Event:2022/06/10 Events

Omni Commons Events Team Meeting, Friday June 10th 2022 7pm

present: yar billy joe kimiko silvia geraldo, CLP kai

events

• sunday june 12 DSA: signed, gave deposit, billy's first day-of bottom lining. they want to get in 8:30am. joe can help set up. CLP work party also happening 11-3. [billy]
• saturday june 18 drag ball [marquise]
• saturday june 18 graduation party - not happening, "they took one look at omni and didn't follow through"
• saturday june 18 baby shower [marquise]
• sunday june 19: horror film - are they still interested? maybe not basement (VOL renting soon) but maybe elsewhere [sylvia]
• sunday june 19 qing qi concert
• thursday june 23 stop the bleed
• friday june 24 bay rap
• ferocious lotus (aug-sep)

budget proposal

• billy: i think everyone here's familiar with it at this point. i think it'd be helpful to have more structure - a chair, standing committee, together bottomlining, making sure all volunteers are getting plugged in, everything is getting done. reaching out to volunteers who don't make these meetings, to make sure they're doing something, have something to do, know how to do it. i've talked to joe, yar, micha, marquise about it, because yall are the people who've been bottomlining everything so far. i'm stepping into that now myself. other clp folks (sylvia, kimiko, dob, geraldo) also want to help in some capacity. sooner we can get that going, sooner we can coordinate more high level meetings to delegate decisions, assign tasks.
• joe: i'm growing more positive about trying to make this work vai the new proposal
• chair etc would also be workers. no bosses, just some extra responsibility
• sylvia: i'd like to deal with bottom lining an event before being a chair person, idk if you all trust me enough. want to shadow someone. would be more helpful to know who's doing what, who's bottom lining, etc. can feel like you're roaming around in the dark and not really knowing what's going on
• joe: let's say people doing their first event would be teamed up with an experienced person. buddy system? something we'd actually be sure was happening
• yar: normally at events meeting we'd go through all pending/upcoming events
• billy: at last meeting, sylvia and geraldo and i took on events. there was opportunity to step up, but not everything got claimed even tho others were on the call. so a standing committee would assign things. call people in.
• joe: how do we encourage/guarantee a minimum quorum of committee members? or just see how it goes, how attendance shakes out?
• billy: scheduling conflicts make a standing committee better. don't have to coordinate as many people. i'm imagining the committee/chair have separate meetings too, that aren't trying to get 25 people in a room, just 7, to make month/2-month plans and map out what needs to get done, then bring that to the greater meeting. we were trying to have more consistent meetings anyway. but maybe it's smaller meetings weekly and larger meetings less often. smaller focused strategic planning can include promotional stuff, reaching out to big groups, fundraisers, licensing, getting a dumpster, etc. assigning those things to other volunteers.
• joe: seems the standing committee will be more work
• billy: maybe we can have our own standing committee chat to discuss in streamlined fashion

billy pastes written proposal

Omni events proposal The Omni events working group is not functioning optimally to fulfill it's mission. With 24 members in the signal chat yet over 80% of the work falling on the same 4 or 5 people, events falling through the cracks with no responses from omni to accept them because no volunteers are taking them on, and a lack of clarity about what needs to happen, by who, and when, it seems like a structural overhaul is needed to re-frame the working group: Create tiers of participation in the working group: Have a chair who is responsible for ensuring the group is meeting on time, agendas are made, new members are being on boarded and the event group mandate is being upheld. The chair does not always do all those things personally, but ensures they are getting done together with the rest of the events working group team and in particular the standing committee. Have a standing committee of active volunteers who have voting power to make decisions with the chair through majority vote. This group is the core group which has power over the events group account log ins, bank account, who is working on what work, sub committees, etc. Micha, Marquise, Joe, Billy, Silvia, Geraldo, Kimiko This group will have it's own chat to do asynch discussion and votes concisely. All other volunteers work under this standing committee + chair, are directed by them, and can be taken on and off work by them. This tier group has access to one shared airtable account, to minimize costs. The above changes will clarify roles, giving true responsibility over the Omni to people who understand and consent to it, while taking away ambiguity to those that are not in a position to take more responsibility than is required for individual tasks. It will improve operational security around new members who have not been vetted as well as immediately save money on airtable fees, which were over $400 this month due to the increase in individual users.

airtable

• sylvia: i get how airtable works, but how about contracts, deposits, how does paying happen?

general questions

• yar made contract template with instructions, feedback welcome! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lg7QHUJw2od-DPSyzydskkDEHUaHvUT2Q8ZHlYQzQ4Q/edit?usp=sharing
• billy: they were surprised by noise complaint deposit thing, and trash thing. good to talk about early in conversation
• billy: when do you get deposit?
  • joe: you should have it at the latest, a month before the event. we've been taking events that are happening in a week. we never used to do that. we'd say no, that's not enough time to process it. i hope we can get back to that sort of timeframe. just don't let it be any more than 2 weeks. try for a month. if waiting a little longer makes them more comfortable with giving you the whole amount, that gives you fewer contacts. if it's a big amount and it's your first time and you have some kind of feeling about them being shaky in one way or another, get the deposit and don't wait until it's less than a month. if things are going well and you ahve a good relationship, ask if they'd be comfortable with paying the whole amount, getting that done with. of course they'll want to have a contract signed before they do that. anybody that's doing business should. so maybe when going over trash/deposit terms, mention payment and how they might want to pay. if DSA has pizza, and they've done a few events, they know how to bag trash, they don't need deposit.
• awkward quixotic disagreements between yar and joe over the reasons for a deposit
• yar: deposit is a requirement that can be waived
• deposit vs upfront fees
• the reason for a deposit 2 weeks out is so you have time to maybe find someone else that night. obviously not meant to preclude last-minute event requests when the ballroom's still unbooked
• day-of practices
  • joe: we need to sweep floor & bathrooms, stock bathrooms with tp & soap
  • yar: check toilets & drains
  • a/v needs: we can give them a couple mics and a projector. but setting up a whole dais of speakers / band etc, it's our call when to say they need their own AV person or to pay one of us to do AV.
  • yar: a standing committee would be good at that, maintaining that rolodex of AV people who could do events
  • do they need extra tables/chairs set up? usually they'll come in early with caterer or planner. those are the hard events.
• where would a dumpster go? trash thing was a deal breaker for animal prince
  • sylvia: I just requested a quote for a dumpster from this website: https://www.budgetdumpster.com/request-a-commercial-dumpster-quote/thank-you.php
• billy: maybe availability capacity sheet from volunteers? so we could assign things. a jot form?
• places to advertise venue space?
• sylvia is going to ping artists on instagram
• kai will ask musician friends

email script

Hello there my name is ___ and I am an organizer for the Omni Commons. We are a 501(c)3 non-profit community center and venue in Temescal District of Oakland, CA which provides free and affordable access to dozens of marginalized people to do organizing work and mutual aid. We are in need of support to save the building from being bought out by a large developer. Our main source of income is through events, so we would love to have you perform in our 275 person ballroom! Would you be interested in being a part of a fundraising event to help save the Omni?

PREVIOUS NOTES?

pending events

• aerial event wanted to get around insurance with waivers - nope, doesn't work
• CDP - silver?
• dec - BLO - joe negotiated a split on top of the $500