Event:2014/12/04 Weekly Delegate's Meeting

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December 5th Delegates Meeting The meeting will begin promptly at 7pm and end at 9pm, unless consensed upon to go beyond 9pm

  • Facilitators: Brendan & Jenny
  • explain hand signals: deaf applause, raised hand, point of process, direct response
  • Stack: Mary
  • Timekeeper: Ian
  • Notes:
  • Vibe Reader: Chloe
  • Next weeks facilitator(s):
  • Delegates: Pam (La Commune), Chloe (Black Hole), Stephen (BAPS), Brendan (sudo), Joel (TIL), Mary (CCL), Joe (FNB), Ian (Material Print Machine)
  • Quorum:
  • facilitators for next week: Dave & Laura

intros

Name; affiliation; if you are new, one thing that brought you here.

  • yar sudo
  • joel til
  • steven baps
  • scott baps
  • diamond dave - flowershop collective
  • matt sudo
  • joe fnb
  • laura baps
  • pam lc
  • chloe black hole
  • ian baps/mpm
  • troy library
  • mary ccl
  • brendan sudo
  • jenny sudo
  • ben sudo

important, building related announcements

  • OMNI HOLIDAY PARTY & BAZAAR : Saturday, December 13, 12noon to 6pm, hosted by La Commune -- all are welcome to help plan & participate! We're looking for vendors! Get in touch with La Commune -- lacommunebks@gmail.com or talk to a collective member.
  • IndieGoGo campaign is now live! Please share far and wide!
  • private anti-racist organizing planning meeting Weds. Dec. 10th 6-9pm in the Ballroom (stephen)
  • Check on Black Hole Delegate status - yes you are a member collective
  • Material Print Machine open house on the 13th from 5-7! Come learn out to bind books!
  • Ian planning to work out of TIL office & print studio, will pitch in a donation directly to omni every month
  • Food Not Bombs is hoping the $10K check will clear tomorrow! Need a live sig for the
  • Sudo Room has been working on cleaning and organizing the space to look as fire-safe as possible
  • Keep books more than 2 feet from the ceiling in the basement
  • Omnivorous Library Group is forming! Talk to Troy or Diamond Dave
  • Welcoming Committee has formed! First meeting
  • Diamond Dave radio show - invites us to come on by, Friday from 3-5, to join the show! Mutiny Radio - check it out! mutinyradio.fm
  • Catalyst project having a ferguson related meeting here on wednesday
  • Welcoming committee - the best committee ever. Volunteers to woman the front door

Working group report backs, 0-5 mins each (max 40 mins)

Reports consist of answering 3 questions: 

   - What did you accomplish this week?
   - what problems or action items do you need to bring to our attention?
   - When is your next meeting?

commons

  • Very effective meeting last week! We ripped through the standing list of events
  • Someone came in who used to do reggae shows here at the building, we're ropin him in!
  • Boots Riley came by, wants to get involved
  • We need more people on the booking mailing list!
  • We meet Saturdays at 1pm in La Commune

How We Organize

  • Check in about each group having an active member on the Commons Working Group
    • Is this happening?
  • Please sign up for the Booking list and come to a Commons WG meeting to get oriented!
  • Meets Tuesdays at 7pm

communications

  • Join the comms mailing list if you want to help create excellent documentation/handouts for the Omni!

cdc

  • We've been having meetings to discuss the self-care of not having meetings

finance

  • Bank Account balance is $4,880
  • The following groups have not paid their rent / shared expenses this month:
    • Counter Culture Labs (rent & expenses)
    • Omni Music Project (rent & expenses)
    • Bay Area Public School (expenses)
    • Peak Agency (no rent ever paid to date)
  • If you are not able to pay let's us discuss and figure out how to move forward! Let's be open and supportive of one another!
  • We have not paid any bills except for Rent & Utilities this month. We owe around ~$3,500 in loan repayments and will owe ~$4,500 in loan repayments on Jan 1st.
  • $10,000 grant check should come this week
  • Petty cash expenditure? Needs to be pre-approved by the Finance WG w/ itemized budgets. Matt would like to rekey the building

fundraising

Good News! $20K donation

  • They want to use the ballroom 2-3 times a year and have a >15 person meeting 2-3 times a month, plus a tiny art exhibit
  • EB Anarchist Book Fair Tableing this Sunday 10-8
    • Any volunteers? - send an email to Laura @ scylla@riseup.net
    • Collectives should provide swag at La Commune and Laura will bring it
    • Joe relays some awful history between FNB and the Humanist Hall
  • Meeting Monday 7pm

kitchen

  • Joe's been stood up by one kitchen planner 4 times and another 3 times
  • They want to bump it out to the far door of the kitchen

chores

  • Time to check in and redistribute chores for the month!
  • Sudo room has been taking out the trash - got support from others
    • Thinking of moving the location, or getting a dumpster
  • BAPS - Basement - spearheaded moving the books, swept the floor
  • CCL - Bathroom - Mary volunteered herself, did it twice over the month - would be good to distribute it over at least 2 people. We need cleaning supplies for each floor - especially bleach!
  • La Commune - 1st Floor - keeping LC clean, but hard to distribute that. The ballroom is tricky cuz it's always in use.
  • FNB - outside - Helen and Joe have been patrolling, picking up cigarette butts. Looks pretty good, pick up your butts! We should have more decoration visible to the outside
    • We got tagged. Chris B has been helping with that
  • TIL - 3rd floor
  • Mary suggests a cleaning work party around the potluck. Lure with food.
  • Matt mentiones that everything needs a place to be
  • We have a label printer in sudo

permits

  • Ben is waiting on some calls
  • Called the economic dev director to see if we qualify for any grants
  • Called the refuse dept re: daily collection. Waiting to hear back.
  • Our ADA renovations were not legit - need to hear back from pre-meeting

PROPOSALS

Please provide the following information with your proposal: the date the proposal was put on the pad; the group or person making 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.

  • 12-04-14 (added by Niki) Proposal to designate the bunker / cave room between La Commune and the ballroom as a lockable space for all groups to safetly store expensive equipment.
    • La Commune would like to propose that the bunker / cave room between La Commune and the ballroom be designated as a secure space for expensive equipment, sensitive documents, etc. to be stored by all Omni member groups and tenants. Access will be available to all member groups and tenants but not to the general public.
    • Potential friendly amendment: Specify small items

Discussion

(10-15 minutes MAX) Crowdfunding campaign

  • concerns over changing/increasing perks, requests for transparency
  • If you have an idea for a perk you can add it to the pad at https://pad.riseup.net/p/omniperks
  • The campaign will only be successful if everyone participates and distributes the ask to everyone they know
  • More lower-price point perks are needed
  • The fundraising working group needs more people! We need to contact more press, do more outreach, etc
  • We need to connect with people like Boots Riley
  • Optik Allusions is putting together 30-second clips of what's happening - email optikallusions@riseup.net if you have suggestions
  • Omni Holiday Party hosted by La Commune Sunday the 13th - contact us if you wanna vend something!

(15 minutes) Last week, it came to the attention of several omni folks that there had been a bid for the building by a group of local people of color. They knew about our project, but we were not aware of theirs. Was anyone aware of this project? Let's talk about it and the issues it raises for Omni.

  • Group discussion & clarifying questions
    • They were negotiating for 2 years and paid for lawyers and inspections up to $15K in that time
    • They were accused of being a front to an evil developer
    • They knew exactly who we were, but we didn't know who we were
  • How are people feeling emotionally?
    • Matt is channeling patience
    • Joe feels challenged - white privilege in your face! How do we respond to it?
    • Troy wants the facts from both sides
    • Dave wonders if that group would like to participate
    • DZ brings up the comparison to the incident of sexual violence we dealt with when we first moved in. It may be important to make it very clear what our politics are
    • Noemie feels it's important to express humility and solidarity. Offer them an avenue for communication
    • Brendan would like to see members of this community come forward in a way that's authentic and earnest attempt to reconcile the situation
    • Diamond Dave calls for more effort in outreach to the neighborhood
    • Joe emphasizes the role of spontaneity as essential to authenticity
    • Several PoC members express "yeah, I do feel this community is all white activists"
  • What are some of the lessons we've learned from this experience?
    • Reprecussions of this could hamstring our entire mission if there's strong resentment from PoC in the community
    • Small number of people aversely affected. Challenge to demonstrate our solidarity in meaningful ways
    • Yar: Just keep on building a commons. Make it available to all.
    • Stephen: How do we keep ourselves accountable? and individuals? but still express love and care? Our very act of pushing forward with the project, however unawares, we must be held accountable and move forward with knowledge of our role in the larger community. Need to continue that work to reach out to communities of color and how to be real allies.
      • Yar: Just to clarify, this wasn't an outreach problem. They knew about us.
    • Brendan: Can we reconcile our intentions with their intentions? We don't even know this. Building a bridge but not relying on the stepping stone.
    • Jenny: How do we challenge our own internally-constructed culture and accomodate for the different
    • Discussion of groups of PoC in Omni, collaboration btw Omni Media Project and Optik Allusions
    • Intersecting Oppressions class on Monday nights at 6pm w/ Lynice Pinkard
  • Recommendations re: future communications on this issue:
    • First draft of our building origin story on the wiki, under https://omnicommons.org/wiki/History
    • Reinvigorating the Challenging Dominant Cultures working group
    • This is about more than racism - it's about capitalism
    • Stephen suggests forming an Anti-Oppression class / reading / discussion group

optional

Breakout discussion

How can we prevent (angry) squatters? Can we better communicate that squatting is not ok? How can we improve security? This is brought up by Korl's run-in with a weird guy squatting in the eyeball room at 4 AM. (relocate this agenda item as appropriate)

  • How We Organize WG suggests that this be the breakout conversation


20 minute breakout discussion ideas

  • OMNI Finances - How can move toward more transparency about how much the Omni costs? And more comfort talking about money within the Omni and its members
  • TOPIC: kindness, forgiveness, self care, debt and jubilee
  • TOPIC: friendships, relationships, and organizing
  • TOPIC: What is your 50 year vision for The Omni? The year is 2064: What is the Omni? Who/What makes up its membership? How has it changed Oakland and the rest of the world?
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