Event:2015/05/24 CDC Meeting

attendees

• dusty
• diana
• Julio
• Sarah P. - back from spain, jetlagged, excited to be here
• Molly - trying to bike more
• David Keenan - tense, hopeful. feels like he's about to jump off a mountain.
• Yar - best brain day ever

conflict between pidgein & centi

• delegate's meeting last week was very hard
• there will be an emergency delegate's meeting this thursday to address it

conflict between david & kwe

• david's not sure if it's a good idea to have this meeting at 6:30 tonight
• "idk if it would be good to have fresh ears in the room. not everybody would have enough info"
• kwe has some issues with the way he's talked to
• doesn't feel like rules are being applied equitably. everyone's a volunteer. we take sick breaks. but he needs to have his grievances heard.
• lots of talking, no notes taken
• kwe thinks there's "staff" or "personnell" but there's not. there's signs saying "from the management" but they're a joke
• dk: the policies don't work because there's no orientation. set expectations. right to complain when you don't know what the expectations are. help scaffold the policies.
• need more do's instead of don'ts
• less action do's, more be's
• front desk materials
• anything that's beautiful is hard to do - spinoza
• we need a hologram david brazil: "what is the nature of your communist emergency?"
• the work is daily and constant. doesn't just end because we wrote some words.
• goal is addressing peoples' privatization of space. it's happened before, often with that same room. it's the man cave.
• exceptionalism?
• tabling this for later

invites

inviting member collectives at their meetings:

• sudoroom - yar
• optik allusions - yar
• baps - dk
• ccl - dk
• black hole - dk
• phat beets - julio & amgo
• food not bombs - amgo
• la commune - sarah
• mpm - sarah
• til - put flyer on door

inviting working groups at their meetings:

• cdc - julio
• commons - julio
• building - dk
• sarah - finance
• comms/sysadmins - yar

• what about non-member-collective groups? icarus project? gil tract?
• don't want to communicate in-groups vs out-groups.
• amgo: don't want dynamic of "WE are throwing a party for YOU." what's the purpose of this party? boosting morale, and also getting positive energy about what it is to be working on omni. baseline on "let's get started having the work be fun". communing, making friends, eating together. it is the in-group and it also builds a feeling of joy among people doing a lot of the work. it's not like "you're not invited" but it's more like a demonstration of fun for hard workers of omni.
• sarah: i agree, and it's also about practicing a spirit of generosity towards ourselves as a measure against burnout. we all need to practice more. i feel open about who should come. how great if the first exposure is us having intentional conversations about how we work together and take care of one another! if we were having these convos more often there'd be less confusion such as with the conflict between dk & kwe. if we're all in the room hosting i'm not sure it'll be too much work.
• julio: i don't mind having more people, i'd just rather have everybody here and the hardest workers... than have 20 other people show up.
• amgo: public space vs commons ... the history of burnout has been "we're open, everybody! come on! it's for everybody! it's everything!" then we got overwhelmed by not everybody having an idea of what we were trying to do. and there is a central idea that has to do with sharing space, not "you can do anything you want here". just wondering about the conflict between people working with a cohesive vision of commons - the in-group - and then people who come to classes and appreciate but don't necessarily have...
• yar: don't like that dichotomy. lots of people just go to classes & events and leave, BECAUSE they feel like outsiders. but this is a larger conversation, don't subsume it into the party planning. just be clear, this party is FOR certain pepole but nobody will be turned away.
• sarah: it's also a moment of political education
• julio: it's still applicable to this party, the idea of what it is
• dk: it's been a year, is that the reason?
• good excuse as any

messaging

• we have the flyer.
• sarah will try drafing an email

activities

appreciation station

• a place for people to acknowledge others' work, write it down
• also nice opportunity to share what working groups are
• thank you notes from last party were great too
• an entire wall - sarah will do that

imagination station

• visioning for the commons?
• dusty: picturing long table in la commune with backdrop & board. meeting w/laura at 12 on wednesday about this at the pizza place. laura has good ideas. book called "the radical imagination". re-imagining success & failure. four quadrants: success, failure, not success, not failure. what does it mean to win or lose? people can put colored sticky notes on it.
• positive visions of the future vs negative visions. world without capitalism vs liberation
• culture - we reside in the hiatus with utopian vision. that is the work of social activist mileau
• also something artsy & colorful so it's not so heady

retrospective vs aspirational discussion

• have a facilitated discussion?
• this is what we wanted then. this is where we are. this is where i hope we get to.
• breakout groups worked well in the past. maybe at tables while people are eating.
• formal vs informal
• written prompt discussion questions
• burnout is the #1 reason for this party, so big broad conversation about "what is the omni?" maybe not at this party. how about "what does work on the omni mean?" "how do we take care of ourselves in this big long temr project?"
• are we talking about just tables or facilitated microphone? "i'm david keenan and i'm gonna talk to you about concrete"
• poster paper with markers on every table

open mic

• needs setup
• might get too theatrical
• sounding too much like a workshop day now, vs just a party
• use it for music instead
• TOASTS. the toast-o-phone
• pinpointing certain people in a public space sounds like giving power? suggests there's staff?

community building circle

• facilitated circle on appreciation
• have it at the beginning? then all party all the time
• jenny wrote into our policies that in a delegates' deadlock there has to be a dance off
• https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Articles_of_Association
• healing circle. could be as simple as everyone blowing on water or responding to a question.
• topics:
  • this is what i'm thankful for today
  • these are my concerns
• julio: part of the restorative justice culture. easy to deal with harm when it happens, if you have mutual trust. we don't always have the opportunity to consciously hear what someone else is saying about any particular topic, whether it's their concerns or their joys.
• amgo: love the idea of gathering appreciation & gratitude
• something big/substantive/meaningful will take longer, we'll make the call by ear. upper bound is an hour depending on how many people are here. ask tatiana what she thinks would be a useful goal.
• we need a written schedule...
• amgo: hard to envision giving this to people who walked in reading a flier that says FUN FUN FUN
• julio: i usually see this as a closing thing as things wind down, people have already eaten, you set an intention. closure, close the circle. feels like we accomplished something.

setup

• does the spokescouncil need attention?
• ballroom event ends at 7 in theory
• mostly it'll be in la commune
• expecting maybe 30 ppl at any given time
• 3 is late for lunch, early for dinner. but our people don't all have normal schedules

food

• matt did a thing one time with anka, grace & joe
• we should really offer to help cook with FNB
• FNB cooks in the morning, probably clears out around noon. we can start cooking noon and people will come at 3.
• ed does pickups
• colleen works at cheeseboard
• extra phat beets produce?
• outreach to collectives & working groups should include food outreach
• potatos & lentils, salad
• yar will ask her house about a duck...

cleanup

• trash
• dishwashing