Event:2015/02/26 Weekly Delegate's Meeting

=Weekly Omni Delegates Meeting : Thursday, February 26, 2015

• The meeting begins promptly at 7pm, every Thursday, and ends promptly at 9pm, unless delegates agree to continuation.

• Contents:

• Arm Raising
• Assignments
  • Stack Taker: stepehen n, mary
  • Notes: rache, laura, steve
  • Time: good
  • Vibe Reader:unnecessary today so far
  • Next Week's Facilitator: Laura
• Attendees/Quorum?:

Delgate tally: 6- sudo, ccl, mpm, baps, la commune, til fnb? black hole?

Introductions

Please be brief! Introduce yourself: Name; Prefered Pronoun; Affiliation; If you are new, what is one thing that brought you here?

• Mary, CCL delegate; 1 announcement
• Greg FNB, Berkeley LIberation Radio;
• laura w/ BAPS, 2 announcements
• dusty: here w/

lea, baps robyn MPM delegate sean sudo room, opal greg berk lib radio laura berk lib radio eric no addil, looking for a way to get involved paul , berk lib radio 1 announcement stephen, baps rachel, sudoroom delegate david, la commune delegate, 1 brief announcement yome visiting from ny, observing briefly around 720p w. jenny and matt nicholas, sudo and omni in general asia Phat beatz emji, til

Delgate tally: 6- sudo, ccl, mpm, baps, la commune, til fnb? black hole?

Announcements

Any Omni-related announcements. Please be breif! Maximum 1 (one) minute per announcement. Reminder: Working Groups reports are after this, please save W.G. announcements for later. GReg - BLR interested in using space at the OMni since they cant afford their rent at their current space. Paul and other BLR people have answered all the questions on the website. Tehy are a pirate radio station that has been around 15 years at various locations. Train people to do radio. Read abt OMni in East BAy express.

laura - visioning process, organizing, like to sched a meeting so ppl involved wiht omni can collectively analyze the data, i would have a process for that, therefr define visioning and focus for vising n plannng, will be sending doodle pole to discuss- if you would like to participate, not on gen discuss, please give me your email, i'll make sure you're invluded in that, pick a day, 3hr meeting, not sit-down but active, go through data analysis as a group, any questions or concerns please don't hesitate to ask!

david: BAPS hosting normal fischer, magnolias all at once former abbot of zen center in green gulch, opport for us to connect, poetry and dharma talk, head of community volunteer run, relevant for us here, 7pm in the Disco Room, any questions ask me (David Brazil)

Working Group Report-Backs

Please be breif! Maximum 5 (five) minutes per W.G. WGRBs are Alphabetical; All W.G.s are equally important. Report-backs consist of answering 3 (three) questions:

• What did you accomplish this week?
• What problems or action items you currently working on?
• What do you need to bring to our attention and/or need help with?

Rachel: Working group report back, commons working group. Asking to begin conversation about whether or not to have Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at the Omni. Expressed that this may be a larger decision related to how the Omni engages with community and processes.

• We ferment here
• They are waiting patiently
• places to talk about this, also: Commons working group Sat 1pm la commune; omni discuss list, omni commons list, omni booking email, anyone you know in that working group

Kevin expresses a desire to have a "full conversation" about the processes.

Kevin reports to allow new folks to learn about how to propose new projects to the Omni, meeting with him at Tuesdays at 7pm with the working group, "how we organize." This would be good for groups and individuals.

Mary reports from the finance committee, where we have some Berkeley Law students working on getting us 501C3. Students are going to get a tour of the space. Also, met with Building working group who is working with maintanence, in order to make us safe and accessible. Coming up with protocol to map rooms one by one with priorithy on spaces which need to be done in order to open.

• stephen: BAPS announcement:

The Bay Area Public School's central purpose is and has always been to provide a venue for free, learner-directed classes on as wide a range of topics as people can think up. We take the idea of "free" very seriously, and so we've created an environment that goes beyond being nominally free of charge and seeks to prefigure a learning community beyond financial pressures, with the attendant guilt and shame that can come along with them. To this end, it's been a longstanding practice that no one will pass the hat or otherwise solicit funds at any of our classes or public events. Alongside that, we've maintained a policy of non-incorporation. Individuals associated with us have procured grants and donated to BAPS, but our central goal has been the creation of a de-centered group of community supporters.

These practices continue to be debated, challenged, and revised. Nonetheless, the reality is that despite our continuing efforts and a significant cadre of monthly supporters, we are currently unable to meet the financial obligations to the Omni that we've committed to, namely our shared expenses. In an effort to be transparent about what share of the Omni's rent and expenses we've been paying, we want to make known that we're behind on our payments of the following shared expenses and insurance payments: December ($512.13), January ($433.72) and Insurance through June ($445.04). Through a series of conversations among our organizers, we went from seeking to lower our rent to deciding upon radical transparency and openness about our situation, how we raise funds and how we might improve our current financial situation. We strive to support the Omni financially while continuing to strengthen and discuss our anti-capitalist praxis. We'd like to invite anyone from the Omni who is interested in this discussion to join us at one of our bi-monthly organizing meetings. Our next meeting will be March 5th, 6-7pm. In the following weeks and months we'll begin to work towards financial stability with regards to our rent + expenses through different strategies to raise money, and to hopefully begin to pay what we currently owe to the OOC.

• Emji: confused, proposal lowering monthly, or what?

how doall the other collectives end up paying for it when one doesn't pay their share mary- when a bill comes with penalty for lateness, the finances committee is empowered to pay those bills first, then get it from collectives

• stephen- we havce 1k solid, the other 500 is harder

emji: we're paying it but it's killing our org

mary: someone from fundraising?

laura: prev campaign- safe and accessible next campaign- buying the building we have a list of grants omni/some collectives could apply for

robyn: what is this buying the bui*l*ding*?

emji: maybe we could allocate certain moneys for certain costs, direct line between certain incomes and where they're spent maybe talk about this soon at some group? do we have two insurance policies?

mary: we may be able to get out of some bc of redundancy, bandwidth issue, going to take this back to berkeley law students, great pts

david:expenses at BAPS is half the rent this moment in the omni, towards tansparancy, a lot of this stuff will be refined over time as more collectives come on the pie will be smaller but right now we're dealing with 4-500 /mo in expenses, cost of us being open, try to be patient and support one another,

issue was getting us hot tempered, let;s bot kill ourselves over money, while taking it seriously (obviously)(properly?)

laura: if we can rent the ballroom for 2k 10x a month that owuld cover our rent and expenses techincal aspects arent in place when we get there we'll be fine

emji: good faith question, something we all need to figure out

mary: close stack on that

AA @the omni temperature check

Open discussion around the issues. Woudl AA require the space to be free of booze? Is that desired or possible?

Robin asks if it is about one meeting or more?

Rachel describes that they would like one meeting per week.

%%%Paul suggests that banning alcohol here would be totally problematic, and that AA has a religious overtones and that you have to give your soul over to the God and that these values may not mesh well with AA. That it may not be a good fit.

Rachel feels that, and it's an aspect that several people are discussing. States that this chapter is "non-denomenational"

%%%Eric shares a question, many times AA is court ordered and would that come with a hightened police presence?

%%%Robin shares that it's not fair to feel negatively about them due to faith. Suggests that AA will be able to secure what ever space they have will be free of alcohol.

%%%Kevin twinkles the notion of accepting faith. Feels that AA isn't strongly in the vision and that we are experiencing a closure of common space and that if they are taking up space that is otherwise valuable he would opt-oout. If not, than he would be okay with it.

%%%David suggests that the space is super exciting for the person approaching the Omni, that they are excited about it and that our worries probably aren't "deal breakers" for them. The question is, too, that if we are going to bar them that we should do outreach to other substance abuse programs as this is something that is a larger community commitment to dealing with issues such as sexual violence.

Laura suggests that she is against the idea, due to AA and her experience with these folks. Would be happy to have other, secular, groups and is open to discussing her views if need be.

Kevin re-states that, if AA is a part of the building, will they be active participants in the process? He would only want a group which is open to participating in the community.

Rachel suggests that having a spiritually-based group is something she supports and that having people around that are not like us may be a good thing for the space.

Laura shares that she agrees that spirituality is important and that recovery programs incorporate mindfulness practices and other secular spirituality.

---

CDC mediating conflicts, people aren't a part of, acrossmember groups don't want to be adjudicators, process the process brough to delegate meetings don't know what that looks like, go to CDC meeting brief discusson about iceas, what we could do rather than what we think is right

laura:don't understand

   mary :conflict mediation, reincorporate ppl into the community, happens at the delegates meeting bc it can't happen at a member group bc it's beyond that scope - don't know what the process will look like, what ppl need to know about the conlict, who should be here, to make it fair, it seems complicated, 10 minutes:

kevin: clarify, prpposal, act as a way to begin conflict mediation for ppl not in collectives 1- deal 1 on 1 with person if not possible 2 go to collective, mediate within it using collective strucutre not everyone has one, most ppl use sudo rooms 3- delegates meeting is the last resort; if you have a conflict please don't make everyone in the building deal with it

Proposals

cdc's proposal is meant to fill the space, for folks such as myself, although i have no conflicts, to bring forth a resolution process, in absence of a collective membership, i can approach cdc, hey i have a problem with this cat - they will act on my behalf though they won't do the resolution themselves, it's a button i can hit to make the process start its probable you will see ppl in the delegates meeting, but not all will, hopefully some will come to this space though

emji this is also for ppl who have a problem they can't deal with in their collective

i though that the purpose of this proposal was to keep this OUT of the delegate meeting? so why is it coming here next week? did it get beyond that pt?

mary: yes

laura: im confused

mary : if you want to know more talk to me after the meeting, part of our process hopefully it wont happen very often i want it to make sense and worth our time, im personally involved in a conflict, bringing it to the delegates meeting all parties sumarise what went on not about what happened or not about how to communicate better, change behaviors to reincorporate person back into our community. thats the pt, wlll see if it can happen

factfinding isn't done, want to talk to people about what they need to know or see to move fwd and talk about it in less than an hour to get it done

tough point

CDC meets noon on sundays usually in la commune

emji: we'r not a judicial body

mary: i agree we're not, but we want to see how we can avoid conflicts in future, what ways can we talk about communicating that better, ppl make mistakes, we cross lines without knowing sometimes, how can we do this as a community

emji we also arent trained mediators is there going to be one present?

• steve: mediation in the delegates meeting or report back?

mary: mediation has haoppened, inconclusive, not clear communication has happened yet, trying to make it so it doesnt have to come to this meeting, thats my goal, but lets say hypothetically it has to, let's not use specifics, how could we make it work?

stephen: part of my confusion is bc i dont actually see mediation as part of the process for this meeting since the beginning what are we even talking about, we don't have the skills for that, but possibly not even the awareness or readiness or willingness to deal with that in this meeting, directly a mediation between individuals, im a little concerned about all those who come to this meeing having no idea what theyre about to be a part of that could be potentially very damaging to the process of this meeting, i understad th eneed for mediation, i understand that very much

kevin: it striked me that the material format of ppl sitting in a circle is not conducive to mediation per se maybe an ad hoc tribunal of typoes and vote on someones fate conception of using the delegates meeting for solving problems. there needs to be some clarification from cdc on what we're dong

mary: what ways can we stil address this sort of thing as a community, other options, not necessary to bring it here, some misrepped want to rep selves to community, service you would be providing

steve: super important that ppl opt into being apart of that process. consent, agitation, etc

robin: wonder, reach out to collectives about how their mediation processes works historically, maybe slingshot, im sure they've had to do that a lot

kevin; we have ppl in our pockets we're going to talk to, like that

laura within each collective there's a process we re talking about cross collctives never had that in this meeting (del) unclear

mary: untrue

laura: very seldom, unclear what the process would be, if its an appropr place for that this implicaiton was not brought out in that discussion

mary going to close stack at 830 fyi

david- want to ask, purpose of bringing conflict to meeting so final binding determination is made

mary: not sure, thats an excellent questionsaome ppl want it heard by entire community fairness there for transparancy david- question of judiciary quality only reason actually see to bring it to the meeting is to make the collective judgmenet horns of dilemma, this shouldnt be a judicial body, but de facto if people have been banned its just a question of .... someone already banned feels judged already

kevin - i propose ppl formalize their concerns and questions and inform cdc or attend cdc emji- storngly opposed to this coming to this meetng

mary0 talk about this, its on the pad right

emji0 i disagree its judicidal, any bans have come from a collective, we just stand in solidarity with each other, if this is intercollective those collectives need to be mediating with each other and this should happen outside of this space. and if this is between someone outside of a collective, they should talk to the collective of anyone involved in the conflict, some things are tangential and this is a really limited in scope thing and has been since the beginning, omni as an entity, as a conglomeration has never been made a judicial body so far and i dont think it should become one

• name?*FNB ppl got kicked out of here for things mstly sleeping here, i was just alil curious, i just heard this, chris got banned for sleeping in here and there was some incident and we don't have naything to do with that chris just hsort hair chris,

mary- joe or helen can help you have idea of your standing, but the cdc isnt the place to go until fnb

• name?* gen rule no one sleeps at omni, we should let peopple know but

nicholas; feel cdc shouldbe the one to hav eageneral process for conflict resoluton

kevin: exactly what we dont want to do. dont want anyone in this bulding embued with authority of dada god there is no hugher authority but each other. i know we want things to be fair and all, but

nick: just syaing ther eare issues that acontinue with hierarchy and power things

kevin: its just i don think this is the way to fill that space

RACHEL OFFLINE: AND COLELCTIVES HSOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO MAKE DIFERENT CHOICES ABOUT THAT

mary: we dont hav eto go to 9, .....

Berkeley Liberation Radio

Paul...BLR has been meeting at the Long Haul for 15 years and they have done with so many of the same issues as the Omni. Very surprised by the complexity of the Omni.

Answered the seven questions online regarding mission and such. BLR is an unauthorized radio program.

Laura asks if they are interested in becoming a member collective, or what.

States that they are interested in becoming a part of the Omni, and would want folks in the Omni to participate in their work.

Mary asks if they can talk to space.

Steven expresses that it is a long process to become involved as a collective member, and this has a lot to do wiht communication and distance between decisions and such, also learning what other groups bring to the process regarding decision making and such. Expresses that people have been excited about the type of involvement that folks bring in the space. That BLR is potentially in-line with the vision of the Omni. Closes by stating that he's excited to have him to come to the meetings and suggests that their answers to questions needs to be submitted online to be discussed in one week.

Paul will take care of emailing.

Kevin suggests that there are already folks who have their eyes on producing audio/video stuff in the space and offers to get him in touch with folks whoa are already organizing in the space.

Rachel asks if they have technical expertise to set-up the system. Wondering if they want help that she woul dbe willing to help out.

Mary mentions that sudo room used to have a radio station and that Jake has talked about starting up a new project here.

Paul has met Jake and says that they would like to join in and requests info about the media group's meetings.

Mary asks if they have any further quesitons

Paul ask if they have to go to the meetings.

Emji suggests that there are several ways to become involved. that you can become a member collective who often pays in space or time, that they have to be on a lease and have ability to participate in the process. That there are a few tenants who do not have a delegate. Then...there are working groups or small projects, and that there is common space where groups can just come and meet.

Paul suggests that they are not together, financially, and that they may be evicted soon. Reaching out the Omni may be seen as a new place for them.

Steve suggests that it's not necessarily pertinent to pay, but htat it is most important to align with values and such.

Meeting Over.

Please provide the following information with your proposal:

• The date the proposal was put on the pad;
• The group or person making/bottom-lining the proposal;
• Who will be speaking to the proposal at the meeting;
• Where the full text or other information about the proposal can be found, if it's not all here.

Bans

Announcement of recent bans.

Chloe: Omni spotlight at CALX, need interviewees

Building and Facilities

This group needs help; https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/building Ballroom-readiness needs and plans: https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Ballroom-readiness

• back in full force!!if you want to work on the electrical, we're starting to map that

Challenging Domniant Culture (CDC)

Meetings:Sundays at 12pm

• drafting accountability policy, how to hold folks accountbale, looking for resources on how

Commons

Meetings: Saturdays at 1pm

• Alcoholics Anonymous has requested to start a meeting here. Commons will be discussing wether or not Omni should have AA, or some other addiction treatment support group. Come to meetig or talk to someone on the WG if you have opinions about it.

Communications / SysAdmins

Meetings: nope :)

Finance

Meetings: Tuesday at 7pm

• Met with UC Berkeley Law stuents who are woeking on our 501c3 as a school project, can also help with city permits

Fundraising

Meetings: Mondays at 7pm, BAPS Classroom

How We Organize

Meetings: Tuesdays at 7pm, BAPS Classroom

• Kevin - if you have a proposal to join the OMni, please come to talk to me at this time and I will help shepherd you through the process

Kitchen

Meetings:

Building and Maintenance

Meetings: Sunday 1pm

• Working on safety and accessibility
• there is now a protocol for ampping the electical system of the building

Welcoming

Meetings: Thursdays at 6pm Contact: welcoming@omnicommons.org

Proposals

Please provide the following information with your proposal:

• The date the proposal was put on the pad;
• The group or person making/bottom-lining the proposal;
• Who will be speaking to the proposal at the meeting;
• Where the full text or other information about the proposal can be found, if it's not all here.

• Proposal to change to Bank of the West, Finance Committee,

The board of the Omni Oakland Commons authorizes Jennifer Ryan and Amanda Gorden to open a business checking and savings account with Bank of the West.

This is ideal for two reasons: 1) Our current account with Western Federal Credit Union does not integrate with Quickbooks, which we're using for our accounting 2) Bank of the West has a branch right on Telegraph and 50th, which will make depositing checks and cash significantly easier for the Finance Committee.

>>& we were talking about allocating 2800 to fire & safety - it's itemized

Tabeled

Phat beatz: $750 total, we';re not sure of what space there is for us

• Mary suggests looking into what collectives you're already closer with
• laura: we try to share the space as much as possible, though certain specific areas are collective
• david: showed them the spaces, what was available/needed

office, storage, farmers market, walk-in they liked th elinked office rooms off the inner library stash stuff in the utility room near the stairs >>other groups with other space needs, talk to FNB for walk-in, area in back of basement hedged out for several projects,

• laura: HUGE mold problem, dealing with it soon,
• rachel : CWG info, noemie and kwe
• kevin: braindon- oakland next here's his card gives her brandon's card
• asia: thank you guys, everyone

david: personally and many others really excited, it's great! i wanna make sure you and ya'll get swamped by our process, don't le tit be offputting

• emji: once thing to be aware of is that our utilities are quite high 350-400 per collective, as more join it will go down, but be awaare of it
• asia: transparancy is always great

• mary: cool, phat beatz get integrated familiar, get you answers, look at proposal soon:

• • Announcement from the Bay Area Public School that we're behind on our payments of share expenses and insurance

Thursday, February 19, 2015 (UPDATED THURSDAY FEB. 26th, 2015)

The Bay Area Public School's central purpose is and has always been to provide a venue for free, learner-directed classes on as wide a range of topics as people can think up. We take the idea of "free" very seriously, and so we've created an environment that goes beyond being nominally free of charge and seeks to prefigure a learning community beyond financial pressures, with the attendant guilt and shame that can come along with them. To this end, it's been a longstanding practice that no one will pass the hat or otherwise solicit funds at any of our classes or public events. Alongside that, we've maintained a policy of non-incorporation. Individuals associated with us have procured grants and donated to BAPS, but our central goal has been the creation of a de-centered group of community supporters.

These practices continue to be debated, challenged, and revised. Nonetheless, the reality is that despite our continuing efforts and a significant cadre of monthly supporters, we are currently unable to meet the financial obligations to the Omni that we've committed to, namely our shared expenses. In an effort to be transparent about what share of the Omni's rent and expenses we've been paying, we want to make known that we're behind on our payments of the following shared expenses and insurance payments: December ($512.13), January ($433.72) and Insurance through June ($445.04). Through a series of conversations among our organizers, we went from seeking to lower our rent to deciding upon radical transparency and openness about our situation, how we raise funds and how we might improve our current financial situation. We strive to support the Omni financially while continuing to strengthen and discuss our anti-capitalist praxis. We'd like to invite anyone from the Omni who is interested in this discussion to join us at one of our bi-monthly organizing meetings. Our next meeting will be March 5th, 6-7pm. In the following weeks and months we'll begin to work towards financial stability with regards to our rent + expenses through different strategies to raise money, and to hopefully begin to pay what we currently owe to the OOC.

Discussion

Meeting-wide discussion of issues, concerns, ideas, etc.

=Discussion of having AA meeting here at the Omni

• Rachel sums up some of the pros and cons that have been raised: there are issues with the AA methodology; it would help connect us to the comunity, bring in new community members; could be problems with the fact that Omni in not an alcohol free space
• Robyn: asks if it would be an ongoing meeting - Yes
• Nick: what is the policy around alcohol? DO we need a permit to serve alcohol - only for selliing, we will prob apply for that in the future
• Paul: religious overtone to their method, might not be a good fit in this space that isn't religious
• AA attendance is sometimes court ordersd, would there be any police presence?
• Robyn: not uncomfortable with having churchgoing folks; alcohol free zone could be maintained just for the time and space they are using
• Kevin: theya re somewhat mismatched with our values; I would be opposed if they take up primetime space but it might be ok if the space was really open at the time. Would they want to be an active participants in the community. I wouldn't be as ok with them just using the space.
• DB:

For Next Week

Any Proposals or Discussions which were tabled for lack of time, etc.

Optional Breakout Discussion

Meeting attendees count up to >8 (number dependant on size of meeting), after which all same numbers collect into smaller groups to discuss the current topic/s. (Approx 20 mins, depending on time available)

Ideas for Breakout Discussions

• How do/should we ineract with unwelcome (abusive/hostile/drunk/etc) guests (Especially if you are alone!) and diffuse/solve the situation?
• OMNI Finances: How can move toward more transparency about how much the Omni costs? And more comfort talking about money within the Omni and its members?
• Kindness, Forgiveness, Self care, Debt and Jubilee
• Friendships, Relationships, and Organizing
• What is your 50 year vision for The Omni? The year is 2064: What is the Omni? Who/What makes up its membership? How has it changed Oakland, the rest of the world, and the word "comm