Event:2015/08/16 Becoming Omni

becoming omni session 2 - 2015-08-16

who's here?

what are your hopes for omni? what are you grateful for?

• ben.
• moon. cohesion. it exists.
• troy. sudoroom. omni librarian. build communication, develop process. people dedicated
• brad. baps. lots of potential to be political community. amazing omni exists. uncertain what it should be.
• phil. haven't been around much, would like to be. wants omni to be lasting, effective. grateful for people who got it this far
• gwen. grateful for omni's existence
• maryanne. chiapas support committee. been here a few times. hope omni becomes center for social justice activities.
• robb. came here for occupy SF release party. came to sudoroom via noisebridge, fell in love. hope omni becomes a great ship that hails anarchy & community-based ideas in the face of tyranny. grateful that it looks like it's becoming that.
• matthew. sudoroom, lulzlux (lighting group). hope omni identify patterns that create conflict & actively come up with new & creative solutions. grateful for both building & people
• anthony. hope this conversation doesn't ever stop. wanted to do this for years, glad it's happening. grateful for smokers circle
• liz. sudo/opal. hopeful it becomes a stable place (?)
• alex. baps/fundraising. hope it grows, becomes place to organize. grateful for people involved & helping
• julio. sudo/cdc/commons. hope we challenge & abolish dominant cultures in omni. grateful we're here
• araya. neighbor. believe in social justice. hope omni will lead to growth
• isabela. pretty good experience last week. hope everyone gets opportunity to do what they'd like. grateful everyone gets to share
• frankie. never really felt welcome as a woman of color & indigenous woman. i think it's important we move forward and have a community free of impression. wish we could change the name. just a place we can be radical. grateful for omni, we're all here dealing with this shit, it can never stop. that system outside will never stop perpetuating itself, so we have to be constant looking at ourselves and bettering our community.
• dragon. went to sudoroom downtown. asked to come because there were too many white people (from a white person). came willingly & openly to do that because i lost my patience. but i came back. was with backspace, the healing people, that was the best place to be for me. only one left from that group. also in optikallusions. hope omni finds its place in the community, its permanence, principles, holds tightly to what it stands for, makes that a thing, goes viral. especially dealing with oppression. grateful we're still here talking about it, still a conversation
• gabby. heard about omni from people walking around. found booth at anarchist book fair. been on email list. on a music project called (???) promoting social justice awareness & consciousness. important to do through the arts to spread awareness. good place to get involved. hope we continue to do creative things with that SJ goal. grateful to be involved in this conversation even though it was my first time in the building [last week]
• libbie. been to sudo & baps in old space. left for east coast, stayed on mailing lists because inspired by vision. continued thinking about omni. now i'm here focused on how we can fulfill the statement of solidarity. hope to be involved in ongoing work of dismantling oppression in its various forms, and recognition that can be a slow long difficult process and so many ways we can engage in that work. hope that becomes central to what we're doing in this space. grateful for sheer audacity of the project & people, and statement of solidarity - part of founding document, should read it outloud. amazing foundation for us to build on.
• joel. heavily involved at the beginning when omni was concept, not reality. hope omni can become place for cocoon or incubator for new forms of radicalism that haven't been imagined yet. diversity of groups & people housed here can come up with something they haven't seen yet. grateful its been functional for so many different organizations to do their work in, might be siloed off in different parts of oakland, bringing them here in this experment
• yar. sudoroom. been pushing for values for years, feel alone, been targeted by serious harassment for htat, never recovered. omni feels like if it succeeds everything can happen, if it fails nothing can happen. hope someday enough people are doing the boring tedious work that i can prioritize self care without worrying about omni falling apart without me. grateful for the trailblazers who struggle against systemic bias at omni, often feel alone and lost, but keep trying anyway, see the potential of this building for their communities, try to act as a bridge, hear shit talk on all sides, and your brain becomes bifurcated, but you keep trying. you are the reason omni exists, we need to be giving you 100x as much emotional support as we give the fucking landlord.
• laura. involved when we moved in. baps, working groups. cofacilitator of this meeting. hope omni becomes a place of community. grateful for yar taking notes. been overwhelmed during this year by the dedication, kindness & support that i've seen among people actively involved here. could not have made it.
• matt. sudoroom. helped us move in here. hope i get continuously surprised. grateful it's a once in a lifetime thing. reproducible but hard.
• derek. grateful that reaching out for community happens. i hope we accomplish something for community.
• aaron. friend of libbie's. did antioppression training couple weeks ago. want to meet the needs of local community. amazed & impressed by dedication & sacrifice to make a model for how we can be together

workshops

Brief talk about why the facilitators are doing this.

victory

We brainstorm what a successful Becoming process would look like to us, and write everything in a big circle. Hopefully someone took a picture

4 squares

We brainstorm our strengths and weaknesses as a team, and the benefits and dangers of a successful Becoming Omni process. Things we have going for us, things that could be obstacles, what could we gain from succeeding, and what are the risks of success. Need a picture

actions to take

We write actions on cards. Each thing a person would need to do, in order for Becoming to happen. specific verbs. then sort them into categories, then each category becomes a working group. people choose groups.

groups

• inreach aka "Working Within the System": yar, joel
• care: ben, phil
• food: julio, derek
• fun & art: troy, robb, gabby, dragon, ???
• invitations: matt, moon
• research & outreach: maryanne, libbie
• facilitation: alex, frankie
• unknown: brad, aaron, matthew, anthony, araya, gwen