Event:2015/01/29 Weekly Delegate's Meeting

Delegates Meeting - January 29th, 2015 The meeting will begin promptly at 7pm, and end at 9pm; unless consensed upon to go beyond 9pm.

Attendees

• Facilitator/s: yar, rayc
• Introduction to the Omni Commons & our values
• Explanation of hand signals: "deaf applause", "raised hand", "point of process", "direct response", "time's up", etc.
• Stacktaker: mary
  • Explanation of Progressive Stack: Raise your hand, make eye contact with the stack taker.
• Timekeeper: ryan
  • Reminder to keep comments brief.
• Notetaker/s: niki, jenny, matt
  • URL of this pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/omninom
• Vibe Reader: brandon
• Delegates: mary (ccl), ryan (sudo), pam (la commune), emji (til), niki (baps)
• Quorum: naw
• Facilitator/s for next week: ryan and matt
  • 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

Introductions (10 mins)

Name; Affiliation; Prefered Pronoun; If you are new, one thing that brought you here.

• yar (sudo), omni is super important and needs lots of love
• mary (ccl),
• brandon (oakland next), place to improve oakland peoples' lives
• sarah p (omni), here to talk about conflict
• niki (baps/sudo), because people are doing hard work to dismantle oppression
• noemie (sudo), i'm involved!
• nicholas (unaffiliated/everything), grassroots activism, promotions
• matt (sudo), oh yeah we raised 80k
• emji (til/mpm), to be a delegate
• pam (lc), to catch up on wider omni biz
• jenny (sudo), revolution of everyday life
• ryan (sudo), vaporizing lasers filling room with smoke
• kim (bay area radical mycology) - part of counter culture labs - has more equipment if anyone's interested!
• kevin (how we organize), complete dedication to the success of our alternative to capitalism
• patrick (sudo), wants to observe more meetings, start attending again

Announcements 15

Any Omni-related announcements.

• We raised $81,014+! More info from the fundraising working group report-back below.
• Ban of Rus / Aerosonic from sudo room for reasons of theft
• Reminder about bans:
  • Pirate Mike, wears fatigues and has an elaborate bicycle
    • NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH Pirate Matt, who is awesome and helped with the sudo room move into omni commons ;)
• ongoing conflict resolution processes
  • a small group wrote a statement. see next section.
• this sunday night social from 5-7 is TRY SOMETHING NEW! bring food, experiences, ideas, or other stuff people might not have experieend
• fermentation group reactivated - Mondays at 7pm
• come see Keith Hennessey Friday and / or Saturday!
• your microbiome and your health
• Oakland Next: Geared towards improving technological & intellectual improvement of Oakland residents. Creating a network for and by organizer, teachers, artists, performers, planners. Projects include but are not limited to: cyber-security, marketing training, talent scouting, music production, construction, cleaning, media projects, fundraising, outdoor educational trips.
  • Started by Brandon & Shake who have been organizing together for several years
  • Any affiliations with existing groups or collectives? Just starting now with two people. Drawing partly on Shake's experience in local politics. Next meeting is a closed meeting.
  • Are you intending to become an Omni collective? Yes. Excellent!

statement on conflict resolution

Realizing that conflicts and oppressive patterns of behavior will emerge over the course of this project and that we will encounter difficulties in resolving them, we feel it is important to reaffirm our commitment to making the Omni a safer space.

We acknowledge that we live in a culture of intersecting forms of oppression and that these intersections complicate our ability to connect with one another and to confront the various power dynamics and privileges at play in our relationships.

We are committed to continuing to engage in the work of dismantling systems of oppression both inside and outside of ourselves in order to build stronger relationships and a more resilient community. This will require us to acknowledge and engage in conflict and to take seriously the process of conflict resolution.

Acts of violence, abuse, intimidation and other forms of oppression can not be tolerated within this community. In the event that a member or members of our community feel that they are the victim of violence, abuse, intimidation or other forms of oppression, we expect all involved to pursue conflict resolution in good faith.

We are all complicit in the perpetration of acts of violence in our communities and can all take responsibility for building the culture we would like to see here at the Omni. We should feel empowered to hold both ourselves and one another accountable. Every one of us has room to learn, to grow and to heal.

We don’t believe in using pressure and threats to force rushing to reach resolution. We entreat the community to have patience with the healing process and to recognize that confronting systems of oppression and engaging in the unavoidable conflicts that will arise as a result is the real work of this project.

Oakland Next

improving the technological and intellectual development of people of oakland through art and trade hub & network for & by artists, performers, planners creating training for ... i can't keep up

Working Group Report-Backs

5 minutess per WG; 40 minutess max, total. (Alphabetical - All WG are equally important!)

Commons

Meets Saturdays at 1, where?

• At this point, getting so many requests for use of the space that we are considering not taking requests for a week in order to catch up / streamline our process.
• Need more volunteers to participate in Commons WG; need help streamlining our process
  • If people can't make the meeting, how can they be involved?
    • Email the list, we're going to schedule an orientation
  • As money comes in, we might be doing a lot of construction, might want to put a freeze on a block of time for construction
• Proposal: to close down events for some period in march to do ballroom renovations
• Would be great to get a monthly report back on how much revenue we're bringing in from rentals

Building and Facilities

Meets when, where?

• I wish I was meeting with this group, but please see this wiki page for an overall task list to ready the Omni Commons:
  • https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Omni-readiness
• Rhetorical note: try using phrase of "making omni commons safe and accessible" rather than other ways of phrasing concerns about regulations, zoning, code, etc.
• Reach out to David K if you want to help organize work parties or help out with our permits

Communications / SysAdmins

• Joel and Emji have been working on signs!
• yar is doing stuff, so is jenny

Challenging Dominant Culture (CDC)

Meets Sundays at 12

• We have never as part of a General Meeting set expectations or intentions for how we want to communicate and treat each other in these meetings.
  • Like it when people don't use negative hand signals
  • Like the idea of presuming good faith
  • (move up move back is less ablist)
  • When people stay on topic out of respect for other people's time
  • Expect the facilitator to make decisions that prioritize voices and participation that are silenced, ignored, or overridden.

Finance

Meets Tuesdays at 7

• Mary is helping now!
• Working on a system for keeping track of invoices, contracts, payments. Want to make a technology free version.
• Working on identifying what kind of 501 organization we should be!
• 2 months of reserve bills should be put aside from fundraising campaign

• ".csv" me, please! ;)

Fundraising

Meets Mondays at 7, in Meetspace /Old TIL room /BAPS classroom

• Completed our first crowdfunding campaign: raised $81,014 ($40,000 in external grants + $41,014 from crowdfunding website)
• What we're going to do with this money is an issue.
• Our strategy is the Hydra: with one head cut off, 8 more spring up in its heads
  • Running multiple, concurrent campaigns.
• Next Generation of Fundraising:
  • We need to raise $1.9 million. We need a different strategy:
    • Be yourselves, grow and thrive!
    • Connect to folks who have access to large contributions, build trusting relationships, ensure a positive experience that enables receipt of a substantial contribution to purhcase the building.
    • Talk to Laura Turiano about any large donors you may know or be willing to introduce. We can follow up with progress, supply materials or support, and also speak with anyone directly.
  • Buy the Building! https://omnicommons.tilt.com
  • "Friends of Omni Commons" donor circle: https://omnicommons.org/friends.html
  • Next up (hopefully) is "Commercial Kitchen" fundraiser
• The link for our fundraiser now directs you to the purchase campaign: https://omnicommons.org/donate

How We Organize

Meets Tuesdays at 7, in Meetspace /Old TIL room /BAPS classroom

• 6-month Review of Collectives - we're just approaching our sixth month mark for occupying the building: does it feel necessary for us to engage in some sort of review process of the function and relationships of all the collectives in regards to their participation, shortcomings, transformations, etc.
• Next Tues. 7-8pm and next Thurs. 6-7pm we'll convene general meetings around the conversation of holding a Strategic Planning Retreat for the OOC participants, members and organizers or whatever else you identify as towards the planning of our building
• considering dissolving?
• they could liaise with new prospective collectives, or with existing collectives that are behind on rent
• clerical work
• omni summit for long-term vision

Kitchen

• took out the old water heater
• gonna use noisebridge sink
• knocking down wall?

Welcoming

Meets Thursdays at 6, where?

• filling front-door shifts to help out la commune and answer questions from newbs
• link: https://ethercalc.com/omni-front-desk
• discussing "open to the public" proposal
• can't announce public open hours until shifts are filled
• we might need to consent on which part of the buildings are public?
• posting ground rules
• expulsion - floating proposal to adopt sudo's "member can kick out non-member" rule
• bathrooms - will always be gender neutral forever even if it takes guerilla action
• cops

Discussions

Visioning and Strategic or Tactical Planning

5 minutes?

• Brief summary of state of affairs, aim to come to simple consensus about what needs to be done.
• Plan to meet in some regular(ish) fashion regularly starting next week
• Plan to host a singular "Strategic Planning" meeting facilitated by Laura Turiano and an open "working group" or informal facilitation group:
  • e.g. "Planning" working group
• Plan to also meet in regular(ish) fashion after "Strategic Planning" meeting as well.
• some concern that power could be concentrated in this meeting but it's not very accessible
• niki encourages this conversation happening in all different forms
• amgo excited because this is a way for people who might not want to come to the Thursday meeting to get involved. Would like to hear more positive ideas about visioning, less negative ideas
• nicholas suggests submitting concerns via email
• ryan counters that that's not the same thing as being present and participating. a planning retreat is much different than a conference
• let's call it a conference then!
• vibe reader thinks the conversation is not going anywhere. people don't seem aligned.
• sensing and feeling some fear because we just came off of intense work w/the crowdfunding campaign. the imperative to define the next 5 years could be perceived as aggressive. this could be so formative for the future of the omni, the way that it's being organized is a break from what's normal for people who have been organizing
• when we're organizing something so big and important, we should be extra sensitive to that perception when we're communicating to the group
• we can have plurality of means. when we worked on getting into this meeting we organized a hack-a-thon in which we got an enormous amount of work done. was by no means the place in which all things were decided w/ finality.
• a hack-a-thon is not a retreat
• is it supposed to be for a small group of people and is it supposed to not be here?
• just trying to get some feedback, suggesting a localized event, open to everyone
• exicted about a positive, social, visionary place where we can all talk about what we want to do. maybe even monthly
• interested in engaging in difficult things; our vision is not clear to everyone. not sure how to move forward necessarily. also welcome to stepping back completely.
• ryan felt hurt by amgo's statements about positivity. they felt shaming.
• in re: fears that we're drafting some kind of legal document
• the reason why we want to have a one-time event is because it's hard to have a long indepth conversation. also want to respect laura's time and skills. it could be on the web, we have the technology
• would like to ask that we recognize that we don't all speak the same language and may mean different things when we use certain words
• kim got the sense that the "retreat" would happen here
• could see how this could be viewed as a very negative thing. was kicked out of a hackerspace because a small group of people made decisions.
• visioning fear not of visioning but of an offsite retreat
• sarah feels excited about a chance to have visioning conversations given a culture of overwork and burnout at the omni
• visioning process is a process of positive reinforcement
• apologize if anyone else was triggered by their emphasis on positivity
• trust the good faith of the people who brought the proposal

discussion of conflicts

• Yar seeing a need to address NVC as well as tone policing

Tabled

• How was conflict handled when you were growing up?

• How is the way that you handle conflict now the same / different?

• What do we do when conflict becomes painful that works well?

• What do we do when conflict becomes painful that doesn't work so well?

• How do we dream it could be?

• hand rubbing noise
  • can be overstimulating

• how we treat each other at these meetings
  • tone policing vs non-violent communication?
  • acculturates us to not assert ourselves

Proposals

Proposals brought to the delegates for discussion and vote.

BreakOut Session (Optional)

A 20-minute sessions of open group discussion about various topics, concerning Omni, Culture, Health, Activism, and more.

Ideas

• How do/should we ineract with unwelcome (abusive/hostile/drunk/etc) guests (Especially if you are alone!) and diffuse/solve the situation?
• 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?
• Kindness, Forgiveness, Self care, Debt and Jubilee
• Friendships, Relationships, and Organizing
• 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, the rest of the world, and the word "community"?