Event:2019/05/02 Delegates
Omni Delegates' Meeting - May 2, 2019 7pm-9pm
for instructions on preparing and archiving these notes, please see the bottom
Agenda
- Introductions, Meeting Roles, and Delegates Count [10 minutes]
- Access Check-in [5 minutes]
- Brief Announcements [5 minutes]
- Working Group Report-Backs [15 minutes]
- Member Collective Updates (10 minutes)
- Ban Report (if any) [5 minutes]
- condemning harassment
- cafe
- jitsi
Introductions
Introduce yourself: Name; Preferred Pronoun; Affiliation; any brief announcements; say whether you're a delegate; let us know about any access needs you have†
- Jenny
- Rachel
- Mary Ann
- Niki
- Symone - Fye collective
- Shido - Fye collective
- David
- Ken
- Phil -
- Laura - Kitchen/Finance WGs - she/her
- Joe - FNB - he/him
- Yar
- Robb
Access Check In
Is everybody able to participate fully in this meeting? Do people have unmet needs or concerns?
- Rachel - Suggestion to print out agenda for those w visual impairment
- Please speak loudly and clearly for those who have diffculty hearing
Meeting Roles
- Facilitator/s: Jenny
- Explanation of hand signals: "deaf applause", "raised hand", "point of process", "direct response"(wildcard), etc.
- Stacktaker:
- Timekeeper:
- Notetaker/s: LAura, Yar
- URL of this pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/omninom
- Vibe Reader:
- Next meeting's facilitator(s):
Delegates
- CCL: Ken
- CSC: Mary Ann
- FNB: Joe
- GWS: Rachel
- LL: Robb
- Sudo: Yar
- Quorum: Yes
Brief Announcements
- FYE collective - a prospective tenant/member group of creatives coming by just to say hai.
- Shido - working on proposal to join and add our energy to OC. Here to meet us.
- Phil - What does FYE stand for?
- Shido - We have our idea but we like to let people make up for themselves what they think it stands for. 4 members do diverse arts and healing. Always down for activate the space and participate in community efforts. Spread positivity and love.Explaining new -e delegate meeting max-new collective process.
- Is David willing to be the application point person for FYE?
- David: Yes. Safer DIY spaces helped the space FYE was in in West Oakland but they were evicted
Critical junction between political organizing and cultural production - that
- Laura: Really appreciate having y'all stop in tonight and getting to know you, please come hang out - there's an art show up all next week - and get
- GCEA Status / Mediation
- Almaz, Julio, Lynn and Katrina sent an email withdrawing from the mediation, after which Melissa came to the same conclusion
- Mediation is not happening this weekend.
- Yar will take responsibility for communicating with GCEA that, since they were not willing to participate in the mediation, they must remove their stuff.
- Some people are meeting this Saturday afternoon from 12-3 or 1-4
Working Group Report-Backs
Building & permits
- https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/building
- This group is mostly working on kitchen planning
- https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/kitchen
- kitchen wg meets most Saturdays 12pm, check first
- We hired an architect (Jim, who has done work for us in the past) and sre tryin gto get quotes from contractors, who tend to be flaky.
- We are taking a survey of electricity usage. Yar is passing kill-a-watts around, please help.
- We created an electricity budget for the appliances and lighting in the kitchen
- Planning a wheelchair bathroom work party, probably May 11
- Upstairs bathroom needs new tank assembly and new tank top (Urban Ore?)
- Robb - skylights in the the ballroom have stable skylight covers. Easy to roll and unroll with boards to hold down.
- We passed our fire inspection and ballroom occupancy has been increased to 275.
- Did a much more thorough walkthrough than previous inspectors have (he's new)
- Concerned about habitation. Wants us to put signage outside of the building indicating where the main panel is, and also a knox-box (box for keys for emergency access)
- upped ballroom capacity from 244 to 275
- shattuck doors need fixing - robb will talk to reed bros
- The village is not taking donations until they have a regular coordinator to accept and distrbute donations.
Commons
- Meetings: Currently ad-hoc; join the 'Commons' list
- There will be an art show and related events in the entrance hall tomorrow (Friday) for a week. Please keep EH clear.
- Joe - Skin suspension event - first 5 days are building the set. They are open to the public 8-10 on Saturday. Tear down Sunday.
- This group needs help:
Communications
Not currently meeting
Finance & Fundraising
Conjoined meetings: 2nd & 4th Mondays at 6pm
- We need to have our annual Omni Commons board meeting.
- At the meeting we should name officers and delegates for the next year. Needs to have 2 weeks notice to be official.
- Was this our previous annual meeting? https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Event:2018/02/15_Delegates_Meeting
- Financial reports
- We need to choose new officers and officers-elect.
- Our President (Lynn) resigned
- We suggest naming new treasurer so Jenny can just be bookkeeper.
- Ideally there would be more finance working group volunteers who would take on different segments of the work, like liaison with different fiscal sponsorships.
- Thank you for signing your new leases and sending your COIs.
- Developing detailed contract for Jenny as bookkeeper. And board needs to pass a self dealing resolution as part of contracting board member.
- Joe: I would ike to dee more diversification across collectives. Nothing agsint sudo room but we need more stuff comin out of other groups.
- Yar agrees, and wonders how we can encourage people to step up
Member Collective Updates
What is going on with your collective? What are you working on? What have you accomplished? Any events coming up? Any difficulties you are encountering that you need help with?
CCL
- Ken: Going good
CSC
- Mary Ann: OVerwhelmed with stuff. Just finished grant to Annenberg Foundation (LA) for $15,000. They also expressed interest in Omni. HAve some relationship with a younger group called Metabolic Studios that seems interested. Audit needed for larger amount of grant.
FNB
- Joe - SPAZ party raised $411 for FNB and made another $400 at Peoples Park anniversary. Working on grants with Sop Waste for winter supplies. NOw a big free box at People's PArk built by students and student government passed a resulution in support of People's Park
GWS
- Over the last few months have been putting a lot of energy into the Poor People's Campaign, the Bay Area chapter needed support. Tackles the four pillars of evil: militarism, poverty, racism, environmental degradation. PPC Hearing on April 6th, went really well. Well attended and $6000 raised. PPC Congress on June 17-19th in DC - fundraising to help poor people get to DC to participate.
- US Prostitutes had a victory today - SB 233, a bill put forth to prevent sex workers from being arrested for reporting violent crime, and prohibits the use of condoms as evidence for arresting women for prostitution, went to the floor of the Senate today and passed!
LL
- Robb: in the middle of our 400 years series. We are reconsidering how we generate revenue and might only do screenings going forward if we are getting grants for them. Theyare a lot of work and dont raise that much money. WE still have money to pay rent for a while.
- Livestreaming workship this Monday at 5pm.
Sudo
- Robb: Still cleaning up!
- Yar: Every time I've needed a tool lately I've been able to find it in Sudo
- Mesh holding workshop at west oakland public library on saturday
- mesh also needs to re-sign lease to be a tenant. Is a separate 501c3.
- Considering member collective application
Ban Report (if any)
- Add to list of people asked to leave
- joe: Somebody in Sudo was sexually assaulted by a member of FNB outside of Omni. Details were discussed at length but we won't detail here. there was also one prior incident of inappropriate behavior in Omni.
- Saturday dropoff between 4-5 affected, could use volunteers
- conditions of victim - "I do not consider it ideal, but I would be open to, instead of outright banning this dude on safe space grounds, having him take a break and then, if he can take responsibility for his actions, come back into the space if a member vouches for him, watches him while he's in the space, and does not leave him alone with women, femme non-binary people, or anyone who may be vulnerable."
- We consent to ban him. If he takes responsibility and the victim consents, we can discuss his return.
- joe: Somebody in Sudo was sexually assaulted by a member of FNB outside of Omni. Details were discussed at length but we won't detail here. there was also one prior incident of inappropriate behavior in Omni.
Proposals
storage safety protocol
- probably DK put this here?
- it's about fire hazards, not about theft
- all storage should be 2ft from the ceiling
condemning harassment
- Yar sent this to consensus list 2 days ago (Tues Apr 30)
A few Omni members, including Julio and Lynn, have been targeted over the past few months by anonymous online harassers who are subscribing them to nazi and marxist mailing lists. It appears to be in response to their emails to the consensus list, indicating that the harasser is reading our consensus list. There is even some suspicion that this person is an Omni member.
It's probably the same person or group who trolled our meeting notes in February: https://omnicommons.org/pipermail/consensus/2019-February/001557.html
If anybody knows anything about this, please come forward with information. In the meantime, I think it'd be best if the Omni community could at least come to a consensus about condemning this harassment. Even if it seems symbolic at best, it would be a step towards healing and would send a clear signal to the harassers that they will not succeed in dividing us.
discussion of condemning harassment
- Jenny: we have so many people on the Sudo discuss list, where things like this brand of harassment has happened before, that is my guess for where this came from. Maybe we should consider keeping some Omni proposals/discussions, if forwarding to sudo, to the members list rather than the public list.
- All delegates consent to this proposal.
Other Discussions
Cafe
- Cafe options: Michelle and Abad are going to submit a proposal to run a cafe. There is also the idea to approach existing compatible cafes about setting up a branch here. Suggestions include Hasta Muerte, Arizmendi, Red Bay, Bicycle. Looking for thoughts about this and other suggestions for possible cafes.
- Laura will write to M & A about issues with their proposal and refer for assistance to SELC and Mandela
- RObb will reach out to Mandela to see if they would be iinterested in using the space for their training in food service and restaurant establishment. They ahve already expressed interest in working with us on the kitchen
- Also we should generally reach out to let hasta muerte, arizmendi, etc know that we are looking for a cafe.
Jitsi meet
- we can try jitsi meet for web conferencing https://meet.jit.si/omninom (click to join room)
End of Meeting
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