Event:2019/09/19 Delegates

Omni Delegates' Meeting - Thursday September 19, 2019 7pm-9pm

for instructions on preparing and archiving these notes, please see the bottom

Agenda

• Introductions [15 minutes]
  • Meeting Roles
  • Delegates Count
  • Access Check-in
• Check-ins, Updates & Report-Backs [30 minutes]
  • Brief Announcements
  • Working Groups
  • Member Collectives
  • Conflicts, Mediation & Safe Space
• Proposals & Discussions

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

• WHY DO WE ASK PRONOUNS? To make space for people who are trans, nonbinary, gender noncomforming or otherwise vulnerable to being misgendered. It's not an invitation to make jokes or trivialize the idea of pronouns. If you are fine with the gender and pronouns society generally assigns to you, please just say what they are without fanfare or embellishment. Conversely, please don't pressure anybody to give their pronouns, as that can harm trans people who are closeted or questioning. The point is to prompt and normalize asking, but not to mandate or enforce. Thank you! <3 Yar
• Phil
• yar - delegate - she/her
• dennis - delegate - he/him
• joe - fnb - he/him
• laura - wgs
• Jenny - Sudo, Finance and other wgs
• AB - FYE
• Rachel - GWS
• Mary Ann - CSC
• Jane - GWS
• Ken - CCL
• Mylan - Phat Beets

Access Check In

Is everybody able to participate fully in this meeting? Do people have unmet needs or concerns?

Meeting Roles

• Facilitator/s: Phil
• Explanation of hand signals: "deaf applause", "raised hand", "point of process", "direct response"(wildcard), etc.
• Stacktaker: AB
• Timekeeper:
• Notetaker/s: Jenny,
  • URL of this pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/omninom
• Vibe Reader: Rachel
• Who will send out next meeting's agenda beforehand:
• Next meeting's facilitator(s):

Delegates

• CCL: Ken
• CSC: Mary Ann
• FNB: Joe
• FYE: AB
• GWS: Rachel
• LL: Dennis
• Phat Beets: Mylan
• Sudo: Yar
• Quorum: Yes!

Brief Announcements

• Joe: We started talking about sponsorship - very important to Chiapas, clarifying with their people, issue with Sudo / SPAZ - now an issue in booking group - friend of Max's from Phat Beets / OCUEJ who wants to have a fundraiser. How to handle issues of contracts, insurance, etc - not sure how to handle these
  • Phil - maybe we can discuss as a discussion item later in the meeting
• Jenny: Kitchen meeting this Saturday at 1pm! Meet our architect! Help plan next steps!
• AB - next Saturday, 4-10 is FYE/Phat Beets/ Lib Lens fundraiser in ballroom

Working Group Report-Backs

Building & permits

• Kitchen meeting is 1pm this Saturday. This is your last chance to have input on the plans.
• Joe: Met someone at the serving this Saturday who may want to come and take the stoves
• Robb - We still have some leaky spots on the building in the S Wall and over Sudo. We need to plan some work days before the rain comes. We need materials.
• Yar - I've been trying to get quotes from solar panel comapnies. It has been a little sticky. The best lead so far is the people power cooperative (https://www.peoplepowersolar.org/ ). We buy into the coop. They finance the panels. Eventually want to have an interconnected PV panel grid. They only have one other intall so far. They looking for their next build.
  • Joe: May also have to check with those who hold our mortgage eventually
  • Ken: Have heard for years we already have some solar panels donated
  • Jenny - REDACT Antoher org we might look at is Grid Alternatives. They do job training for solar installation so it might be a way to get cheaper labor so they can do the training.

Commons

• Meetings: 2nd & 4th Mondays at 5pm
• https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/booking
• Joe - RIght now it's me, Robb, Jenny, ROberto. Silver and Sierk are in training. If anyone else is interested we need help. There are a lot of small things. We are thinking about new software.
  • It's a good amount of work - showing people the space, contracts, insurance, being at the events.

Finance & Fundraising

• Meetings: 2nd & 4th Mondays at 6pm
• https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/finance
• Jenny - A week ago I balanced all the books so all the numbers match. (YAY!) Now we'll able to do the 2018 taxes. I'm adding in all the receipts I can find. I think we're pretty close to being audit ready. Otherwise, we had a dip in rental income in July but we're back up to $4600 in August. We need to bring in about $3000 more per month to really be putting funds away for the reserve and capital expenses. I've set up more auto reports to go out monthly to the pertinant wgs. FYE made its first payment.
• Joe - what about the funds for the kitchen and if we're going to pay for it by refinancing?
• Jenny - We had originally planned a 3-phase crowdfunding campaign and only ran the first one (raising about $17K) - we also received that $30K donation split from Sudo Mesh (though I put that directly toward our Operating Reserve fund [3 mos expenses]) - we're well-poised to do another crowdfunding campaign (now with complete plansets and more people/orgs invested). Also well-poised to do the refinance

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 - We have lots of classes going on. We just had our quarterly board and memebr ship meeting. Everything is going fine.

CSC

• Mary Ann - The indigenous womens group that was supposed to come up have postponed until prob February. We've decided to show a human rights film called "the Wanted 18"
  • next sunday, sep 29: "The Wanted 18" human rights film about cows in israel

FNB

• Joe - We collected alot of food for the climate strike. We got a grant for a truck and we're looking at trucks but no decision yet.

FYE

• paid advance rent for next 4 months!
• upcoming fundraiser event: sat sep 28
• sewing circle sundays 7pm, learn to use the sewing machines so they can get certified to use them
• ceramics workshop in the future

GWS

• Rachel - we're marching tomorrow for climate strike with Poor People's Campaign. Meet us on Market in SF between 7th & 8th
• fighting to save the Redstone Building - Omni's counterpart in SF - if you know anyone with a few million dollars send them our way
  • too bad there's no rich people in SF

LL

• Dennis - we recheduled the video productoin workshop with Baycat for October.

Phat Beets

• Mylan - We're getting new board members which is exciting. We havd one youth fellow who sold $70 worth of cookies in one day.

Sudo

• Yar - I'm admitting defeat. We're not epoxying the floor this year. Maybe next year.
• Jenny - A homes not jails member is doing locksmithing workshops in the basement 1st and 3rd Mondays, 6pm. Next one is on October 7
  • New momentum with Disaster Radio, testing new version.

Conflicts, Mediation & Safe Space

• nothing to speak of today

Proposals

FYE Permanent Membership Proposal

Sent to Consensus 9/2:

Greetings fellow Omni Commoners,

Our 3-month trial/integration period comes to an end, successfully accomplishing our goals and fulfilling our commitments for such - the office #8 is renovated and the Media Lab activated. We also organised a first community event and a collaborative art mural, with great turn out.

We are extremely grateful and optimistic for the future. We genuinely thank every Omni individual who has welcomed/assisted and collaborated with us thus far. We hope our presence is appreciate by as many as possible and our involvement with Omni grow with time.

As i (AB), founder and leader of the FYE Collective, have been out of town and with family for the past 3-4 weeks (returning the 5th and hopefully attending the delegates meeting), the rest of the collective has not been as engaged in Omni affaires - for that we apologise. Upon my return we will be shifting gears and truly anchoring our presence and engagement at/with Omni.

In light of the upcoming delegate meeting this Thursday Sept. 5th, which also marks the end of our trial/integration period, we have a few requests:

1) In our initial proposal/application to join Omni, we offered to pay $350-400 in rent for our private office space in the basement. We propose/request an adjustment of our rent sum to $300/month, paid upfront for the next 4 months ($1200 total for Sept. 15th 2019 - January 15th 2020). After that 'Activation Phase' period we are willing to readjust back to our initial proposal of $350-$400, as we will be fully functional and financially stable by then.

2) In this light - we request a 10-day grace period (Sept. 5th-15th) in which we will solidify our internal collective commitments and gather our finances for a $1200 upfront payment.

We would like to know if this plan and financial arrangement may be accepted by Omni. We also would like to know what method of payment is preferred by Omni Finance Group.

Thank you for your time in reading this and considering our proposal.

Looking forward to the future and beyond.

With love,

AB / FYE Collective

DIscussion

• Phil - I would like to ask AB to remind people there is no smoking in the basement of anything.
• Joe - This isn't specific to this proposal but I would like to discuss with the basement group about the permanence of various installations in the basement
• Robb - last meeting there was some concern about poeple sleeping in the basement. The firs inspactor was mostly looking for sleeping during the last inspection.
• AB - any suggestions about insuring that no one is sleeping? Maybe a lock that can't be locked form the inside on ly the outside.
• < hands jenny a key to put on master keyring >
• Consenso - All agree. No blocks.
• NEW COLLECTIIIIIIIVE!

Basement Discussion

• joe: what's the idea of event sponsorship?
  • Laura: if an outside group wants to do an event they work with an omni collective. the omni group takes on the event as their own. all requirements from commons wg still apply about contracts, point people, etc.
  • Jenny: with spaz events, there were originally more sudoers attending & helping out, in particular myself (Jenny) and Robb in those early ones (Robb has since left Sudoroom). I agree event sponsorship should be something you're fully invested in, or time limited. Recurring things for years seems like a stretch. Even with a fiscally sponsored project, that should be temporary until they have capacity to bootstrap to full 501c3
  • MaryAnne: some foundations place time limits on their projects but there's no legal time limit afaik
  • Rachel: I agree the omni group should take full responsibility. We did that once with haiti action, a big ballroom event. it was a lot of work for us because we were sponsoring with them, had to get alcohol license, etc. the sponsoring group should do that, it shouldn't fall on omni.
  • Laura: it's not supposed to be an outside group asking for sponsorship so they can have a free event. there has to be involvement.
  • Robb: commons wg could say sponsorship requires equal organization. not just using your name.
• Joe: I'd want to change some of that. spaz set precedent for individual arrangement. they did contribute money to us - omni, fnb. generally 3-400/month. even when it's sponsored we should still have the option to ask for money
  • Robb: especially when it's "entertainment" vs education or meetings which I feel is more what the commons is for.
• Ken has concerns about things that happened at spaz events. needs more oversight. also need to make amends by cleaning up graffiti, etc.
• AB: From an insider perspective, if there's preexisting graffiti on the walls it's just a call for other graffiti artists to put something up. So the best bet is to keep them as clear as possible
  • also they usually tag walls that are already tagged by someone else. so keeping those walls painted over helps a lot.
• yar would support banning some spray paint, especially the stinky / high voc stuff
• Laura: there shouldn't be another spaz party until the existing graffiti is cleaned up
  • yar: sudoroom would support that. that's in the spirit of the conversation we had
• jenny: will communicate with spaz

Keys Update

• Yar has spent much time organizing the access list. removed many people who've moved on, with help of CCL. It's mostly in order except sudoroom still needs to audit our own member list
  • it's organized by category, so you can see which people in which collective have keycards right now. another category for working group members, another for non-members, and another for unsorted (priority for me to go through)
• robb: guests of sudo coming through, and that member may not be there and people answering the door don't know what to do and have no way of verifying that. makes enforcing door policy difficult if not impossible.
  • yar: when that happens, make a note of it and send an email maybe to sudo-discuss, so we can use that info to inform us on figuring out exactly what our access policies are.
• Ken: Would prefer that we decide on ~5 people who have keys in the event the door system fails - those who are neighbors.
  • Mylan always demagnetizes cards, would prefer a key
  • Yar would want to add all the people who can repair the door computer like me, Jake, Marc
  • Joe wants a key too
  • Robb has frequently had to open the door when the system goes down and would also like a key

Circleback on Basement

• Joe: Which of the three main areas in the basement are still considered rentable? The Hall and the Library, the Media Lab is the big question
• Robb: My recollection was that the media lab space would remain commons space - everything would be on wheels,
• Mylan: From that meeting remember Silver and other folks from the Media Lab have to put in some considerable labor to move things - heavy and/or fragile equipment - that they'd like a heads up beforehand or some kind of small compensation
• Joe: Would like some kind of update or reportback from the MediaLab, how often its in use, how it might interact with the Commons WG. My understanding is that for instance the Basement Hall is available and we check in with SPAZ if we need to use their sound system or take down their decorations
• AB: Learning things now that weren't told to me when we made the proposal. One thing I just learned at the last Commons WG meeting was that everything needed to be put on wheels. My understanding that the space was for sewing, printing, painting, etc media needs for Omni collectives first and foremost. Didn't imagine it to be common rentable space along the lines of the Disco Room or the Entrance Hall. We organized everything down there and are actively using and maintaining it
• Laura: Don't think that the space has ever been in demand as a space to be rented, ever. Don't personally think it's a space to have a meeting in. Good idea generally to have things on wheels when in a shared [jenny edit: and rat-prone] space
• Robb: am renting it out every Wednesday for a sewing circle, they're bringing their own equipment. when i'm showing the space to people who want to have a meeting, the media lab looks much more conducive than the raver hall
• Mylan: Especially with the 30 ridiculous cat heads in the corner..
  • Jenny edit: you have not heard of the Space Cats Voter's Guide?! https://www.facebook.com/spacecatvoters/
• Ken takes credit for modularity ethos of the building ;)
• Joe happy with the last couple of comments and suggests on how to proceed forward. When circumstances come up, it'll be to maybe use the tables. Long-term goal of getting the tables and remaining stuff on casters as well. Nothing necessary immediate changes.
• AB: When we committed in getting involved with the media lab we didn't know about the wheels. Understand the
  • SPAZ is rarely there and their stuff takes up a lot more residency.