Event:2015/12/03 Delegates Meeting

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Weekly Omni Delegates' Meeting - December 3, 2015

Who's Here?

Meeting Roles

  • Facilitator/s: joe
  • Explanation of hand signals: "deaf applause", "raised hand", "point of process", "direct response"(wildcard), etc.
  • Stacktaker:Josh
  • Timekeeper:
  • Notetaker/s: Lori
  • Vibe Reader: Jeremy
  • Next weeks facilitator(s):

Delegates

  • BAPS: Inactive
  • BH: Alex
  • CCL:
  • CSC:
  • FNB:joe
  • MPM:
  • LL: Liz
  • Sudo:Jeremy
  • TIL: Inactive
  • GWS:Lori
  • Quorum:

Introductions

Introduce yourself: Name; Prefered Pronoun; Affiliation

Joe FNB he/him Laura she/her Tatille Buried Seeds Thunder Buried Seeds Liz LL Josh LL any pronoun Jeremy Sudo Lori GWS she/her jenny she sudo Alex BH


Announcements

  • lori from GWS asking if we can have a birthday for Chelsea Manning ofn the nest delegatges meeting b/c that is Chelsea's birthday. We would send her pics of our party. It is an international action and there is a link we can send so everyone can see former events. If interested in being part of planning let lori know at lori@allwomencount.net.
    • jnny: <3
  • Joe: FNB meets first wed of the month. Concerned about not knowing the agreements regarding the kitchen. The kitchen isn't safe without orientation, it was given as a kitchen and we are vegitarians and people have used it for meet. People need to ask for an orientation. Shouldn't make the kitchen public, refer them to FNB. The kitchen has also been left dirty, so please be vigilent. Still working on the front door.

Joe: Key is broken in the front door lock. Open to everyone, take a card with black strip, slide it thru 3x and send note to sysadmins@lists.omnicommons.org and they will make that card into a lock.

Bans

  • Rob: People were sleeping downs stairs. Asked to leave. The Shattuck door is unbolted in the day time on 48th Street.
  • Laura: I think those are the same people we just found smakming pot downn there. Jake and I told them that flames and smake are not allowed and that they have ot leave at 9 when this meeting is over.

Working Group Report-Backs

Jeremy: Building. Working on part of the wall in the Ball room. Should be done in the next couple days. Joe: Has anyone found the plans for the front room? Laura: Would Matt know where they are. Laura to write him. Joe: Need to clarify some things about the inspection. I did volunteer to do some research, a woman named Stephanie Massey (former fire inspector) gave us hints on what to look for re fire alarms, dectors, pull stations. Laura: The said we don't have to have sprinklers. Need to keep flamable stuff out of the basement, if it is clean we don't need sprinklers.

Buy the Building working group Laura: More back and forth with potential lender. Need in person meeting with him, Jessie, and people working on this and hammer out an agreement. Its coming down to how much membership in the LLC, was discussed last meeting. The meeting will be after Jan 9th and Laura will post a note about it. Not sure where the meeting will be, may be in SF. Not sure if catch up before the meeting. He would intervene with we wanted to take out a loan against the building. Joe: Is Buy the Building meeting Monday night? Still the regular time. Were looking into a loan from a credit union as a backup. Rob: Still likes the land trust idea and he is going to speak with contacts. Joe: We had agreed their would be a summary for the general membership of the OMNI. Laura: Yar was going to work on it, but was it a formal request. JOe: I will write what I know, and send to Laura to see if this is adequate.


Building & permits

Meetings: Mondays at 8pm

Joe will fix the cylinder in the front door.

Becoming Omni

Commons

Meetings: Sundays at 7pm

Communications

Finance

Meetings: Every other Thursday at 7pm

Buy the Building

Meetings: Mondays at 6:30pm

Proposal: Front Desk Shifts

via Jenny 11/13:

  • In order to create a welcoming atmosphere at the Omni, it's imperative that we regularly have someone staffing the front desk. Each member collective must have at least 1 member holding down a minimum 4-hour front desk shift per week. Collectives with more than 20 members should have a proportional representation at the front desk (eg; sudo, with ~60 members, should hold down 3 shifts/week).

Discussion

  • Rob: Agree it would be really important to have someone at the front desk.
  • Liz: Are we setting hours according to having coverage of the front desk. The spread sheet says 10am-10pm, is that the time open to the public.
  • Laura: By this proposal we are not saying that we are changing our policy on who can be in the bulding or our "open hours".
  • Jeremy: I would think that member collectives would want to have someone at the door.
  • Josh: Would like to know what building block has to say about this.
  • Joe: The collectives that are active could poll their membership.
  • Rob: We should have a list of the members in order to varify who is a member. So you can check the list.

Suggestions for revision:

  • Alex: Need more info about these questions: COnsequences if collectives dont sign up? Does it perpetuate an unfair distributionsof Labor? What does a front dest shift include? Would signing up in pairs be safer and more fun?
  • Liz: We should be realistic about being able to full all the shifts. 3 shifts a day x 7 days a
  • Thunder: HAve you thought about having a new colletive iin there so that it was mmore of an active space with activities going on, coffee, etc.
  • Liz: we had a cafe there and they left.
  • Alex: ARe we advertising for the spaces we have to rent.
  • Jeremy: Sent a email to NoBAWC.
  • Alex: Do we want to talk about advertising in other areas.
  • Joe: like to see a working group to see what we can do with the Bar area.
    • jnny: One thing we could do is build out 'stalls' along that wall for people to rent pop-up booths
  • Talk to your collectives to see if you can get people to sign up and show up even if we arent voting on this tonight.
  • Question from Liz (Liberated Lens): Are we setting open/closed (to the public) hours based on the availability of front desk volunteers?
    • remote-jnny:20:01 let's see if we can get people to hold down shifts then we can decide if we're stable enough to have regular 'open hours', was my thinking

Proposal: Elimination of delegates

via Jeremy, November 19th:


Any member of a collective can represent the presence of the collective. A presence of two-thirds of (active?) collectives (delegates?) need to be present to vote on a decision. Any member a collective has the capacity to block a proposal, if there is not block then it passes.

(We have similar process at sudo room, but require a certain amount of members rather than the presence of members from different collectives.)

  • Question from Liz (Liberated Lens): Does this exclude the ability for a collective who cannot be present (for valid

reasons) to email their voting decisions to Omni? This was one of the questions we faced a couple meetings ago, when the organizers for Global Women's Strike were all out of town but they sent us their votes in advance, and we debated for awhile whether or not we had a quorum of sorts.

  • Liz: Agrees with Laura that there may be some decisions a set of people would decide on and others that can be done by this forum. Wanted to bring up the question of GWS sending in their votes, and we discussed this for a while.
  • Alex:How this would affect our non-profit status. Is there a distinction between what can be voted on and what couldn't be voted on.
  • Joe: Maybe each collective could send delegates and have more on-line access.
  • Jeremy: Log on to a web site and vote on the proposals, but since our process is consensus this would make it more accessible to members to vote. Blocking factor is what matters.
  • Rob: Hopes that people don't feel like Sudo is pushing our process on the other collectives.


Proposal: Use of decision making platform to vote on decisions

via Jeremy, November 19th:

The use of a sysem (such as DemocracyOS) to vote on proposals. The system would be used to keep track of our decision making process, simplify and increase accessibility to voting, and allow arguements against the proposal to be measured.

http://the-omni.herokuapp.com/


Buried Seeds Proposal Revisit

1. Mission statement What do you do? What happens in the world because you exist? (1-3 sentences) 

       Buried Seeds Medicinal Collective (Buried Seeds) is a collectively-run project dedicated to facilitating the production of and accessibility to Earth-based medicine. We are committed to living, gardening, healing, and loving in rhythm with the Natural Order.

2. Origin and group history How did you start? What have you done? (1-3 sentences) 

       Buried Seeds started in August 2015 when a tax defaulted lot was made available to the collective members - Tatille Jackson and Thunder Currier - and their vision had a place to land. Since then, the members of Buried Seeds have established themselves as stewards of the land by moving into tiny homes. We are in the process of creating a regenerative herb and food garden while laying the groundwork for an Earth-based medicine lab.

3. Participation in the Omni Why are you interested in becoming a member? How does your group intend to use the space? What are your needs? (less than 5 sentences) 

       Buried Seeds is interested in becoming a member of Omni Commons because it is important to us that we grow in and contribute to spaces that are driven by the ideals of equal access, collective movement, and mutual support. We intend to use the space as a medicine-making lab and education hub for Earth-based herbalists. To achieve this, we are looking for:

securable floor space access to plumbing (to install sinks) access to electrical outlets We will bring in all other equipment, shelving, supplies, etc.

4. Group finances and paying rent What does your group do to support itself financially? What is your best plan for contributing your potential share of rent to the Omni? (less than 5 sentences) 

       Buried Seeds will have three main income sources - monthly membership dues to the medicine-making lab, the sale of herbal medicine kits, and workshops/classes/gatherings. As we will be funding the build out of the medicine lab and adding to the overall value of Omni, we propose that we pay $100 for the first two months of rent - the amount of time we are giving ourselves to complete the medicine lab. For the following four months, we propose that we pay $500 per month. After that, we can revisit the rent agreement including the possibility of offering a percentage of income. Buried Seeds is prepared to pay rent from its reserves if necessary. We expect transactional revenue to cover this expense from the seventh month moving forward.

5. Dedicated space If your group would like some dedicated space at the Omni, what square footage and what features are you looking for? Which specific rooms do you feel might be suitable? (1-3 sentences) 

       We are interested in the room previously used by Rise Above. Please refer to our answer to Question 3 regarding the features.

6. Other contributions to the Omni This question should inspire some imagination. We are exploring ideas to pay rent and purchase the building in the long-term. The basic plan is for each group paying a share of rent. Potential plans include groups sharing profit from their activities, producing Omni events, and booking other events. What is the best-case scenario for using the Omni space to further support your group? (less than 5 sentences) 

       Given the current real estate environment in the Bay Area, we fully support the plan to purchase the building and would be willing to host fundraising events, offer a percentage of sales to a “buy the building” fund, or come up with other creative ideas once we have a better idea of all that the Omni has to offer. The best case scenario for using the Omni space is that it will be a mutually beneficial scenario in which the culture of the Omni will help us draw in members and workshop participation while the presence of Buried Seeds will diversify what the Omni has to offer and stabilize its financial situation.

7. Additional Is there any other information that you think would be useful for us to know about your group? (as many sentences as you like) 

       As requested, we have outlined our business, membership and fee structures. Regarding its business structure, Buried Seeds is applying to become a collectively-run LLC much like Impact HUB. The people who manage Buried Seeds (aka partners) are independent from the public (aka members) who will be paying a monthly membership to the Buried Seeds medicine lab.

To join the Buried Seeds Medicinal Collective as a partner, a person offers to contribute in one of the following roles - as a medicine garden steward, medicine maker, or medicine teacher. If the individual’s proposal is accepted as financially and ethically aligned with the mission of Buried Seeds, then an agreement is made between the collective and the new partner. The agreement is based on five main tenets - transparent and fair pay, consensus decision-making, a commitment to Earth-based healing, giving back, and nurturing each individual’s journey. It is important to note that based on its business model, Buried Seeds will naturally have a limited number of partners. Regarding its membership and fee structure, Buried Seeds will offer members of the public access to supplies, equipment, space, and classes in the medicine-making lab. In return, these members will pay $50/month for the aforementioned access in addition to an allotment of medicine-making supplies, e.g., tincture bottles. Members of the lab will have a clear and easy way to provide feedback to the Buried Seeds collective. It is important for us to outline our exchange platform - in order to make what we offer available to those who may not have access to the one form of capital our society has deemed most valuable, we have decided to accept three forms of payment for the majority of our services. We will have predetermined amounts of 1) money, 2) garden volunteer hours, and 3) services that we will accept for the majority of our goods and services. This will also be based on the venue in which the exchange is taking place. For example, only money will be accepted at farmers’ markets or retail outlets whereas members may have the option of reduced membership rates to the medicine lab in exchange for contributing a certain amount of medicine to Buried Seeds or individuals can volunteer a predetermined number of hours in order to participate in a workshop. Looking down the line, Buried Seeds would love to explore the idea of establishing a free apothecary for Omni members. Even further down the line, and when we have appropriately experienced herbalists on board, we would also love to host a community clinic.

Tatille: we have partners, two of us right now. And their are members of the public who have access to the space. Would like an enclose space, 24/7 access we don't have to be the only one with keys. The other piece about building out the corner is not available. Jeremy: We were renting them to it for $1000, we can pay $100 for the first 2 months and $500 for the next two months. Alex: Concerned about locked space. Operating at a defficit now and if it is possible to get closer to the rate would be better. Joe: Would it help with other collectives brought it up to a more useable space. Tatille: It would be useful to have other collectives help with that space. Laura: The enclosed room makes sense for you, hopefully you will be able to be successful and you can offer more. It seems like a reasonable plan. We should decide on this toniight sincec they have been here 4 times. Rob: Going for 501c3 status, do we have a for profit vs non profit status. Tatille: The other piece is that it may be more beneficial for us to be a non-profit, we would be part of OMNI's non-profit.


Tatille: Question about access. Block out the doors, with a pad lock. Laura will speak with you about insurance and the door issues. Laura: It would be beneficial for us esp if we can be your fiscal sponsor

Vote: 3 in favor, BH and LL stood aside Rob asks Jeremy to clarify that he can be a delegate.

FOllow up of the rodent proof container proposal:

  • There is a lot of work being done to fill holes and hunt down rodents
  • FNB now has everyhting in containers and the walk in is clean with no turds

End of Meeting

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