Event:2023/11/30 Delegates

Omni Delegates' Meeting - thursday november 30 2023 7pm-9pm

Meeting Details

• Talk at https://meet.google.com/diw-hszw-msr or 515-428-1108 (PIN: 465814905)
• Type at https://omnicommons.org/notes
• Send proposals to consensus@lists.omnicommons.org prior to the meeting

Roles

• Facilitator/s:
• Stacktaker:
• Timekeeper:
• Notetaker/s: paige
• Next meeting's facilitator(s):

Delegates

• BOGSS: inactive
• CCL: not present
• FNB: Toan
• LL: Anca
• SB: Natalie
• SM: inactive
• SR: Jemma
• Quorum (2/3 of active groups):

also present, silver, paige, and yar (present towards end of meeting)

intros

BRIEF INTROS MAY INCLUDE: name, pronouns, groups you're in, land you're on, if you're a delegate, unmet access needs, meeting roles you'd like to help with, discussion topics or proposals to add to agenda, announcements/updates/report-backs from your groups, safe space issues or updates PROMPT people to share contact info in the chat, so we can stay in touch

Why Important meeting today

• Silver - monthly costs are 11k to 15k. Our income from tenants 5k. Event revenue only about 3k. I finally booked my first event, happening on the 8th. navigating what feels good and safe for people to start renting at the omni. we owe are our $900k at December. We've gotten 2 extensions, 1 cuz covid, 2nd because good fundraiser. Self help credit union. with the boycott not looking good. unclear whats going to happen, if the private loaner asks for the money right away. important to have infrastructure to support the working groups that are going to make this happen. i dont support our delegate model. its hard to do your full time job, then be part of your collective, then be a delegate to omni. i want to propose a 2 day retreat to our decision model. david brazil has been called out for creating top down models. we keep losing people, people are disposable here. even though its just volunteers here, you can still exploit them. we had one meeting with boggss. natalie, myself, muiren, vian. finances and accountability need to be a collective responsibility. i like idea of bogss getting access to funds but also dont have the bandwidth to create a new deciscion making system within this group. we need to be mindful of whos carrying the most weight. hard when i come to the delegates meeting and people arent in the know. pallavi whos our grant writer, we have 4k, susan quit after the boycott. pallavi has been budgeted for 4 months, was excited to join on and wants to have conversations with different collectives. hopefully givebutter campaign out soon. for marketing outreach coordinator..long process, 50 applicants, we interviewed 8, chose top 2, created an assignment, and then the person we chose immediately withdrew after the boycott bc didnt want their words to be tokenized. im holding the marketing outreach role, person i was talking to was at accountability meeting, is okay to work with us for the short term. everyone else in the hiring committee quit. events working group holding a makerfair.
• paige: some ppl at sudoroom want to do nightmare b4 xmas haunted house for makerfaire
• jemma: normally we dont meet every week
• paige: thought we were still meeting weekly. thought we met last week but now see we didnt.
• silver: normally delegates 1st and 3rd thursdays

woodworking proposal

• Toan : lots of collectives get donations/ dump. do you have a solution for that?
• Paige: not a plan yet, good question, will try to stay neat, and will not store outside space
• Silver: yeah a lot of people try to donate fabric, and then it gets overwhelming. was a cleaning committee. charge fees for collective
• Natalie: yea i think we should have some sort of system, given Dane's messages about trash.
• Paige: Also might partner with Friends of the Tool lending library, in terms of donations, but havent talked to them yet personally. aside: also trying to figure out which rooms to show them
• Anca: can they use mail room?
• Silver: also that room where there is the scaffolding is.
• Jemma: do we have list of how much rooms cost?
• Silver: some info on building wiki. We should just do it ourselves, shouldnt rely on waiting for responses from others.
• Silver: ANV paid 675 per month but also got other rooms to use for distro
• Paige: Pickles just got discounted rent for their first two months
• Silver: can we ask them to share the space until able to pay full month?
• Jemma: is anyone else interested in the den?
• Silver: issue right now have some one off events that are booked. New Years eve party plus another event in dec.
• Jemma: general question, are those rentable rooms or events room?
• Silver: was a common space, then DSA wanted to rent it, so Joe built a wall, but then DSA ended up not renting because of conflict with CLP. So then just became an event rental after that.
• Jemma: I am confused because you showed it to Pickles.
• Silver: I was just showing them around, I didnt know they were going to approved so quickly. Again theres disconnect with communications.
• Anca: yea that approved really fast
• Jemma: I think that should have been communicated to delegates, I was not aware that the space was an events space
• Anca: it was only an events space because the group who was going to rent it backed out...
• Jemma: i hear that, but its a closed door now.
• Silver: ballroom and disco room also have closed door. i didnt think pickles was going to get in like that, this moved really quickly.
• Jemma: pickles came in at oct, so this wasnt first contact
• Silver: this news hasnt reached other collectives, like FNB
• Jemma: difficult for delegates to make informed deciscions if we dont have access to any of the information.
• Natalie: I hear you Jemma, I see where you are coming from on your last two points, frustrated with deciscion making, and how spaces are being used. i think at least we need to figure out how deciscions are made, people are not available all the time, how can we make deciscions without waiting for people.
• Jemma: I agree there are things we need to make faster movements on. New people here today which is great, but a lot of meetings where its just me and John and thats it. Now we are talking about a whole lot of different things.
• Silver: just want to say i havent been present for last month and half because boycott has really impacted me. used to be here like 6 days a week but now lucky if im here 1 day a week
• Natalie: sucks to have one person committed to infrastructure, knowing how things work. hope in the new year that we can spread knowledge among people. one person is very personable and welcome, and that makes it such that a lot of work is concentrated in one person. i think what omni needs is people who are able to take on the responsibilities that we can.
• Jemma: theres finite amount of energy, ive been spending a lot of time trying to find information. and its not anywhere. ive been around omni on/off since 2017, and its still so hard for me to know basic facts. incorrect dates for when property tax due, which was in october. definitely making a lot of other collectives uneasy about the future about the space. great to hear positive energy going in, but delegates cant make deciscions if info not coming in. Right now people are sending agenda items rushed right before the meeting. Silver I see you shared this sheet, I dont know why the payments to the contractors are listed inside of the sheet?
• Silver: for transparency
• Jemma: but income from hellman isnt listed. I dont think contractors should be included in this because they are not being paid from their
• Silver: this is me trying my best despite being not super financiallt literate here. maybe that is something you can take on Jemma
• Natalie: one issue is with Sarah not being at meetings, my perspective is not a fact, but i can feel the frustration from that, and Silver trying their best to do work and explain that to us. Would be nice to have someone in that role who is not unreliable
• Silver: i was asking for monthly reports but never received that
• Natalie: i think we need someone who is not a volunteer doing the finances.
• Anca: i dont know that we have the money for that
• Natalie: there are programs we can reach out to, lets not think we can afford things.
• Jemma: i didnt mean to put you in a corner Silver, do appreciate for trying and putting this spreadsheet together
• Yar: personally, i dont care who the bookkeeper is. Sarah quit last year, and it was really difficult. To avoid a gap, should try and express gratitude to Sarah for what she is doing
• Natalie: agree, ive reached out to critical resistance... hopefully have something before next week. we should all ask, i can create one tonight after this we can contribute to. at least having more than one person on finances would be great.
• yar: i also think that multiple people is a good idea for being on the finance team, along with sarah. sarah is in best position to follow through on this property tax project, which shes been working on for years, and will probably be a thing for months longer
• Silver: clear we need to understand our finances better, goal to create a working group. Does someone want to take that one right now?
• Jemma: i think this has to be a group effort unfortunately, and think it will be difficult to get that info
• Silver: i have access to all the money coming in, and quickbooks access. Want to name that i hear you coming to these meetings and being frustrated that you cant get that information. information right now is really scattered.
• Silver: my understanding trying to rent or be a tenant is a long process, but paige is trying to move in tomorrow
• Jemma: youre not trying to be a business right?
• Paige: no
• Silver: my ask - what does process look like in renting to tenants and projects?

Straw vote: LL yes, FNB Toan says cool go for it, SR: yes, been positive support from SR, SB Yes

Proposal 1 month Instrumentl for Pallavi

LL yes, FNB yes, SR Yes, SB Yes $179 per month. IF we can pay monthly.

More discussion if only yearly purchase available

building manager

• silver: professional who could access what the building needs and communicate that. like the door by the disco room needs work
• natalie: huge safety hazard. i had a incident one time in SF where we were locked in a building. so scared for my life
• anca: could lock disco door room in meantime
• silver: Reason for idea for building manager-I think if we had a contracted professional individual to scope out repairs needed, instead of volunteers, could feel much more confident stuff was getting done. i saw a huge difference once we started paying one person for events. maybe that could help with building working group.
• jemma: i think something that would be great would be if budgeting works out, we could give a budget to each of the working groups. therefore not everyone has to bring everything to delegates to do stuff
• silver: events generates its own money, just have to figure out how to make it sustainable
• paige: im interested in taking on role, do a lot of work around omni, would do more if paid, but dont have a lot of experience
• jemma: paige do you have a contractors license?
• paige: no
• yar: would need like a 10k bond right?

deciscion making

• silver: temperature check, how do we feel about 2 day retreat to talk about deciscion making and accountability
• anca: what we are doing right now doesnt work, very draining. system has failed us many times. for consensus, deciscion making is very long, very drawn out. very easy to throw wrenches in deciscions. for example lately, we cant even come up with a collective statement to counter all these stupid allegations.
• jemma: i am interested in being part of this retreat depending on the time
• natalie: yea it comes down to who has time and energy
• silver: i will do a when2meet, i have met with one facilitator. $2k can come from $4k DEI money. at least for me, other than trying to work on a statement, there hasnt been so much work done towards accountability. this feels like the first step. we all have different ideas on how to do deciscion making. for me personally, delegates meetings feel really unaccessible. have many obstacles unless very well spoken or well written. i dont think its an issue with the ppl, i think its the model.
• paige: i dont know i think its people problem, in terms of people representing a collectiv. I dont know yet that I think the model is problem, but it relies on collectives being active in omni and how omni runs. right now collective mostly dont care to get involved in omni stuff. so delegate is just voting based of their opinion, not collective
• natalie: some collectives just come to use the space, as opposed to putting roots in the building. im apart of other coops in the area, omni is the one with the biggest problem of making deciscions in a timely matter. so people think they can be bothered with the democratic minutia
• anca: already a lot of work in holding a collective, then also having to interact as a delegate. A lot for volunteers to be expected to do
• silver: used to be mad because i didnt get a say, because i wasnt in any voting groups. then when i had to represent a group, that group didnt want to talk about omni or get involved in omni decision making. i wanted to vote for myself as opposed for a whole collective.
• anca: at one point we talked about all of the working groups having a voice, sometimes more involved with the building than the collectives.
• natalie: yes i feel like we talked about this before, want to recognize ppl who are consistent with keeping place clean, or welcoming ppl in
• anca: yes, one past idea is working groups have a vote. that requires collectives to have ppl in working group to have a vote
• natalie: how to --- sorry missed notes here
• toan: volunteer that is representing their collective should spend time at omni. working groups spend time at omni, so they spend time here, frequent it. i think thats a good idea anca proposing. its not a criticism but i think that the delegates, they are not encouraged, or feel like they have to attend the meeting, as opposed to wanting to come, because thats how it works.
• silver: i feel like as someone who does newsletters, i talk to a lot of different ppl from collectives. how can we imagine rotating between spaces to all better know what we are all doing. maybe we can show up at a collective meeting, instead of just a separate delegates meeting. when we arrive to delegates meeting we dont know each other so we dont trust each other. how can we have a fair representative of all voices. some ppl have been delegates for 10 years
• anca: yes because nobody wants to be delegate
• toan: can encourage rotating delegates
• silver: or require for getting a vote.. an old idea, 5% or something of members need to be in a working group
• anca: sometimes collectives here and not that interested, or sometimes just would come in to throw wrenches into the process.
• jemma: very open idea to wg getting a vote. dont feel great about removing vote from delegates so quickly. especially bc collectives bringing in a lot of income
• anca: could be both
• jemma: yea helpful for everyone involved to have people in the building a lot present at the meetings
• silver: and we should clarity about when showing up as a contractors vs when showing up as a volunteer. just saying because we are having more contractors coming in now
• jemma: something paige brought up is we need new vote for secretary, treasurer/bookkeeper, and president.
• yar: definitely a treasurer position and not a bookkeeper/treasurer. those are separate roles

End of Meeting

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