Event:2015/04/02 Weekly Delegates Meeting

Weekly Omni Delegates' Meeting - April 2nd 2015

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

Contents:

• Introductions
• Laura (BAPS)
• Drew (first meeting)
• Darren (FNB)
• Noemie (OPAL)
• Jabari (OPAL)
• Paul (BLR)
• Joe (FNB)
• Simona (MPM)
• Centi (first meeting)
• Sean (Opal)
• Maxamillion (FERMENTATION STATION)
• Alana
• Dusty
• Matt (SUDO)
• Jenny (SUDO)
• Joel (TIL)
• Announcements
• Working Group Report-Backs
• Proposals
• Discussions
• Action Items
• Tabled
• Optional Breakout Session

= Attendees = (2m)

• Facilitator/s:
• Stacktaker:
• Note taker:
• Vibe reader :
  • reminder to stay calm, to keep comments brief, to be respectful and think before speaking.
  • Explanation of progressive stack: Raise your hand and make eye contact with the stack taker. Please wait your turn, and try not to interupt or speak over others. Direct responses are allowed only as Points Of Information/ Clarifications, etc (use hand signal). For everything else, please raise your hand and wait your turn.
• Next weeks facilitator(s):
  • Encourage someone who hasn't facilitated before. If they'd like support, someone who has facilitated before can join them to facilitate together! If they'd like to know how the agenda works, here's a page outlining the different parts of our agenda: https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Facilitating_General_Meetings_Tips_and_Info

Delegates

• BAPS: Laura
• Black Hole:
• CCL:
• FNB: Joe
• La Commune:
• MPM: Simona
• Sudo Room: Matt
• TIL:Joel
• Quorum:

== Introductions == (5-10m) Please be brief!

• Introduction to the Omni Commons & our values:
  • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • ICE BREAKER ACTIVITY??
• Introduce yourself: Name; Prefered Pronoun; Affiliation; If you are new, what is one thing that brought you here?

Announcements (5-15m)

• Drew: I'm gonna be around for a month and i'm available. I'm afront end developper. If you need me to help with anything let me know
• Darin: Afrika Town will be defended tomorrow morning. Please come and we're bringing food
• Joe: I was asked to do sheet rock (?) hanging. I can't do it on my own in La Commune, please get in touch with me if you can help me.
• Centi; I want to aquire a bulletin board and put it somewhere in the space, and put pics of political prisoners who have their birthdays and explain why they're incarcerated and how people can write to them and I would maintain them each month.
• Matt: at sudo meeting made an announcement to have people with skills wituh building, that now is the time to pull your friends in and we have a lot to get done and we have a clear list and I motivate everyone to activate their networks to do some work. The list is on the building groups pad, and once we sort it all out it will be on the wiki. Also on the calendar upstairs. Also an archival calendar online, you can click on the working group and find the meeting notes. Also, changed some door handles and locks, anyone who finds a quickset lock he needs it, one was missing. We have a bunch of parts and you can bring pieces to the building.
  • Jenny: Meeting notes are posted on omnicommons.org/wiki/Calendar
• Dusty: Holding space to give tours and talk to people about the Omni every Sunday 1-3 in La Commune

Working Group Report-Backs (5-10 minutes)

Please be brief! 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 are you currently working on?
• What do you need to bring to our attention and/or need help with?

Building, Permits, and Facilities

• Meets Mondays at 8pm in the TIL office
• Tomorrow (Friday), we're turning off electric to the entire building to trace circuits throughout
• We have a big list of stuff that needs to get done to be up to fire code - what jobs need to be hired out, which are diy collective (eg sorting the bookshelves in the mezzanine) and stuff that people can do on their own (eg ceiling tile cleaning in the basement)
• First two weeks of May is a moratorium on events in the ballroom so we can do construction work
• https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Omni-readiness

Challenging Dominant Culture (CDC)

• Talking a lot about organizer burnout, building structures to prevent or at least address burnout
• Create a time on the calendar, event to bring together organizers in a more celebratory manner
• Alternating CDC meetings (every other week on Sunday at 3pm in La Commune) and conflict discussion potlucks every other Sunday at 6pm
  • The latter group working on setting up trainings for restorative justice
• Suggesting other working groups not meet as often, focus on work that really needs to get done
• CDC got overflowed with the conflict resolution work so we're trying to separate that work from CDC. We now have a mailing list for conflict resolution. And you can volunteer to be a mediator.

Commons

• Jenny: Meets every Sat 1pm classroom behind La Commune. Always need more people.
• We need more people. If you want to help even with one event a month. Now it's a very small amount of people attending the event, making sure that the AV is set up, and deal with contracts. This WG brings 40% of our income right now.
• We also need a list of people who can specifically help out with sound or food or filming.
• There are two email lists you can subscribe to: one is commons and the other one is bookings. We usually cc the Commons mailing list wen we receive requests from bookings.

Communications / SysAdmins

• Update with the superfast bandwidth?
• We were promised 20 MB per second upload which is twice as much as what we got before. It used to be impossible to live stream and now we can live stream.
• We're using it as we speak,yeah
• We can live stream this meeting oh yeah, awesome!
• If anyone's interested: the wiki on the wg is more accessible, you can subscribe to ...
• Today I setup an own cloud (decentralized open source file management system) so you can make an account and use it instead of Google Drive. It's a Google Drive but you own your own data: https://omnicommons.org/cloud (ready soon!)

Finance

• Amgo emailed to say she couldn't make the meeting.
• Jenny: there is a new budget submission template. So if you want omni to pay for, say materials to build something, there is a template. It's a google doc (hum). * 78000$ on our bank account.

Kitchen

• Nothing.

Welcoming

• WC meets thursdays at 6pm. Filling front desk shift. We'll build an actual front desk in La Commune. Rachel has done an amazing job creating a construction plan for this. We're working on handouts and general signage around the building. If you're interested in creating zines and pamphlets, matt and patxu made an awesome zine that you can help fold together.
• We need to fill front desk shifts to be available to give people tours and such.
• Matt: been hosting a space, and thinks that this is the biggest thing that people can do for the entire project. So often I'm greeting people and telling them what we're about and it's huge. Person who booked the venue for that food worker thing just stopped by and I gave him all the information and that's how they ended up here. Please communicate this to everyone in their collectives. You can do this with people, too, if you're nervous about it. We really need this to happen.

=Fundraising

Hayley is stepping up to help coordinate perk fulfillment

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.
• Begin with a 5-20 minute summary/question & answer/conversation time limit; add 5-10m increments from then on

Update to Safer Space Policy

Diff: https://omnicommons.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Safer_Space_Policy%2FProtocols&diff=3070&oldid=3059 To add content to Section 5:

Protocol for Witnesses, Subjects, or Targets

• At minimum, it is important to ask yourself the following questions and record your answers as soon as possible:
• What do you need for Omni Commons to be a safe, comfortable environment where you can fully self-express, based on mutual- and self-respect?
• What are the specific, relevant actions or patterns of behavior that have prevented Omni Commons from being this kind of space for you?
• What needs to change, what actions need to be taken, and what behaviors need to stop in order for this space to be welcoming and safer for you?
• Not only will answers to these questions help facilitate mediation, but they can help the community more clearly identify patterns and behaviors that we can use to update our actions, plans, and procedures.

https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Safer_Space_Policy/Protocols#5..E2.80.8E_.E2.80.8FIf.E2.80.AD_.E2.80.ACYou.E2.80.AD_.E2.80.ACWitness.E2.80.AD_.E2.80.ACor.E2.80.AD_.E2.80.ACAre.E2.80.AD_.E2.80.ACSubject.E2.80.AD_.E2.80.ACto.E2.80.AD_.E2.80.ACUnacceptable.E2.80.AD_.E2.80.ACBehavior

Optik Allusions' proposal to be a member collective

1. Mission Statement: What do you do? What happens in the world because you exist?

Optik Allusions is a digital filmmaking collective dedicated to social change, based in Oakland, California. We share resources, skills and knowledge to help each other tell stories that might otherwise remain untold. We make films in a spirit of collaboration and solidarity, share a lending library of film equipment for creative projects, organize free, at cost or donation-based workshops.

2. Origin and group history: How did you start? What have you done?

Optik Allusions had its first meeting on 07/09/14, as a group of artists affiliated with various collectives within OMNI. Since then, we have organized workshops for screenwriting, editing, filming and sound recording, and we are curating a growing equipment library. We have also filmed and set up lights for many ballroom events. We collaborated on the Omni’s fundraising video[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zccga90hcY ] and produced 13 short videos for the "Omni in 30 seconds" series [1]. We are currently working on two short documentaries: - One on gentrification in West Oakland (in collaboration with ACCE, an activist network that is fighting to stop evictions around the Bay Area). - One about the Oscar Grant Committee, with the collaboration of the OGC's members.

3. Participation in the Omni: Why are you interested in becoming a member? How does your group intend to use the space? What are your needs?

Currently, OpAl was orinally not seeking membership but to be a tenant in solidarity, with the possibility of applying for membership in the future. Having been asked by Sudo room to apply for membership instead of tenancy, we have discussed the possibilty and agreed to apply for membership, with a few limitations: As of now, we would not be able to afford more than a 100$ a month contribution. On the other hand, more than three of our members are willing to join a working group.

We would steward a room as a commons by setting up and maintaining a few computers with the Adobe Creative Suite installed on them, for anyone to use to do media and post-production work. The space will be available for people to reserve to host workshops, hold editing sessions, or have small screenings of the work they’ve created.

4. Group finances and paying rent: What does your group do to support itself financially? What is your best plan for contributing your potential share of rent to the Omni?

OpAl is financed by the personal contributions of its members. We also intend to throw fundraising events. We have a recommended monthly membership of 15$ (no one turned away for lack of funds) and we’d like to contribute to the Omni utilities with the amount that we’re able to raise from our membership, which we estimate will be $100, but we’re hoping to reach $150 as our membership grows, and we’re willing to reassess the amount in 6 months.

5. Dedicated space: If your group would like some dedicated space at the Omni, what square footage and what features are you looking for? Which specific rooms do you feel might be suitable?

Currently, OpAl has been operating out of the small room to the left of the stage. We would like to move the computer suite to the room directly above (which people usually refer to as the radio room), and we would like to change the deadbolt on that door so that it doesn’t lock automatically, thus making the room more open and available to others. This room is 89’ square on the main floor, with a lofted space that is 43’ square, for a total of 132’ square.

The small room below would then be available for storing stage-related equipment, and we are willing to prepare it for such use by installing shelving and lockable cabinets. However, we would like to continue storing our film equipment in this room, since it will be secure and it is an ideal place for us to access it when we use OpAl gear for ballroom events.

6. Other contributions to the Omni:

We have ideas for dinner-and-a-movie type fundraisers (one of our members is a culinary artist), and we plan to restart weekly movie nights. We are also exploring a partnership with a global film activist network called Films For Action (filmsforaction.org) through which we would host screenings on a bi-monthly basis. Proceeds from these kinds of events can go to the Omni, and they have potential to bring in new folks and a regular crowd of film enthusiasts.

As always, we are happy to provide production assistance for events requiring lighting, sound, projection, or filming.

Discussion

• Seems like different groups have their eye on the spaces OpAl wants to use. Has this been resolved or is there still a contest?
  • Noemie: Much of that is a misunderstanding. Kwe worried the space wouldn't be used in the way he wanted. OpAl is not asking for exclusive use, but rather to steward it as a commons - as a post-production space for *all* media, not just video - informed by discussion with Kwe. Wasn't so much a conflict as a misunderstanding. Kwe's said he supports the proposal
• Joe: Clarify the space usage?
  • Noemie: Arranging the space upstairs for media post-production, open to the community. The space downstairs as storage for stage equipment and other equipment for events. Asking to leave their equipment there and create a locker space for ordering and storing the lighting/sound equipment for the space.
• We discussed too with Kwe scheduling time for him to use the space. Originally we didn't feel ready to be a member collective but after SUDO telling us that they wanted us to be a member collective and that we should apply for collective space and we're honored to do it. It is a positive and optimistic thing for us.
• Financials: Don't have a lot of financial needs, would be happy to become a member-collective so long as not participating in utilities/insurance
  • Matt: we have member collectives on the lease and with that we pay for extra insurance and my understanding is that for member collectives not on the lease, they do not have to be paying the amount that the collectives on the lease must pay. Collectives not on the lease can pay for independent insurance which would be much cheaper.
  • Noemie: Had a conversation with Niki about it and assumed that there was a $500 thing.
  • Matt: I think it's a matter of misunderstanding in that we haven't asked other groups such as Black Hole and PHat Beets to pay...they pay for insurance to cover their activities.
    • Insurance dovetail
• CONSENSO: Sudo, BAPS, TIL, Black Hole, FNB, CCL (abstain)

Bans

• Matt: at SUDO room a person brought up conflict that happened in the space, and are now engaged in SUDO conflict process. Shawn acting as conflict steward and will be keeping track and sharing with the community. Other person involved as mediator is Ian, a sudo room member.Person asked to leave is Nick, also known as Saint Nick.
• Sean: Elliot is a former member and didn't want to engage in the conflict process's mediation step.
• Matt: Next step is that, because one party doesn't want to engage, is that the conflict steward comes to a meeting and discusses the specifics and that we can come up with a custom solution based on the circumstances to move forward.

Conflict Discussion

• Paul: it seems like there is a lot of hand wringing around bannign people and it seems that if someone is not doing what we need, we can just show them the door.
• Laura: This is part of the conversations we are having and we are engaging in training through the berkeley restorative justice folks to get trained and I recommend that we have people from each collective get some training.
• Joe: I joined this crew as I was uncomfortable with the punitive orientation of our current process; wanted to do something that deals more directly with peoples needs and wronging the rights between them; bringing written things to a delegates meeting seems antithetical to making things right. Phat Beets is doing a lot of work around restorative justice, looking forward to their participation.
• Matt: the situation is such that the person bringing up the complaint doesn't feel safe in the space in a situation based on confrontation based on the idea that they are being accused of stealing something. This is not a punative process when we are simply trying to get people involved in a process that gets people in the room to have a conversation and I believe that our process is not punative, and that it works pretty well most of the time.
• Jenny: Perhaps we can spend some time in the meeting about this, we have time, and let some voices out in the room. Facilitator?
• Laura: Can someone give a little background on how we deal with conflict in general?
• Jenny: We are specifically discussing issues around restorative justice, whether or not people believe that we as a space can do this work, in relation to our safe space policy in context that we have values aligned with centereing of voices of marginalized and oppressed....how does one go about restorative justice in context of remidiation.
• Joe: At the meeting, we learned two areas of work: value building, a community with shared values through a process of repeated sharing circles to tease out and come up with dominant values that a community holds as principals and spending time reinforcing that. So when a conflict arrises you can go back to that. Second is the harm cirlce: a harder process where people sit down, both sides hopefully, talk about what needs weren't met and the feelings between them surrounding responsibility. This is the basis of it all. not finding out who is at fault and who needs to pay and not...Have a small pamphlet about this.
• Laura: there were notes taken and there is more information about this in the notes. This process does not affect the safe space policy, it supports it. Everyone was satisfied that the process would not undermine the safe space policy. It is something when there is a harm done, that whoever is involved is dealt with individually at first. No one is forced to meet anybody until both sides are prepared and the community is prepared, until the process happens, this is a patient process.
• Drew: Had a chance to sit in on a mock circle and it seems a lot like what I've seen in the SUDO room, seems like an extension of what may already be happening
• Dusty: Community-building and harms circles: don't have everyone involved in community-building activities - emphasizes the needs for a system that introduces people to the policies and politics of our space, orientation/structure for onboarding to our values and guidelines. Also said this process is nearly impossible unless both parties agree to be involved in it.
  • Laura: Clarification that's for the full harm circle to occur. Interpersonally there's a process for working toward resolution vis-a-vis individuals
  • Dusty: There's an intention in this process to involve the community. Part of restorative justice is restoring the community as well - not just the two people involved.
• Centi: Skeptical of restorative justice. The conversations people have had around it exemplify that they don't really understand the application. Nice ideal, but are you theone in the conflict, dealing with the circumstances. I hear where you're coming from (joe), but I see nothing but failure behind this process. If I knew of one example where it worked, but in my experience that always fails when attempted to be implemented, and the people involved have to deal with the fallout of that process enacted for the sake of someone else's principle and values.
  • Joe: Hadn't had much exposure yet to restorative justice at that point. Just talked to FNB people who needed help with mediation and getting their stuff back.
  • Laura: What's the piece that you haven't seen work, what element is missing?
  • Centi: I've been in a situation where people were talking highly of restorative justice, while in the meantime I'm receiving violent homophobic death threats, stabbed in the face, experienced vandalism - and I'm supposed to appeal to restorative justice? That's not addressing the siuation or making anything better. How people who claim to want to see this process through don't have direct successful experience themselves.
  • Simona: Great doubts about restorative justice / accountability processes focused on the perpetrator. Or nearly on the same level as a victim/survivor
  • Centi: Don't understand why people not directly affected by the conflict have any right in determining the outcome.
  • Drew: Seattle implemented restorative justice under the former mayor re: a police killing and it was successful... may want to look that up
• Matt: High school in Oakland that has a restorative justice program; radio interview with an employee that runs it - builds a relationship with everyone in the school, sits down with them for hours until they start talking. Most of the time students on the brink expose their own pressures and its resolved collectively rather than punitively
  • Laura: would the both of you be willing to go to a training around this?
• Joel: Timely value to something like restorative justice... model that could work. Issue I have is with the expectation.. certain circumstances/conflicts where the victim *does not want to resolve it* and that decision should be in the hands of the person who was harmed (not the Omni). An option, not an expectation. Sometimes is not possible or desired and that should be respected. Sometimes someone is harmed too much and the process is unreasonable.
  • Laura: The process is completely voluntary and there are steps involved before any actual meeting. So that the actual meeting is fully consensual.
  • Joel: There have been conflicts here where individuals outside of it have been pressured to engage in mediation... outside people pressuring folks to engage is harmful
• Noemie: My impression is that restorative justice is not about forcing te victim or excusing te perpetrator... but rater admitting tere's a plurality of ways for the victim to address a conflict; a plurality of possible outcomes.
• Joe: Te basis of it is tat the perpetrator has to take responsibility when someone has been harmed. The best/key part is the talking circle; where everyone has to listen. That has a lot of potential for having someone understand why they need to speak with repsonsibility to the person or communities they've hurt. That means a lot to me, want to learn more about this process. Also, what sees clear is that our community isn't that strong; that we don't have so many responsibilities. Don't want to burden sudo room, but they shoulder a lot of that person - that's the place where people who just walk in go to. People who don't behave well act out there.
• Simona: It seems like we're entering a dangerous zone with the Omni acting as a facilitator of restorative justice focused on a victims needs. As a safe space, the Omni is - maybe not able to provide; such a process might be more militant. Seems like a strange space to decide on what that would be, to be able to facilitate that for victims.
• Dusty: Do believe the principles of restorative justice are such that it isn't a process set to constrain peoples needs around resolution, rather an approach offering an alternative - not a process anyone is forced to engage in. I work in a school, see stuff like this work all the time. Every cirlce looks different, it can be useful here. Also, the Omni should definately have a process to dealing with conflict, wants to be involved, this is part of the heart of figuring out how to deal with conflict as a while
• Matt: - it is a good assumption that perpetration doesn't just affect individuals, but rather the entire community. Actions that take place affect everyone as well. - essential that access to this this building is an entitlement. We have a culture that says "you are abusing and that's not okay" that's important to recognize. Engagement + participation is required. - conflict is part of cultural memory. If yo uwant ot be a part of this community, there's always a path of reconciliation. It's not complicated for anyone. It's surprising how few folks have gotten to the place where they can take that responsibility. - Punitive measures are not practical. Every circumstance is going to be unique, and we need to talk about individually. - will put on a proposal for the next meeting: addition to safer space policy. 3 questions: 1. what do you need from Omni to feel safe? 2. what are the actions/behaviors that prevents this? 3. What needs to change/stop in order to be welcoming for you. a helpful way to get details down clearly + quickly.
  • 1. The Precept that perpetration, even mistakes, affect not just individual parties, but the whole community.
  • 2. Access to resource is not a right, but an entitlement, this is not an "open access" resource, but a commons, we have a culture to ensure that we are able to maintain a regenerative resource.
  • 3. Something I keep telling people in conflict situations is there is always a path to reconciliation through responsibility & participation in the process.
  • 4. Punitive measures are simply ineffective, for me personally, that's why we have our sudo conflict resolution process.
  • 5. safer spaces proposal to improve the process for supporting victims especially, which I propose for the next meeting.
• Centi: it is impossible for a process like that to actually work without both parties assuming full responsibility. If someone denies it than there's no way that twe can have a happy ending. Without that element it's impossible to have the process work.
• amgo:21:00 I think it's also relevant to think about doing this work preventatively so that the idea of this kind of communication isn't just associated with harm
• amgo:21:00 It's about creating a culture of understandign onw another