transplanted from behind the ballroom bar.
 * Laura: will see what's worth keeping and what's not
 * Marcus: thinking about organizing another OMni wide yardsale/cleanout in 4-6 weeks.

Bans
None! Yay!
 * Add to list of people asked to leave

Building & permits
Meetings: Mondays Evenings (contact the list)
 * This group needs help; https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/building
 * Robb: no one showed upt o last meeting. I cleaned out utility closest. RObb and Lynn paintin behind the bar.
 * Jenny: there is a gallon of DR Bronner's sal suds in the cleaning suplies closet. SHould be used for all cleaning as it is low scent
 * Ken: Building is working on putting together budgets for different project
 * Laura: Fundraising did send a grant in to Resist for the wheelchair bathroom for just under $4000

Challenging Dominant Cultures
Meetings: Second and Fourth Thursdays at 5:30? Want input to choose regular meeting time
 * Julian: some of the discussion that's been happening under the auspices of the ad hoc Security Culture working group seems to fit the bill of this on-hiatus standing working group. to keep the convos going, Julian & Steve would like to invite others to join them in reviving the Challenging Dominant Cultures working group
 * Helen: WHat are the issues you will be discussing?
 * Julian: WHat are methods of non-police reliant self-defence? What does it mean to have bans be a consistant part of OMni proactie when we may be opposed to particular kinds of exclusion?
 * Jenny: Previously they developed the safer space policy.

Commons
Meetings: Second and Fourth Thursdays at 6pm
 * This group needs help:
 * https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/commons
 * https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/booking
 * Jenny: Briefly, commons brought in $7500 iin March, saving us financially
 * Lots of event request
 * /calendar/ has been changed - is the main wordpress for requests and contracts. /occupy/ is not

Communications
Meetings: First and Third Sundays at 5pm
 * Hopefully there wil be a newsletter by May 1st. Send an email to comms@omnicommons with items

Finance
Meetings: Mondays at 6pm
 * Laura - OC finally has all its insurance squared away - all policies are now with Brignole & Ghiri
 * Laura - big meeting on Monday, 7pm on May 8th that consolidate finance, fundraising & building to make plans for
 * Omni Commons Budget: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rvkMc5lmd8PovoViNLdvlrv0tSyvrH7iB0SmGqaFec8/edit#gid=1501592721
 * Still running at a deficit of ~$5k/month through July. We are not solvent yet!

Fundraising
Meetings: Mondays at 1:00pm
 * Laura: Working on the JMK Innovation Prize which is $175K over 3 years
 * Almaz: Working on fundraising events, in tandem with Commons
 * Mary Ann: Sent in another grant today (Chiapas Support COmmittee) - Akonadi foundation - includes money for omni for rent for a big event, as well as A/V tech (pats Robbs shoulder)
 * Almaz: Similar to GCEA - we're broke, working on 4-5 events, including events @ omni, working w/ liblens as well

Welcoming
Meetings: Mondays at 5:00pm (may change in the future depending on people's needs)
 * Marcus: Welcoming WG reborn - to roll in to manage the front hall and how we engage the public using the front hall. Discussing cleanup, decoration, keeping the doors open w/ door shifts & donation-based cafe as well as the stage
 * To read more about it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wTfUaQPNBKX8VbwLll6mvRnMrOoY6qpsc9BoQURfZ7o/edit
 * Marcus: This Sunday want to commit to opening the door from 11-5, manning donation-based test run cafe
 * Julian: Suggest using the signup sheet clipboard

Member Collective Updates
What is going on with your collective? What are you working on? What have you accomplished? Any events coming up? Any difficulties you are encountering that you need help with?

ABDC

 * Solidarity Forever. Make your own May Day protest art April 29 1pm - 4pm

CSC

 * we finally figured out what we're doing. We're going to give classes called Waffles and Zapatismo. Discuss zapatista theory, what we've learned from them. Starts 5/20:
 * On the 11th, book presentation on Zapatista Negra, a collaboration between Zapatista and Black Panther Art: https://omnicommons.org/calendar/events/zapantera-negra-book-presentation-video-talk/
 * In JUne we're doing a report on the COnstituent Assembly in Mexico. Indigenous people are creating a parallel governemnt and we are going to report on the process of putting this together, and people who were on our delegation will give a report back.

GWS

 * Womens Unpaid Work Bloc - meeting Tuesdays at 7pm in advance of May 1st
 * Chelsea Manning released from prison on May 17th. HAving an event

SUDO

 * Sudo is having ongoing 5 Minutes of Fame event every 1st Wednesday at 7 in the BAllroom or Disco room. ANyone is invited to present their project through so far it has been very tech oriented.
 * Someone donated a vinyl cutter and rolls of vinyl. In basement.
 * Almaz - what do you guys actually do and how do you serve the community? Jenny answers
 * Trying to get a load of laptops donated from a tech person in SF

Liberated Lens

 * 2 film nights coming up. This Friday film on Standing ROck and a regular film night as well on Tuesday <--oops, this isn't accurate! We have a film this coming Sunday (April 30th) and another on Friday May 5th, which is the one about Standing Rock. :) ~gamma
 * Working on a project w/ First They Came for the Homeless, working on grants to get that project funded

GCEA

 * June 3 - Violence Prevention; June 17 - Immigration issues; June 24 - Fundraising events
 * Trip to Africa, 4-6 youths to Eritrea in August, crowdfunding onn GoFundMe
 * Lib Lens is teaching GCEA youth about video production and ABDC is teaching them how to do screen printing

BAPS

 * ongoing writing group every Monday @ 7:30; started a new class slowly gathering participants - Practical Research Toward Abolishing Racialization (3pm on Sundays). Focusing on a study of white nationalist organizations. Talk to Julian or Steve.
 * Jabari: er, title/acronym issues when you're discussing racialization
 * Julian: Grant starting anouther class possibly Foucault, generally philosophy-oriented

FNB

 * Sunday is the 48th anniversary of Peoples Park. Party and food all day - 11am - 6pm - see https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2017/04/17/18798487.php

CCL

 * New class n plant tissue culture. New grow lights installed.
 * RVC and insulin group still cranking
 * Bay Area Applied Mycology doing lots of things, recently grew Corticepts, traditional chinese medicinal mushroom growing on brown rice
 * Lab getting more used now that we've upgraded everything

Proposal: Safer DIY Spaces group as OC fiscally-sponsored project - project model
via Jenny, submitted 4/20:

Last night I met with the Safer DIY Spaces group, which the delegates approved to provisionally fiscally sponsor under a grant-making model back in December.

They have been doing incredible work (providing consulting and walkthroughs for dozens of spaces in danger as well as participating in shaping future code compliance policies at the city-wide level) and have many more spaces they're still working on. However, the grant-making model of fiscal sponsorship has been rather unwieldy (they need to submit a grant request to allocate their own funds, which Finance then signs off on, then Finance has to write checks out to them, etc etc).

This proposal is to fully fiscally sponsor Safer DIY Spaces as a project-based model, enabling them to write checks and make debit card purchases from their own subaccount (which is where their funds have already been going).

Check signers on this account are to be Isaac Amala and Sinuba Dreem.

This sponsorship agreement would be applicable retroactively to April 1st, 2017.

If we could pass this tonight, that would be wonderful and enable them to access their own funds in a more timely fashion, as much of their work is time-sensitive (eg prepping spaces for surprise inspections, life-safety improvements, etc)

If you have any further questions, the DIY group can be reached at: saferdiyspaces [AT] gmail [DOT] com (cc'd)

Discussion

 * Helen: What are the downsides?
 * Marcus: If you were to be sued, would that come back to Omni?
 * Isaac: We have NDAs, consulting with Jesse re: liability issues,
 * Laura: re: liability issues, they would be covered under our insurance, but should probably contact B&G and add DIY activities to our policy
 * Isaac: We're working with contractors and architects who are also at risk to lose their contracts, licenses, etc
 * Robb: Can they come here? Those architects etc?
 * Jenny: We're not really at risk
 * Isaac: Yeah, prioritizing people and spaces most immediately at risk wrt life-safety issues
 * I: What was the other part of the question?
 * Marcus/Helen: If some landlord targets DIY could that track down to Omni
 * Ken: DO you hire contactors etc?
 * Isaac: is all volunteer. we have contractors in our group who volunteer. some groups say "we have someone to do it we just need the money". or they might say, we don't know how to prep, what do we do? and then we do a walkthrough. or in other cases, they say we don't know what to do, don't have the money, also need help with labor. then we help with that, we have 3 architects, a contractor, electricians, etc
 * Isaac: Have scoped out the labor, providing funds for particular projects. our architects might draw up the plan, contractors do the labor, etc
 * Marcus: just to say, i only brought those issues up to kickstart the conversation. i know abdc would be totally down


 * Julian - propose we provisionally approve this until the next delegates meeting, at which point we revisit it for confirmed consenso


 * straw poll: marcus, jabari, almaz, juliden, helen robb, mary ann, lori aka FULL CONSENSO


 * helen: we haven't gone through the process, but if we're doing this provisionally we should actually consense on the provisional approval


 * provisional approval of proposal until the next delegates meeting

Yea: 7 Nay: Abstain: 1 Provisional approval passes


 * Jenny: can we vote on retroactively applying fiscal sponsorship
 * background concerns - scheduled opening all subaccounts with unify on saturday. all checksigners need to be copresent, which is like 10 people. some collectives can't open subaccounts because we reached this max limit of checksigners.
 * helen: renewal of grant-based project would have happened automatically. in order to put the new model into practice, would like to start that now - but delegates need to check in with their folks
 * ken - how long
 * isaac - also doing work with city of oakland re: building and planning, code compliance adjustments

Proposal: GCEA to put a padlock on the doors to the classroom
via Almaz, 4/20: We are in the process of renegotiating our lease. One of our concerns is that the room we have been using (the classroom behind the children’s room) is not secure. We agreed to try using the room without a lock, but multiple items have been stolen including activity folders with personal information, chargers, books, art supplies and a stapler. We intend to use the room to hold documents, a laptop, projectors, children activity folders and other valuables.

Our proposal is to add a lock with a code to the doors to the room. Anyone who wants to use the room when it is free can get the code from us. We have discussed this with BAPS and they are in agreement with this arrangement.

We appreciate your attention to this request.

Discussion

 * Julian - Steve told me he wasn't in support. There was some kind of misunderstanding. WOuld a locking cabinet work? If you give the code to people eventually you will have a lot of people with the code and you will be in virtually the same situation.
 * Almaz: Many of the rooms are locked except for SUdo And CCL
 * Marcus: suggests using ABDC room if they move
 * Lori: The office upstairs isn't working for the 3 groups to share
 * Julian: YOu are totally right that you need your collective's stuff to be secure. I'm used to that room being used by everyone so I'm reacting to the commons space being closed. I'm wonderign if there is a way to both maximizing collecitve space and keeping your stuff space.
 * Almaz: we've been trying with the room unlocked and it isn't working
 * Jenny:YOu didn't try having a locked filing cabinet
 * Robb - are you current on your rent?
 * a: We have had financial problems which is why we are meeting with fianance working group on Monday
 * robb: doesn't seem fair that other groups that have been paying rent are not given their own space, whilst your group, which hasn't been paying rent, would have exclusive access to your own space. original proposal was that it would be common space and you would get preference... hence $200/mo rent
 * Laura: My understanding was that GCEA would try out having the room not locked. They have tried it and it isn't working for them. We need to work out a solution that works for everyone.
 * Discussion has gone for 20 minutes. We move on on to next item.

Discussion: Omni Presence at Temescal BID meetings & events
- via Ken
 * The BID Board meeting is next week and we should have a few people there. Some of OMni should go and have a presence.
 * jenny: security / promotion committee has a lot of money and reallocates funds in weird, kinda corrupt ways
 * robb - what is the money spent on if not eg graffitti removal ?
 * ken: don't get the board minutes

Last Meeting Notes
https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Event:2017/04/06_Delegates_Meeting

= End of Meeting =
 * please archive these meeting notes by copying the entire pad contents onto the omni wiki
 * then please erase the contents of this pad
 * then please cut & paste a blank template from here: https://omnicommons.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Delegates_Meeting_Notes_Template&action=edit
 * previous notes are archived here: https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Meetings