Event:2014/04/22 Communications Committee Meeting

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Attendees

Danny, Jenny, Matt, Niki, Andrew, Zach

Discussion

  • Danny: Alfred Twu - Don't have to worry about developers swooping in on it.
  • Jenny: Margot Prado is a good ally who works for the Planning & Zoning Dept for Oakland - already familiar with CCL and Sudo
  • Danny: Almost all groups (with the exception of BAPS and Sudo) are already permitted
    • Large group assembly (>60 people) requires a conditional use permit
      • Matt: My understanding is that this applies to public assembly. Sudo room is a social club with a membership system, for which I believe we can be exempt from this on many circumstances. I think this logic can extend to other group gatherings, especially if there is some Omni "membership" in the future similar to The Gilman http://www.924gilman.org/ I believe the line is drawn at "public" e.g. advertisement, etc.
    • Hobby shop route for sudo is probably our best option
      • Matt: Our insurance agent went with "social club", but "hobby shop" has been known to be useful.
  • Niki: It's extremely common for commercial buildings to pay no rent for the first few months
    • Matt: especially if there is moving / shuffling taking place (e.g. over 3 month period)
  • We need to be able to communicate as things are happening
    • AND get consensus as things are happening
  • N: Let's try to approach this all with kindness and good faith
  • J: The informational bottleneck up to this point has been frustrating, the best we can do is put effort into providing better channels for communication. We enable do-ocracy by enabling access to the tools and information to do stuff. Once we open these channels, more people will be empowered to help with all the moving parts.
  • A: There's been attempts at formalizing shared values, but that hasn't been progressing smoothly
  • Zach: The Omni should be the most minimal possible organization to support the most maximally free space
  • Jenny: We need to define: Division of space; down-payment costs; move-in date.
  • Andrew: We need to come up with things to agree on, rather than just consenting to stuff ad-hoc
  • Niki: What's critical about this project and prevents total federation is that it's a matter of shared space
  • Zach: Let's get in the door then figure out how we share space
  • Joel: We need an office and a door that locks. We could put the letterpress equipment in the basement.
    • Matt: This could be awesome, allowing for other moves within the space layout. I did some research on staircase elevators for wheelchairs, etc. Looks like <$10,000 range for accessibility solutions, lots of local companies willing to do this work. Could be a post-consensus option, but I think it's fairly feasible to put in one for the basement, making it sudo-accessible and possible to move equipment / people down there.
  • All collectives need to provide a list of their concrete needs / minimum requirements
  • Danny: Putting financials up on the site implies that's the best we have; I need the finances to be accessible such that people can judge them, make improvements
  • David: We need to put something out there so that people can work on it
  • Andrew: We need to decide how we deal with official vs unofficial information
    • Is there any official information? How about this logic:
      • Everything is unofficial, except that which the members of the Omni Collective come to consensus upon. Meaning, unofficial notes > proposal > delegates > member collectives > member-collective-level consensus > spokes-council consensus of Omni Collective > OFFICIAL.
  • David: Two things that shouldn't be public: Donor identities; owner being able to see.
  • Position the wiki as it currently stands as an unofficial, informal proposal.
    • Matt: + 1
  • Rename to The Omni Commons, or Omni Oakland Commons ("Collective" gets flagged)
    • Matt: flagged by whom? Would be really smart, I think to use "common" since "collective" makes it hard to refer to the member groups, which are collectives.
  • David: Let's focus on internal needs and communication, rather than continually reaching out to "outside experts" - we have plenty of experienced folks with great ideas in our own groups.
  • Andrew suggests a FUNraiser to gather community together. "Hacker Spa is here to say 'chill out guys!'"
    • Word.

What are the most important and consequential parts of a proposal?

  • Initial down payments
  • Timeline
  • Move-in roadmap
  • ?

Action Items

  • Proposal for whether or not loans will be accepted and paid back
    • We still have not consented on even taking loans
      • Matt: +1
    • Can we come up with a plan for generating revenue?
    • Income from events and such, many ways we could pay it back
    • The owner might give us back $1k of that loan each month for 13 months
    • First, last and deposit would be paid to the Omni Collective, which would then budget to pay it forward to the loaners. OR that loan goes into our own reserves.
    • Good faith loans? Time-constrained terms?
    • Budget out eg a percentage of the cafe's profits
    • Andrew's concern is how money flows through the organization
  • Proposal for June-Sep phased move-in to present to owners
    • Matt: +1
  • Minimum space and timeline requirements for each of the collectives
  • Request concrete budget / financial pro forma from each of the collectives
  • Omni FUNraiser

Input Requested

  • How do we feel about loans?
  • What's your timeline over the summer?
  • Minimum space requirements, potential uses of the shared space
  • Request money on the table by May 15
  • What are your questions / concerns?

Gratuitous Link Dump

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