Event:2015/09/10 Delegates Council Meeting

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Omni Commons Delegates Meeting - 10 Sep 2015

Who's Here?

  • Libbie, she/her, Becoming Omni/BAPS
  • Laura, she/her/ BAPS
  • Robb, he, SUDO, CCL, FNB
  • Helen, she, FnB
  • Andrew, he, building WG
  • Alex, she/her/they, BAPS
  • Matt, he, Sudo
  • Simona, she/her/they/them, MPM
  • Rachel, she/her, GWS, also has to leave for work meeting
  • Lori, she/her, GWS

Meeting Roles

  • Facilitator/s: Lori and Libbie
  • Explanation of hand signals: "deaf applause", "raised hand", "point of process", "direct response"(wildcard), etc.
  • Stack-taker: Matt Senate
  • Timekeeper: Simona
  • Notetaker/s: Libbie, Laura
  • Vibe Reader: Andrew
  • Next weeks facilitator(s): Matt Senate + Rachel (GWS)

Delegates

  • BAPS: Alex
  • CCL: Jacob (remote)
  • FNB: Helen
  • MPM: Simona
  • OpAl: (inactive, no?)
  • Sudo: Matt
  • TIL: n/a (active)
  • GWS: Lori
  • Quorum: YES 6/7

Introductions

Introduce yourself: Name; Prefered Pronoun; Affiliation

  • Libbie, she/her, Becoming Omni/BAPS
  • Laura, she/her/ BAPS
  • Robb, he, SUDO, CCL, FNB
  • Helen, she, FnB
  • Andrew, he, building WG
  • Alex, she/her/they, BAPS
  • Matt, he, Sudo
  • Simona, she/her/they/them, MPM
  • Rachel, she/her, GWS, also has to leave for work meeting
  • Lori, she/her, GWS

Announcements

  • New Posters
    • Libbie, Joel and Gabby developed new OMni brochures that can also be posted on bullentin boards.
  • Caucuses
    • Libbie also has made a poster for the racial justice caucuses that will take place the next 3 Sundays 12-3pm. Please invite your collective.
  • Matt: Rent Party poster
  • Simona: Material Print Machine is hosting a workshop this Sunday: an Image Transfer Workshop starts at 7pm

Bans

  • Manual (also goes by 'Manny') was asked to leave and never return for repeatedly stealing from sudo room after being repeatedly told not to. May assert that 'Jake told me I can take e-waste'.
    • See https://sudoroom.org/pipermail/sudo-discuss/2015-September/011054.html for more context
    • Manuel is on the SUDO room ban list
    • he has stolen several things from Sudo Room in the past.
    • Robb caught him leaving from the 48th St door with several monitors.
    • Alex: Is there a sign?
    • Libbie: yes, i made a sign, just got derailed
    • Laura: has it been made clear that people need to be present at the door when they are hosting events until all of your attendees are here? And then make sure everyone leaves at the end. For example, for classes with BAPS.
    • Robb: that seems to be an issue for most of the collectives that have public meet-ups.
    • Robb: Maybe there could be an intercom system at the front of the building that could direct a speaker to different rooms, i.e. you could ring the buzzer for each collective. Or even a two way conversations.
    • Andrew: if we're serious about the doors being closed, we could have an alarm that would go off after it was open after a certain amount of time, if that is the policy and we want to enforce it.
    • Matt: you can make one at SUDO ROOM any Tuesday evening. a noise-maker!
    • Helen: how easy is that to do and how expensive is it?
    • Robb: we should come back with a proposal with costs.
    • Andrew: I can take responsbility for that project for the meantime.

Working Group Report-Backs

Building & permits

Meetings: Mondays at 8pm

    • Matt: every Saturday at noon, we have work parties. Tell your friends and frenemies!
    • Laura: we will have a new front door within a week and a half.
    • Robb: talked to the permit office today, will hear back from them tomorrow.
    • Jeremy: there are two things that might be needed for the permit, screw pattern and caulking. The wall is almost done, very close to finishing. And then we have to do a second layer after we get the first section permitted/approved. And then we'll be done.

Becoming Omni

  • Laura: We're having a little bit of a hold-up because we have to decide when are going to be the actual dates of the planning meetings in early October, so we really need people to fill out the scheduling survey we sent out. There are 3-4 options for how to spread the time out in October, so please do that.
    • We are also going to have the next meeting of the design team on Sunday the 20th from 3-6pm. If you are part of the design team or would like to get involved, come!

PLEASE FILL OUT THE SURVEY: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CWWY5YZ

Commons

Meetings: Sundays at 7pm

  • Laura: September 20th is going to be super busy. If you are having something happening that day, chances are you will be, we just have to be flexible about rubbing elbows.
  • Jeremy: Laura mentioned that there is an opporutnity to manage the front-door. Welcoming.
  • Laura: it would be good if people could sign up for a door shift.
  • Libbie: you can do it anytime--set up a table in front of the door

Communications

  • Matt: we had some issues with the calendar. We finally figured it out and recieved a patch. The calendar should sync properly now, and I'll talk to the commons working group this Sunday. There may need to be some pruning but we can figure it out now. If there's any discrepancies in the calendar, email the commons WG--commons@lists.omnicommons.org
  • Reserving space, any time anybody wants to use common space at the OMNI, they should get online to request/reserve the space at www.Omnicommons.org/occupy
  • Matt: I will change the front page of the website to include the link to the /occupy page -- "bookings/reservations"

Finance

Meetings: Every other Thursday at 7pm

  • Matt S: Matt Griffin settled on a budget shortfall: $5k. This is also how much we need to pay rent for October. Most of the collectives have outstanding invoices from the collectives. Paying the bills we already owe and paying rent on-time will save us a lot of migraines. Maybe we can ask finance to ask for rent 1 or 2 weeks before rent is due.
  • Matt S: Jenny just emailed out a list of grants that we could apply to--that are $1k-2k. We need people to come to the Fundraising WG which meets at Monday at 6:30pm.

Buy the Building/Fundraising

Meetings: Mondays at 6:30pm

  • Laura: we have to answer a lot of questions and provide a lot of deatils for our 501(c)3 application, and we are also working on negotiating a ground lease with the Bay Area Community Land Trust, which is actually having their board meeting right now. Jesse it there right now. We'll hear back from them.

Example Proposal

Liberation Ministries Proposal to Join the Omni As an Active non-Member

This proposal is being sent out so that it can be discussed for consensus at next week's (9/17) delegates meeting. Please take it back to your collectives and discuss so we can move forward--draft pending. ---

Discussion

  • Matt: the proposal seems ambiguous in terms of the structure of the relationship. Are you proposing a tenent type of relationship or a cmpletely new kind of relationship
  • Laura: One way to reslve this is just to negotiate a contract with the commons wg about when they want to reserve space and for how much, like other groups that have regular meetings here.
  • Alex: What space was she planning on using as an office?
  • Libbie: Probably one of the rooms next to Phat Beets' office. We can figure that out before the proposal next week if that would be helpful.
  • Helen: How do we negotiate the contract?
  • Matt: We have rental agreement contracts for groups who have regular meetings and also templates from other orgs that use the space in differenmt ways such as Phat Beets.
  • Robb: there is stil concern about the alignment of their mission compared to other tenants.
  • LIbbie: Cheryl has addressed these concerns in previous meetings. She has had to restate these things over and over to various groups within the Omni.
  • Libbie: We talked with LM about the concerns folk were raising last week and she answered questions and addressed concerns. She has reiterated these answers many times. Very different from GWS which was accepted as a collective recently with a lot less resistence.
  • Laura: This is a chance for us to
  • Matt: we had a discussion that we found very productive at SUDO room. This conversations has a potential to be very divisive and corrosive, which has to do with how we hand-off relationships about. We should have some dates before we marry them as Yar has said. I want to express totally bluntly that it would benefit everyone to do some revisions on the proposal and make it incredbly clear what is being asked of all of the member collectives- I think that would make this proposal process easier and less emotionally taxing.
  • Jeremy: I'm confused. I dont' see how this would be any way different than if there are a group of people to learn about the bible in a BAPS class.
  • Matt: We should talk about it more next week.
  • Alex: In the effort of clarifying things, it would be great if the proposal specifies if this is a trial session for permanent membership.
  • Matt: There will be some arbitrary allotment of time. We have a 3 year lease.
  • Laura: in what way do you think a tenant agreement wouldn't work for them? You can write any terms into the agreement about what they get to do in the building and where, the rent, and for how long.

Berkeley Restorative Justice Council Proposal

Proposal for OMNI Collective and Restorative Justice Center

The Restorative Justice Center at the University of California at Berkeley would like to develop a partnership with the OMNI Collective and other Bay Area RJ organizations to offer Restorative Justice and Restorative Practices to Oakland/Berkeley communities.

We propose the following design for the collaboration:

Julie Shackford-Bradley of the RJ Center will facilitate / co-facilitate circles at OMNI for anyone who would like to participate, two nights a month.

Julie Shackford-Bradley will also facilitate / co-facilitate circle processes for OMNI as needed in cases of conflict.

The OMNI collective will provide spaces (the Disco Room and the Mural Room aka "the Den") for RJ organizations to offer trainings for the Bay Area community. Some trainings will be offered free of charge and others will be organized as fundraisers for Bay Area organizations, including the UC Berkeley RJ Center. The organizations will charge a sliding scale fee to collect funds for service provision in other contexts.

Together, volunteers from the RJ Center, other local RJ organizations, and the OMNI Collective will begin to brainstorm ways to bring community-based justice processes and conflict resolution processes to Oakland residents. This process will have multiple steps and could take 2-3 years to implement:

1. education and outreach on what is RJ and how it works 2. training in RJ and community-based justice processes 3. outreach to other Oakland organizations with aligned missions 4. the development of an infrastructure to provide RJ processes for the community (in collaboration with other organizations) and monitor people’s successful movement through these processes. 5. funding sources identified to support the program.

-- wtf is up w/ 4-5? I don't understand -- Matt

Background: what is RJ?

Restorative Justice has its roots in the global phenomenon of “community-based justice,” whereby groups that have experienced a crime or a violation of the law come together to focus on harms, accountability, and the needs of all involved, rather than on punishments. Restorative Justice engages not just the person who committed the crime or harm and the victim, but the larger community in examining what happened and what can be done to repair harms and restore relationships.

RJ is considered a possible option for underrepresented or marginalized communities that have been mistreated by the criminal justice system and have lost trust in the police. These include both African American and other communities of color, and LGBT communities, as well as intersection points between them. For these communities, RJ can offer an alternative to the criminal justice system that draws the community together and empowers people to decide how to address crime and violence within their own groups.

Currently, RJ is utilized in schools throughout the Bay Area, including Oakland Unified School District, as well as to divert youth from the juvenile justice system and to offer people in prison a chance to be accountable for their crimes in supportive environments. There are some community-based RJ programs, most of which work directly with the criminal justice system but adjudicate cases through volunteer-led Restorative Justice Panels or Restorative Boards. Building the structure from scratch presents unique, but not insurmountable challenges.

For more information: Center for Court Innovation http://www.courtinnovation.org/topic/restorative-justice

RedHook Peacemaking program http://www.courtinnovation.org/research/red-hook-peacemaking-program

“Justice for All: An Indigenous Community-Based Approach to Restorative Justice in Alaska,” Jarrett and Hyslop, March 2015

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2572274 Thanks for your consideration!

Julie Shackford-Bradley RJ Center, Berkeley jsbradley@berkeley.edu rjcenterberkeley.org

discussion

Robb: Shouldn't the Commons scheduling group do this? Alex: I think they want to form an ongoing relationship. Matt: When somebody wants to do a new project with the Omni, i communicate how having more communication is better. I see that in the positive light. So this is a positive signal. I see a huge opportunity which is immediately: it has been sunk by labor costs. We have a group interested in helping us in our community. This is amazing. Friendly amendment: pending conversations with the North Oakland Restorative Justice Council (NORJC), and pending sorting the details with the commons wg. we should say thank you. Libbie: I don't think that partnering with RJ is mutually exclusive or prevents us from partnering with any other restorative justice groups. i did hear that after the circle Julie led some participants felt that they had attended circles that had been better facilitated. There are different styles. Robb: Doesn't say how often they are going to use the space. Matt: Asked for 2 nights a week plus additional ad hock usage of space. Robb: Question about funding. Laura: No money will be given to Omni. They will lead circles at the Omni instead of monetary compensation.

Proposal passed unanimously with Matt's friendly amendments


Example Discussion Item

End of Meeting

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