Event:2014/07/10 Omni Delegates Meeting

July 10 Delegates Meeting

FIRST LOOK AT THIS: Document say your name, pronoun, group you're with Facilitator: Chris Stack: Notez: Everyone. Attendees: Olive Blackburn from OMNIdance, Keven Von Mutant, Noémie Serfaty of SUDO, Patrick of SUDO Helen: delegate of food not bombs, Jack, Matt from BAPS and SUDO. JOEL from TIL. Kevin, Laura, Andrew (Backspace) Delegates: Andrew (Backspace) Helen (FNB) Olive (OmniDance) Joel (TIL) Niki (La Commune) Ahnon (CCL) Yar (SUDO)

Agenda

Liasing w/John

• email requests / concerns / questions for John to Maryanna by Wednesday (every week)

Committees

• setting up some clear committees, more of them. The ones we already have: communication, legal governance, building maintenance, Challenging Dominant culture
• Let us add: finance and treasury, having people who bottomline things.
• Helen: There are committees but they don't seem transparent. There is a calendar with the list of the committees and the meeting dates are on the calendar. If not please remember to do so when you setup a meeting.
• Need to create a Common Space Committee
• Matt: it's important to have those bottomliners who take responsibiliy for things but they shouldn't spend their whole time in meetings. let's use meetings to coordinate rather than bureaucratize agenda items.
• Maintenance: Keven can get a lot of free/cheap material.

Event Proposal

• Kevin proposes a butoh piece on the subject of mortality, would like to do it in the OMNI.

It would be on the autumn equinox, the 21st of september, or around that date. Olive: We need to start creating structures that allow us to answer these kind of requests. We need to start by figuring out how to make decisions around the space. Zach: Offers to combine CAMO, ONL and theater collective into one collective in charge of scheduling the space.

• Olive proposes creating a Common Space Committee
• We need to get permits before putting on any public events
• Matt: What about the Gilman model?

Sharing Space

• Matt: Have there been conflicts yet?
• DK: Yes. What is shared space? Where can people put things?
• Niki: maybe people who want to schedule things could help figure out a way to organize the venue's schedule.
• Jordan: thought experiment for thinking about shared space. 50 people want to rent a dark corner of the omni, where they can host a 4 hour long sensory deprivation experiment, and they want to pay the Omni 100 dollars for this privelege. What do we tell these people?
• Niki: Maybe the Sudo Room can sponsor this event so it isn't technically a public event, and handle it internally.
• Olive; Let's create a common space committee to deal with these things.
• David: Maybe all proposals for events held in the Common Spaces should be submitted in writing

Omni Library

• Steven - taking responsibility for organizing books
• Create real research library
• Community Literacy projects
• Arnas: Collectives should vote on whether or not they want this
• DK: All collectives should go through books and identify what they'd like to keep
• Niki: Collectives should have time to deliberate on library
• DK: We should at least go through the books now
• Alana: What is the difference between a collective (member of the Omni) or a working group or a committee
• Libbie: Two proposals:
  • 1) Form a working group to go through the books
  • 2) Creation of a Library Collective
• Yar: Feeling like there's too much process, want this to be a commons, as few locked doors as possible. Questions the existence of a Library Collective. Collectives have voting power. We shouldn't introduce new voting members just because we want to shelve books.

andrew? proposes: delegates don't need to vote to approve working groups. Working groups can simply announce their intention to do useful work, and then do it. The room seems to have consensus on this proposal.

Law

Matt: 1.Lawbooks in the Basement (10000ds) not very useful as reference library want to asses whats there and possibly sell them 2. Interested in proposing a Legal Collective at the Omni: Offers to help manage Omni's legal affairs. Could waive the ability to sue one another :) David: it would be good to have a Lawyer on site because we do a lot of things which could require legal assitance Niki: Here's a link to how to propose a new collective: http://wiki.omni-oakland.org/w/Join#Delegates_meeting_and_joining_the_collective

• Olive: Need a committee for facilities / operations (painting, build out, etc)
• Arnas: Maintenance committee could include that.
• Jordan: Would ask two questions: 1) Does what I want to do in the space impact anyone else? 2) Is it reversable?
• DK: Admires SudoRoom's do-cratic model but we're just figuring these things out. If everything has to go to committee it will kill people's desire to to things, but some thing need to go to committee and some things shouldn't have to.
• Olive: really wants to paint the ballroom all white!
• DK: Context. If the ballroom is going to be painted any other color it will effect every other group. This is something that the rest of the collectives should agree on.
• Jordan: I've read every email, if I have to show up to a committee meeting to show that I care, I could say that not reading all of the emails means that you don't care!
• Olive: I think we need a finance committee! I want this to work and I want us to be organized!
• Alana: Need to list committees and let everyone know how than can be involved.
• Andrew: Committees should not have decision making powers
• Arnas: This list exists on the wiki already.
• Helen: I hope the working groups are not decision making bodies but can think about what needs to be done, know what the facts are, be on top of things and make proposals to the larger group
• Alana: Purpose of the working groups / committees is to outsource conversation that needs to be investigated more deeply to another time and the weekly Omni meetings should be a place to bring back proposals / recommendations based on those conversations for a vote.

DK Ban

• DK wants to propose he be banned from the Omni
  • he needs a vacation!
  • he just wants to step back from official shit
  • DK feels legitamate concern about concentrations of power
  • Any decision to ban a member by a member group should be honored by other groups. We should all give one another more support.
  • He gets criticism for the things that he picks up. If you want to empower yourself, people are willing to step back.
  • This is a serious discussion because DK feels like people are unable to treat him like a member of the collective at this point. Part of the reason is because he has a lot of knowledge about things like permits and his comments about those things often get attacked. We should help him transition into the role of another member of the collective
  • Part of this projekt was to create new social forms we should help each other to learn to communicate better
  • his is an opportunity to exercise new "neuronal pathways", different pathways to accomplish the same things.
  • propose to help David teach others how to get permits, so he won't be in this priveleged position of power.
  • DK stays

Meetings

• Helen: Propose that we should find a place w/better acoustics for next week.

Permitting

• Yar: It seems like everything we're doing is hinging on permitting. Thought there was a working group but everyone is assuming that someone else is taking care of it and it's the most important thing to address right now. We need to get people to focus on it.
• Clai: We have to be super strategic about it, this is one of the biggest hurdles.
• Jeremy: which permits do we need?
• Matt: The meetings are hard, I want us to find a way to be together and bond more.
• Clai: Should we form a workingroup right after this
• David: Boils down to two thing:
  • 1) What permits affect everyone in the building?
    • a) For the ballroom, there are Use Permits:
      • i) Major conditional use permit for private assembly
      • ii) Major conditional use permit for public assembly (The City of Oakland admits that they lost this permit and they are reluctant to re-instate it.) Need to have the good will of the neighborhood, the cooperation of the planner so that when we submit our application we're in the strongest possible position.

Action Items

• Niki to email those interested in forming a Common Space Committee; will email the list.
• Anyone interested in working on permits - talk to Yar
• Anyone interested in library talk to Chris and/or Stephen
  • Chris will be here on Sat at noon to begin going through the books
• Anyone interested in film collective talk to Clai
• Anyone interested in theater collective should talk to Matt

BIKE Storage & Parking

• take back to your group for discussion; consensus next week?: http://wiki.omni-oakland.org/w/Bike_Storage
• Here's what I (Mary & Patrik of CCL) think is the most viable option:

http://wiki.omni-oakland.org/w/Bike_Storage#Option_2:_diagonal_bike_rack_on_48th_.2B_parallel_on_Shattuck

• TLDR: On the 48th street sidewalk, we should be able to fit 40-50 bikes in 5 racks of 4 or 5 "inverted U" loops perpendicular to the curb.

The sidewalk along Shattuck is a little narrower, so any racks would need to be parallel to the curb. Should be enough space for 12 loops, for 24 bikes. Our first order of business would be to get delegates to take this info back to their groups so we can consense on it next week.

next week

• Discuss solvency of the groups and if we want to collect an additional month of rent as security.

Lease

• What are important lease terms to be mindful of?

Future Groups:

• Events Mgmt?
• Building Administration / Logistics:
• Focus on intercollectivity?
• Values
• New Member Getting to know you Committee