Event:2020/04/23 Delegates Meeting

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 Omni Delegates' Meeting - April 23 2020 7pm-9pm

Agenda

  • Introductions [15 minutes]
    • Meeting Roles
    • Delegates Count
    • Access Check-in
  • Check-ins, Updates & Report-Backs [30 minutes]
    • Brief Announcements
    • Working Groups
    • Member Collectives
    • Conflicts, Mediation & Safe Space
  • Proposals & Discussions

Introductions

Introduce yourself: Name; Preferred Pronoun; Affiliation; any brief announcements; say whether you're a delegate; let us know about any access needs you have†

  • WHY DO WE ASK PRONOUNS? To make space for people who are trans, nonbinary, gender noncomforming or otherwise vulnerable to being misgendered. It's not an invitation to make jokes or trivialize the idea of pronouns. If you are fine with the gender and pronouns society generally assigns to you, please just say what they are without fanfare or embellishment. Conversely, please don't pressure anybody to give their pronouns, as that can harm trans people who are closeted or questioning. The point is to prompt and normalize asking, but not to mandate or enforce. Thank you! <3 Yar

Access Check In

Is everybody able to participate fully in this meeting? Do people have unmet needs or concerns?

Meeting Roles

  • Facilitator/s: MaryAnn
  • Explanation of hand signals: "deaf applause", "raised hand", "point of process", "direct response"(wildcard), etc.
  • Stacktaker:
  • Timekeeper:
  • Notetaker/s:
  • Vibe Reader:
  • Who will out next meeting's agenda beforehand:
  • Next meeting's facilitator(s):

Delegates

  • CCL: Patrik
  • CSC: Mary Ann
  • FNB: Helen
  • FYE: Inactive
  • GWS: Jane
  • LL: Robb
  • Phat Beets: inactive
  • Sudo: Jenny
  • Quorum: yes - 6/6 active collectives

Brief Announcements

Working Group Report-Backs

Building & Maintenance

  • Meetings: Ad Hoc rn
  • https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/building
  • Robb: Got the lock cylinder kits in the mail today; poised to change the front door key
    • wanted to wait to ensure everyone's up to speed and poised for that before doing so
  • Roberto: do we use omnicommons.org/keys to make sure collective members who need it have access?
    • Form for requesting access: https://form s.gle/PH9rUTXJ1HXLn3xL8
    • Helen: We should discuss approval process at some point soon

Commons

  • Meetings: 2nd & 4th Mondays at 5:30pm
  • https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/booking
  • Robb: No donation drive planned right now. Only Phat Beets doing their CSA on Saturdays and Tuesdays
  • Roberto: How are Chiapas' art pieces doing?
    • Seem fine

Communications

  • Meetings: TBD
  • https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/comms
  • Reviving Newsletter: Roberto sent out an email to all collectives to submit content for newsletter - Deadline 28(?) April
  • Good opportunity rn to open that means of communication for all those who can't be in the building rn
  • You can send updates to: comms@lists.omnicommons.org or Roberto or Jenny directly

= Finance

  • Meetings: TBD (new sched)
  • https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/finance
  • Working w/ Village to get them all moved over to new bank acct
  • Finished re-reconciling the books, now up to date through 1 April 2020 - starting to generate reports for Fundraising WG

Fundraising

  • Next meeting: April 30 @ 2pm, videoconference/phone-in link TBD
  • https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/fundraising
  • Monday meeting went well - notes here: https://peoplesopen.net/pad/p/omnifundraising
  • Looking into top priority foundations
  • Working on our own story as well as project-based collaborative grants
  • For instance, applying in tandem w/ NORJC, Critical Resistance & FNB for use of ballroom for storage of resources for distro
  • Jane: agreed to begin pursuing SF Foundation opportunities (yay!)
    • need access to our relevant doc
  • Roberto: Is the Fundraising WG thinking about doing a general fundraiser?
    • Jenny: Yes. We talked about it at the meeting on Monday. Redesign the donate/ page on the website/ To coordinate with the member collectives and regular renters, better highlight virtual events and meetings, chat rooms (eg Slack & jitsi), etc;
  • MaryAnn: We talked about a lot of things but we need more bodies to do the work. It's intimidating because we have to switch our gears.

Member Collective Updates

What is going on with your collective? What are you working on? What have you accomplished? Any events coming up? Any difficulties you are encountering that you need help with?

CCL

  • Working w/ some MDs re: antibody tests - in which we would have more people in the lab
    • they were looking for which labs are focused on non-profit mission, open source, etc;

CSC

  • Weekly online meetings toward designing an online Waffles & Zapatismo class

FNB

  • Same as last week, tryin' to keep on.
  • Having issues w/ mailing list & website rn, linked to the service provider and a hardware issue,

FYE

  • Not here

GWS

  • CARES Act
  • Upcoming event: [John?]

LL

  • Filmstorming coming up on Sunday, follow in another week re: their online video editing course
  • member Shirah just had a baby! Kairos ftw!
  • planning on paying forward rent to omni for some months,
    • jenny: remember to save some for yourselves

Phat Beets

  • Not here

Sudo

  • no major updates since last week

Conflicts, Mediation & Safe Space

  • Updates for any ongoing issues
  • Has anybody been asked to leave? asked to leave
  • Patrik: There have been issues with Ken and Ramie, working out within CCL. Not yet banning hi, but not supporting him getting access to the building. We should not give him card access. If shelter in place were not happening, then it would be more clearcut what needs to happen. We're trying to figure out how to make sure he has access to what he needs as well.
    • Robb: I haven't seen him around.
    • Patrik: We saw him on Monday. We asked to give us a schedule of when he'll be there to avoid contact with Ramie. Now he's unresponsive.
    • yar: i just removed his card

Proposals

Officer Nominations

  • President: John Torok - Hi! My name is John and I am a Wage Slave and a Debt Peon. (Hi John!)

I participate in the Omni member collective, the Global Women’s Strike. I am also a recovering Catholic, a recovering lawyer, and a recovering academic. While I am an expensively educated and highly indebted activist, I identify as a worker and a member of the working class.

I have been active in the community including helping start up the Asian American Bar Association of New York over thirty years ago. While a graduate student at Columbia Law School I became severely emotionally depressed and following expulsion transferred into Berkeley’s Ethnic Studies Ph.D. program where I completed a dissertation on immigration policy enforcement during the Cold War. During the last financial depression I was hired by the California Employment Development Department and right away became a union shop steward with a strong focus on grievances by fellow workers living with disabilities who sought reasonable accommodations. California Unemployment Insurance is thus my state day job. I now serve on the EDD Director’s Statewide Disability Advisory Committee.

I agree that state worker and anarchist is a contradiction in terms. However I participated in Occupy Oakland and identify increasingly with anarchist philosophy. There I became familiar with and known to many Oakland activists and organizations. Previously, I was involved in communes, collectives and cooperatives on and off over thirty five years. I lived in housing collectives in Santa Cruz and Brooklyn, NY over a dozen years. I participated in both a Santa Cruz and the Park Slope food coops. My short organizing jobs have been in small self-governing collectives. Lastly, while still in New York I served 10 years on the board of directors of the Asian and Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Inc. as it transformed from a grass-roots ACT-UP-like formation to something akin to an Asian American Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

In Occupy Oakland from 2011 I was active in the Queer People of Color/People of Color and Labor Solidarity Committees. Informed and inspired by the Occupy moment, I have helped start up and run three social justice grass roots Bay Area organizations since 2012, the Oakland Privacy (Working Group), the Oakland Livable Wage Assembly, and most recently the Bay Area Poor People’s Campaign Steering Committee. I am and have always been very excited about the utopian experiment that is the Omni Commons. I am thrilled for the opportunity to learn from and collaborate with all the Omni Commons collectives and their members to build a sound basis for a long-term sustainable future for this critical Oakland cultural and revolutionary community. I am eager, willing and able to use my organizing and union leadership and legal trainings, and with your help, to make our Omni Commons a domestic and international model for what we utopians can both imagine and make happen in the real world.

Thank you for your support. John Torok, Union Shop Steward, EDD San Francisco Building SEIU Local 1000 District Labor Council 743 (San Francisco) SEIU 1000 Delegate to Alameda and San Francisco County Labor Councils, AFL-CIO Member and Labor Representative, Alameda County Workforce Development Board

  • Treasurer: Robb Benson - I value efficiency, transparency & ethics. if consented upon to be treasurer for Omni Commons, i will strive to provide regular accounting summaries to the delegates & continue to transparently document the financial transactions of Omni Commons
  • Secretary: Mai Sutton - My motto when it comes to collective decision-making is "Easy things should be easy, hard things should be doable." I'm involved in several non-hierarchical organizations, have facilitated hundreds of meetings, and have been a community organizer for nearly a decade. I previously worked at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Shareable as a policy analyst and writer, and have since been a self-employed doing this work. I'm also the Digital Commons Fellow with the Commons Network, an EU-based advocacy organization for the commons.

I've been involved with Sudo Mesh since October 2017 as a contributor and steward of the project. Sudo Mesh has also long been a pillar organization of Omni. Several of its members contribute their time and expertise to maintain the building and its wireless network. We are currently applying to become an official Omni member collective.

I'm running for Secretary because I want to ensure that Omni complies with its legal obligations as a 501c(3) corporation and its internal governance process. I only started to attend the Omni delegates meetings in early March and the collective I'm a part of isn't even an Omni member yet. Despite that, I decided to run for Secretary. I deeply care about Omni as a community resource and space for art and radical organizing. I recognized that there were several core Omni delegates that have been involved for a long time and seemed to be burning out. I thought it would be helpful for others like myself to step up.

I plan on attending the Omni delegates meeting regularly anyway. If I can help Omni out by putting my name on the official filings, and be there to organize board meeting agendas and elections then I would be happy to do so.

Thanks for facilitating this process!

Discussion

  • Mary Ann: Suggest more delineation of expectations and responsibilities for the positions. Some concern that so many people withdrew; concern maybe about how much time these roles take, that it seems like a big responsibility. But very happy we have officers, so thank you everybody.
    • Patrik: People need to put in their own candidacy. If somebody thinks someone else would make for a great candidate, they shoud contact that person to convince them to run. If we nominate 3rd parties, then those people will likely drop out.
  • Mai: Would be happy to help out w/ the process moving forward to ensure it's less rushed
  • MaryAnn: We need to make sure there's a schedule/calendar so we know when to have the next board meeting.

Contact Jenny if you need access:

Consenso?

  • President: John Torok
    • Yay: CCL, CSC, FNB, GWS
    • Abstain: LL, SudoRoom
  • Treasurer: Robb Benson
    • Yay: CSC, FNB, GWS,
    • Abstain: CCL, LL, SudoRoom
  • Secretary: Mai Sutton
    • Yay: CCL, CSC, FNB, GWS,
    • Abstain: LL, SudoRoom

Errybody wins! \o/

Sudo Mesh Member Collective Application

  • Updated offering last week - $200/mo + 5% of all grants received (up to $5k/per grant_
  • During our meeting this week, Mai got a temperature check on others willings to act as Delegates, and both Benny and Seth were laos interested
  • Question on conflict of interest - if fr ex Leslie (Sudo Room & Sudo Mesh member) wanted to represent Sudo Mesh as a Delegate, would that be acceptable to folks?
    • Both Jenny and Marc wholeheartedly agree not to ever represent multiple collectives, nor much interested in being SM delegates (time can change things, keep in discussion flow)

Consenso

  • Yay: CCL, CSC, FNB, GWS, LL, Sudo

Sudo Mesh approved!

Discussions

Upcoming Meetings

Last Meeting Notes

https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Event:2020/04/16_Delegates_Meeting

End of Meeting

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