Event:2015/05/07 Weekly Delegates Meeting

Omni Delegates Meeting, Thursday May 7, 2015 The meeting begins promptly at 7pm, 1st and 3rd Thursdays, and ends promptly at 9pm, unless delegates agree to continuation. Contents:

• Introductions
• Announcements
• Working Group Report-Backs
• Proposals
• Discussions
• Action Items
• Tabled
• Optional Breakout Session

Attendees

• Jenny, Lea, David K, Amgo, Jesse, Joe, Laura, Niki, Dusty, Matt
• Facilitator/s: The Amicably Fastidious Jenny Ryan and The Exquisitely Exacting Matthew Senate form "The Imbraggable Facilitator Dance Troupe / Witching Circle"
• Introduction to the Omni Commons & our values:
• Explanation of hand signals:
  • "deaf applause", "raised hand", "point of process", "direct response", "time's up", "stop and reflect", "kermit" (wildcard), etc.
• Stacktaker: Amgo
  • Explanation of progressive stack: Raise your hand and make eye contact with the stack taker. Please wait your turn, and try not to interupt or speak over others. Direct responses are allowed only as Points Of Information/ Clarifications, etc (use hand signal). For everything else, please raise your hand and wait your turn.
• Timekeeper: David
  • Reminder to keep comments brief.
• Notetaker/s: Dusty, Laura, Niki
  • URL of this pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/omninom
• Important Note for the Pad:
  • Please do not move or delete meeting notes from the pad, unless you have archived them properly. Always leave the most recent meeting's notes, and the template at the bottom. !! Thank you.
• Vibe Reader: Jesse
  • Reminder to stay calm, be respectful, and think before speaking.
• Next weeks facilitator(s): Jesse + a new recruit
  • Encourage someone who hasn't facilitated before. If they'd like support, someone who has facilitated before can join them to facilitate together! If they'd like to know how the agenda works, here's a page outlining the different parts of our agenda: https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Facilitating_General_Meetings_Tips_and_Info

Delegates

• BAPS: Lea
• Black Hole: David
• Phat Beets: (Inactive if this meeting missed)Will need to send delegate to 2 meetings in a row to become active
• CCL:
• FNB: Joe
• La Commune: Niki
• MPM:
• Sudo Room: Jenny
• TIL:
• Optik Allusions:
• Quorum: 5/8 = 62% (Yes)

Introductions

Please be brief!

   Introduce yourself: Name; Prefered Pronoun; Affiliation; If you are new, what is one thing that brought you here?

• Optional Ice-breaker: What are you looking forward to the most right now?
• Jenny (Sudo) looking forward to all the shit we're gonna get done on Saturday
• Lea (BAPS) looking forward to Arabic alphabet class
• David K (Black Whole)looking forward to finishing contruction work
• Amgo (BAPS) looking forward to time w/ nature
• Jesse (FNB) looking forward to doing some writing
• Laura (BAPS) looking forward to party on Friday
• Joe (FNB) looking forward to liveely productive efficiently run meeting
• Niki (Commune) looking forward to...um...to actually breaking ground on the cafe construction
• Dusty looking forward to collection liberation and horizontal decentralized prefigurative revolutionary praxis also not being a zombie, work letting up at the end of semesterzzz
• Matt (Sudo) looking forward to rethinking venue aspect of Omni from (ew) business point of view (ew)
• Bunker (OptikAllusions) looking forward to filming the delegate's meeting

Announcements

Any Omni-related announcements. Please be brief! Maximum 1 (one) minute per announcement. Reminder: Working Groups reports are after this, please save W.G. announcements for later.

• Two new collectives are inquiring about Omni membership: The Chiapas Support Committee http://www.chiapas-support.org/ and the Global Women's Strike http://www.globalwomenstrike.net/

I (Niki) am currently stewarding them through the process but if anyone is interested in assisting, please let me know. It would be great for delegates to give their member collectives a heads up re: these two group so that there's plenty of time for people to look them up and become familiar with the work they do.

• Jesse: asked to talk about carpet in the basement library rooms at the last building wg meeting. want to organize a date / time to rip up carpet in the next few weeks. Please take back to your collectives, looking for someone with experience in refinishing floors
• Bunker would like to film the meeting for documentary (commonsfilm.com)
  • Would like to host a screening of the rough cut of the documentary here on Friday evening in the Disco Room
• Dusty: Sent out email about fliers and Creating Commons Festival, he is not set to hold space for a table or anything like that...he will be casually handing things out.
  • Jessie can table at the end, around 5pm
  • Delegates please send an email asking if anyone can table 10-6, responses ideally by Friday
• Jenny: Electrical work party on Saturday, meet here at 10am or stop by anytime throughout the day! There will be point people here throughout the day, such as Joe who folks can speak with. Also tomorrow is power friday where Matt is mapping the electrical...Every Friday is power Friday! Matt is here from 10AM on and people can come and learn about it.
• DK: Putting the word out there for a revived Maintenance working group. Anyone with interest in making especialy the outside of Omni look spiffy, send an email to the list. Set to begin this with the exterior, and cleaning perhaps beyond the building such as 48th Street. If we did something active to counter our neigbors' claims.
  • Laura adds that anyone who cannot do electric stuff will be able to strart this up on Saturday.
  • Matt: We should have printed Omni Commons Cleaning Crew

Bans/Asked to Leave

Announcement of people who have been banned or asked to leave pending conflict resolution.

Working Group Report-Backs

Please be brief! Maximum 5 (five) minutes per W.G. WGRBs are Alphabetical; All W.G.s are equally important. Report-backs consist of answering 3 (three) questions:

• What did you accomplish this week?
• What problems or action items are you currently working on?
• What do you need to bring to our attention and/or need help with?

Building, permits, and Facilities

Meetings: Mondays 8pm This group needs help: https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/building Ballroom-readiness needs and plans: https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Ballroom-readiness

• Laura: What we should say is that we're going to try and do the south side of the ballroom for the 16th of May.
  • DK: We will build a second wall, a non-structural wall, floated it with city engineers and they said it's all good, this will be done with accessibility upgrade to the front door, to get a better door in there. We have to get the materials. The new goal for May 16th...
• Jenny: If anyone wants to learn about pulling permits with the city shoudl come by our meeting on Saturdsy at noon.
• Matt: Lot's of stuff that this group is going into and please encourage people to come so we can delegate tasks and such.
  • Amgo: Also people would could do building outreach.

Challenging Dominant Culture (CDC)

Meetings: every Sunday at 3pm ...

• Up to a lot of good, and some "no-good"
• We're planning a fun party on May 31st -- Fun Fun Fun Omni Fun Party! 3pm-7pm - https://omnicommons.org/calendar/events/fun-fun-fun-omni-6/
  • La Commune cafe until 7pm, dance party afterward
• Bring treats to share!
• Two restorative justice trainings coming up:
  • North Oakland Restorative Justice Council May 30th contact cdc@lists.omnicommons.org (only a few spots available for this training)
  • UC Berkeley Center for Restorative Justice June 14th -- Open to all!

Commons

• Meetings: Saturdays at 1pm
• We review proposals for space rental
• Niki: Looking for people to help out with Stay Brown Stay Down, two days 8-15/16, Latino punk music festival with workshops.
  • Laura: Need people who are available to help out, please contact the working group if you would like. We need a minimum of 4 people and one person with tech skills. Responsibilibuddy stuff but like a crew because this is a festival of sorts, it's big.
  • Amgo: There needs to be someone at the door right?
  • Jenny: They'll have their own person probably.
  • Volunteers: Jenny, DK, ?, ? (need at least 4 people)
• DK : very close to finalizing a document detailing information about permits, alcohol stuff, and whatnot. I want to test it with a group who intends to use it to get some feeedback about it.
• Jenny: WG, would be great to have people help out with one event a month, 40% of our funding for Omni comes from this, and we need to distribute the labor. Even if you can't come to a meeting or anything, you could just meet with someone and check out what comes to us.
• Niki: Events that a typical collective would steward is getting put to the WG, and the collective doesn't help facilitate and event that comes to the Omni through them. Collectives need to take initiative with hosting these people.
• Matt: Need to discuss with groups that this is a great way to grow, to get new folks and to raise funds.

Communications / SysAdmins

Meetings: nope :)

• Jenny: if you have any questions about our communications you can get in touch with me or email the group. I set up an Own Cloud, a replacement for google services, all sorts of stuff such as file storage. omnicommons.org/cloud. for account you can email jenny@omnicommons.org. You can also get an Omni email by getting in touch with me. Through this OwnCloud members and folks can have access to all of our documentation, as well as photogallery stuff...you can share with the group if you have stuff. I just gave an account to Sarah who was taking photos....This is a great way to share stuff outside of Google. If anyone wants to start WG meetings for this stuff we are more than happy to do it.

Finance

Meetings: Every other Thursday (off the delegates meetings) at 7pm

• PAID: MPM, SUDO, BAPS (only expenses), Rise Above, La Commune, CCL (delayed)
• Not Paid: TIL,
• Space rental donations thus far this month: $1,680
• Amgo: if you know anybody who likes to do accounting, quickbooks, stuff, even an hour a week...we could use it. We are getting some help from a bookeeping group.
• Monday the 11th @ 5:30pm: Help from a finance collective, come and learn!
• Amgo is starting to label income from events "Event Rental Donations" and requests that Comons begins to use this terminology in discussion with renters and documentation.

Fundraising

Not currently meeting

• No report
• Grace is fulfilling the crowdfunding Perks!

Kitchen

Meetings:

• Joe: Nothing to report, except ...got an estimate for the fire supression system and fire extinguishers. I'm concerned about whether the stove will stay the way it is. Checked the CFM's from the hood and it's probably around 3400-4000 which is good and strong...Starting to try and find time to write up a plan for the kitchen, need to do it again.
  • Joe: The roof looks really good, really good for a building this old.

Welcoming

Meetings: Thursdays at 6pm Contact: welcoming@omnicommons.org

• Still need to fill many front door shifts - help out, it's mostly hanging out in La Commune and giving tours! Sign up here: https://ethercalc.com/omni-front-desk
• Jenny: Realized that meetings were not on the calendar. Sat at front desk today and made big pile of zines with Ross and signed him up for a front door shift. This is especially better now that La Commune is looking so beautiful. We're looking on info, documentation, and things to give out to on-board folks. Goal to have a stewarded welcoming space.
• Dusty: Holding down the orientation on sundays 1-3 and enjoying it. People are coming through and it's fun. May want to have a day off in the next couple of weeks.

Proposals

Please provide the following information with your proposal:

• The date the proposal was put on the pad;
• The group or person making/bottom-lining the proposal;
• Who will be speaking to the proposal at the meeting;
• Where the full text or other information about the proposal can be found, if it's not all here.

Proposal to decrease Rise Above's rent

5/6/15 Gabby I'd like to ask for a reduction in the rent I am paying for use of the utility room. Right now I am paying $800 plus utilities, plus GL insurance which ends up being ~$1100/month. I haven't been able to work as productively as I had hoped in the space and this amount of rent is not sustainable for me. Please discuss this with your collective for consensus at the next delegates meeting.

• Gabby wants to pay $600 / mo + utilities (that's a $200/mo rent decrease)
• Matt: We can open up discussion here and can't vote on right now....
• Laura: I have additional information, I put this here and wanted to talk to her about why she feels she's not doing as well here. Had some concerns about the space itself, 1). peope sitting on 48th with people smoking and such, makes her uncomfrotable asking clients to come to the space and the smoke is bothersome. 2). People using shower upstairs so that she can't rinse out her screens....been putting up a sign and maybe we need to make people more aware and such. She didn't think that it is an issue of the storefront but it could be. I told her we'd be comfortable with a sandwitch board but she wasn't so sure. I suggested we reduce the rent to see how it goes for some time.
  • Jenny: Solution oriented responses...to move or remove plastic chairs from her area. Could push them someplace else and as a smoker it's seldom that they're full and people don't necessarily use them so much. Also putting a sign in shower to coordinate with people, a protocol or she could offer up a schedule. Perhaps no showers between 12-5 pm.
• Matt: Feedback, one thing is she's asking about rent reduction related to business and two issues related to the building that may or may not be connected.
• DK: Wrote her a personal email precisely in the spirit Jenny expressed. She's basically there by herself in that hallway, sometimes it smells, and sometimes people are still drinking out there...and I have some ideas that I shared about trying to display her work and such.
• Matt: We have two sets of things to address, we dont' know exactly about her business and how it's related to the building. We should try to see these as separate.
• Laura: Sympathetic and willing to reduce her rent, to check back in in a few months to see if she's doing better
• Amgo: Torn because it's not a tenant and I also feel it to be good for her and I don't want her to pay something she can't pay and the fact that we have a tenant and she doesn't come to the meetings and stuff and I would feel more sympathetic or differnt about reducing the rent if it were a collective.
• Niki: Reiterate some of Amgo's concerns, there is a lot of collective work Gabby is not participating in and I wish that she was here to talk about it.
  • Laura: She's coming next meeting
  • Niki: Well maybe we can have her here and talk about it more.
• Jesse: Interested in the concept of tenant and such and that if things change here we may want another tenant or something but I feel that we should have a whole conversation about it. Rent should be lower for collectives because we do a lot of other labor.
• Matt: We have three things...One is relationship of tenants to collective, other is we have a tenant with issues of the building, and last we have a tenant that wants a reduction in rent.
• Joe: I think Gabby has been great and she has been so graceful with the building and I want something to come out of ththis that is positive.
• Straw poll: most people here agree that some rent reduction is within reason
• Matt: Spoke with a lawyer and if a tenant holds even one event it helps with our 501 c3 status.

Proposal for Child-Safe space in front 1/2 of old TIL office

Niki: 5/7/15 (added to pad), 4/28/15 (sent to discuss/consensus lists) This space will be used in co-parenting situations in which parents organize their own childcare among themselves and could potentially become a space for more formal childcare once the Omni is read for that sort of thing. This room could be used for other things but would be privileged for this particular use which, I feel, could help provide parents in out community with some much needed support.

• Niki: This space should be prioritized for children, and people who need to co-parent and such during events and while they're in the space. I would be happy to make it work, clean it up.
• Joe: Would then people have to go behind the bar to get into the blue room during an event?
• DK: There's an external door to that room that we might unofficially be able to use
• Matt: calling it a child-safe space vs. calling it childcare room is good. What about just expanding it to both rooms? (ie: make both rooms child safe?)
• DK: spent 3-5 times as much per outlet in the den because was assuming the den would be used as a child-safe space. Eventually there will be concerns that will need to be addressed. Perhaps we can alternate between the den and the little room downstairs.
• Dusty: thinks having a space where people feel comfortable having their kids would make me feel like we're doing a better job of commoning
• Amgo: when there was a kid in that room, it was nice but if there were a lot of kids it might be too much. Maybe the ticket booth room?
• DK: I feel that this could snowball and we could start talking about all of the rooms and that we could have a situation where we use....
• Niki: I'd rather have a space that was set up for parents if they come through that's not in the ballroom.
• Matt: maybe we don't have to have a room per se but that we have a few rooms that are childsafe and that even if the rooms get booked, we could put some kids in there if it's open during an event.
• Laura: I second what Matt has said...
• Matt: it seems too that this room by the blue room will always be treated as a hallway and that's an issue.
• Jesse: I think about sound issues and there really aren't many kids that it's an issue.
• DK: I have had people complain about the sound both ways when kids are here...that the building is too loud or that the kids are too loud.
• Jenny: friendly ammendment, to make a few rooms child safe and that we could have them available.
• Niki: I think it's very important that we have people in our communities who are parents and we need to support them, that they know we're building a space for them. I'm not asking for a total Jymboree or anything, a place that makes parents and their families feel welcome, and they can participate in the project.
• Laura: There are a ton of child safety products that we can buy and I prefer the ticket booth.
• Matt: I think that, to share a story, with the public terminals. We just built them, and it's "bikshedding" if we talk about everything all of the time.
  • DK: I had parents specifically tell me that the public terminal space was not child safe, and I would propose that we make this little chamber to the blue room a child safe area with stuff there and just see how it goes. If it doesn't then it doesn't work. That room never gets booked and that's a great things.

Straw Pole: Who wants to support? Unaminous supp Agree to try it out and see how it goes!

Proposal to Re-Key the Front Door

Niki: 5/7/15 (added to pad), 4/28/15 (sent to discuss/consensus lists) Following the implementation of proceedure / criteria, I propose that the front door be re-keyed and "Do Not Copy" keys redistributed. In tandem with this, I propose a written one-sheet with how building access currently works be distributed to those who regularly use the space with information on how they can become a member of a member collective.

• Lea: How were keys originally distributed?
  • Matt: Web of trust model
  • Jesse: Would be good to make an announcement that the locks are being changed and info w/how people can request keys / get access
  • Matt: already submitted a budget proposal for this
• Jenny: Please ask your collectives to create a list of members and their contact info for a) keys and b) future electronic access system. This info will be available on our https://omnicommons.org/cloud
  • DK: want to propose a friendly amendment that we actually get some of those Do Not Copy keys because eventually the web of trust model will degrade over time. People can submit a request for a key & then we know who has them
  • Laura: taking into account what some people have said, when this happens it needs to be made clear what the critera are for people who should have a key.
    • Niki: Happy to work on that with you.
• Dusty: Lots of grumbling re: who has keys and who doesn't, Omni becoming privatized, an in-group/out-group thing. Totally supports the idea of having a strick criteria for who gets a key and why...that this should be a strick process.
• Laura: Maybe we could have a ceremonial ritual for receiving your key as an Omni member at the meetings
• Joe: Like the idea of having criteria - giving keys to those who have to open the building
• Jesse: Don't think it's productive to re=key the building if we don't use "Do Not Copy" keys. Would people be required to contribute to the cost of the key?
• Matt would require a special cylinder
• Niki: part of the impetus for this proposal is that when we moved in we didn't have a process for what would be expected of people in this space. We now have an opportunity to correct this and move forward. I put this through consensus in April 28th...it does cause me some frustration when a proposal gets sent out way ahead and when collectives don't talk about them. I wanted to share that I would really like it if collectives met on thsi and came prepared.
• Matt: SUDO didn't have a meeting.
• DK: We can make this happen, coming up with the criteria online and such and have groups ...
• Matt: We 'll make an announcement now that the building will be re-keyed and that a process will be implemented. By or after next meeting, the process for getting a new key will be circulated and the front door lock will be changed
  • Passed!

NOTE: Also see followup discussions here and here.

Action Items

• Jenny will reach out to collectives for a list of their members
• Niki will make an announcement and post signs by this weekend re: re-keying
• Laura and Niki will write up draft criteria and process for giving out keys