Event:2015/11/11 Building Bloc

Building Bloc meeting #4 Wednesday November 11, 2015

Intro

• A collective for people who love Omni!
• Meeting notes & poems here: https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Building_Bloc
  • if you don't want your comments in the meeting notes, just say so at any time!

Who's here?

• Yar
• Daron
• Brendan
• maggie
• alex

Scheduling Future Meetings

• In the interest of having at least one meeting every day of the week, Yar proposes Tuesday November 24, but cannot be there
• Daron can host Tuesday November 24
• Yar also proposes that we have an official collective meeting at First Friday December 4
  • yar, maggie and daron think this is great. maggie can't go because there's an art show here.

New members

• Brendan doesn't want to spread themself thin

maggie

• why?
  • i think it's a really rad opportunity to explore radical ideas and building of communities that wouldn't otherwise intersect!
• what do?
  • i work on birdhouse the art collective and various other omni projects. also organizational stuff with baps
• struggles?
  • the patriarchy. smash it. crush capitalism. yeah... that's a really hard question
  • maybe having it be more specific is cool. what were your struggles TODAY? it can explode and expand...
• ok. today?
  • today i struggled with loneliness [finger snaps] feeling of being a little node in the world trying to work on all your things and be a full human being but ther'es so many other... structures that lead you to think different things about critiquing the way ou're doing that. lead you in different directions about what fulfillment is
• need?
  • excitement! critical & thoughtful ideas about making omni do what it wants, be the place it wants to be
• values?
  • opportunity. struggle. experimentation
• offer
  • myself. my thoughts. my community of radical champions. ability to be part of community
• grateful
  • family. physical & mental abilities. friends, people who are critical
• photos? yes
• share? yes
• mailing lists? bb, comms
• contact? email
• schedule? various times. sometimes not a lot, sometimes a lot
• far away? 15/20 minute bike ride. same amoutn of time to drive
• is there a right of passage? not yet, we have to conceive of one
  • yar thiks the right of passage is to sit and face solemnly the ambiguity of all human institutions
• Yar and Daron think adding maggie is great. yay!

Purpose

• We want Omni to be a place for alternatives to capitalism, equitable distribution of power & resources, solidarity with people in struggle, fighting gentrification and freedom from harassment and violence.
• Brendan: it's easy to talk about fighting gentrification but white people need to feel uncomfortable and realize they're part of the problem. can't just go to self help groups and feel good.
• yar: i just want this to be written down so when there's conflicts in the future you have something to point to. this isn't a self help group, we're building an institution that will have power. if someone comes in in 6 months and hears you say that and says "that's racist" you have to say "sorry none of that shit here"
• brendan doesn't have an answer

Membership Drive

• What do we need to do between now & January?
• Need to be able to say what omni is by then
• need to be able to have clear well defined roles people can play, not stressful or ambiguous.
  • hey come volunteer for omni, just do this this and this
  • ok sure. wow that was easy and fun. i'm gonna do it again
  • hey now we have 1000 new stakeholders at omni. cool!
• daron doesn't want to be responsible for other people...
• we could have flyers
• yar: you should be able to give a half hour orientation and then leave them to do their thing. then a week later they're the ones doing the orientation. that's how you multiply
• daron: we'll figure it out
• yar: if we don't have any concrete plans i'm just gonna keep working on omni's website & calendar

Poem

• Fourth-most-ness try at every meeting or gathering don't even say what you desire.