Event:2023/02/02 Delegates

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Omni Delegates' Meeting - February 2, 2023 7pm-9pm

Meeting Details

Roles

  • Facilitator/s: Silvia
  • Stacktaker:
  • Timekeeper:
  • Notetaker/s:
  • Next meeting's facilitator(s):

Delegates

  • inactive groups: ANV, CSC, GWS, SM
  • BOGSS: active, geraldo
  • CCL: active, patrik
  • CLP: active, silvia
  • FNB: depends, joe
  • LL: active, John T (showed up mid-way)
  • MOP: depends, jacqi
  • SR: active, jake
  • Quorum (2/3 of active groups): need 4 or 5

intros

BRIEF INTROS MAY INCLUDE: name, pronouns, groups you're in, land you're on, if you're a delegate, unmet access needs, meeting roles you'd like to help with, discussion topics or proposals to add to agenda, announcements/updates/report-backs from your groups, safe space issues or updates

  • silvia
  • geraldo
  • yar she/her, trying not to do as many things
  • stephanie she/her, am i in the right place? eating a pizza
  • jake
  • jacqi mop she/her
  • melvin, unite virtual network
  • luis, unite
  • b they/them, trying to volunteer more
  • joe - monday 10am bedbug dog
  • silver events fnb
  • emily/toast she/her, financial coordinator, working with the mortgage and potentially with payments. mapping bank accounts, figure out where our moneys are, trying to set us up for refinancing

unite

  • https://unitevirtualnetwork.com/
  • STEM education group 10am-5pm M-F looking for classroom / office space
  • jacqi: melvin & luis came to an event in vallejo, told us about amazing program. wanted to find ways to collaborate. when rooms opened up, i invited them to see how we do things. tell us what they do, what they need, if it's a good fit, if the room works best for what they need.
  • luis: bringing students in the disco room, working with them. ~3 teachers, 5 students at a time. we also throw events.
  • melvin: we train doctors, lawyers & engineers, and offer tutoring services. also want to start saturday school. specialize in STEM, some students go to tech (oakland tech high school on broadway). ... also teach dance, martial arts, meditation
  • joe: are students enrolled for a period of time? do you have semesters, graduations? where do you get teachers?
    • melvin: yes we're the teachers. students range from 6-23yo. we offer an immersive program to help people become professionals. not on a semester / time limit basis. i'm in school, he's a substitute teacher, so we're offering free tutoring in the afternoon through evening. weekend program will be more immersive with defined curriculum. hpoefully that'll prep us for summer to have a more defined program / day camp situation.
    • luis: we get students organically. they can sign up on the website to meet with us.
  • silver: we lack the youth at omni! cool you're bringing that. also a new group called unschooling coming through
    • melvin: we want to pool resources with them!
  • patrik: do you foresee problems having under 18 at omni, in terms of insurance? we've steered away due to insurance, they said you'd have to have a parent at all times
    • melvin: if we got waivers would that solve the issue?
    • patrik: it's not an issue with parents, it's an issue with insurance
    • emily: can we confirm that with someone on legal or at insurance. It's sometimes appointed guardian (such as a teacher) rather than parent
    • patrik: if it's in an open environment where they're exposed to everyone else in the building, then everyone in the building would need to get a background check (if more than a certain number of kids in the space - 5 is likely ok)
    • yar: unschooling solves this by always having just one parent around. that parent being with their kid assumes liability for the other kids
  • yar: do people pay or get paid?
    • melvin: for now we do things for free. not charging anybody for this program. in the future if it grows and we need to hire help, maybe. we're here to try and figure out what you all would expect us to pay
    • luis: we are a 501c3 org.
  • joe: have you talked about this with vian? figure out how you could share space
    • melvin: just had conversations in passing. agreed on working in the future, wouldn't mind sharing a space. issue we talked about was having a dedicated space for storing materials.
  • jacqi: we talked about the space possibilities.
  • yar: rooms include the Den and the new basement room. Other smaller rooms could be freed up.
  • joe: direct action everywhere maybe interested in a room
  • SL - the Den would be great for youth education groups!
  • emily: seems very in the spirit of omni. if people are studying, probably want something quiet, not a hallway. maybe people should put on the website the available rooms with pictures.
    • melvin: ideal sounds like disco room & office space. office for storage and disco to congregate in.
  • joe: cool to look at disco room, with storage in office, or we could buy a metal cabinet to store somewhere. won't be a huge amount of storage? books, papers.
    • melvin: laptops, projectors, tech. a lot of online & coding, going at your own pace. want stuff present in a safe place we can leave it.
  • SL: there is that weird closet in Disco Room that could be secured
  • they're also interested in being a member collective
  • jake offers sudoroom's space, this is very aligned with sudo
  • melvin: i was hosting students for a while at omni but there was scheduling conflict so we want a more dedicated space

SL: is the Den too small for the number of students?


basement art room

  • B wants to use new basement room for an art collective at Omni
  • b: i'm excited about this. been in art space since young, having event tomorrow at omni basement. using new room as art gallery, hoping to do it a lot when i can pay for it. launched kickstarter yesterday. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brendymelville/diy-basement-an-experiment-in-solidarity-and-belonging
    • friends around the country ready to become members and pay dues. [a lot of stuff yar didn't write out]
  • joe: met your crew yesterday, musical group, great guys, we had a good talk
  • they are talking about the new basement room with the door. not the unenclosed spaces or the sewing/media lab.
  • https://www.instagram.com/diy.basement
  • b: if we got the room, i'd be there several times a week to work on art stuff. the goal is to have members come in and use it when it's available, as an art making space.
  • we'd been saying 600-800 for that room
    • joe: I would think we would aim at $800 - 1200
    • they can afford 1k and were thinking 1k/mo
  • patrik: we've had problems in the past with single-person collectives
    • b: yeah i've had a dozen people in LA
  • b: i'm having 3 events this month, 1 at omni, 2 in LA

finance

  • Finance Coordinator authorization to expend funds from Omni accounts
  • emily: over past 5 years finance has existed as venn diagram btween doocracy and stuff that gets approved by the larger group. it's nebulous. but i'm a permissions person, i like collective weigh-ins on things, in part because sometimes people in this org will be on board with things, but in other departmentss people are like "wow what is this"
  • when i came on board, my job was making sure things were on order in our quickbooks and then attempting to get a loan. one thing that's clear is our bank accounts need some work, they're kind of scattered, we've started pulling that information, and i think we know where all those accounts are at this point, after a number of interviews and tracking things down
  • it's also become clear we need someone to manage payments, and probably deposits. a few people have been doing it, but all expressed they don't enjoy it or want to step away. since i'm a new hire, people have been coming to me to make payments. i didn't sign up for it, i'm willing to help with it, i can do it. so want to run that by people. payments run from $50.00-10,000.00. i'm not typically your payer.
  • joe: i'd like to get reimbursed for money i spent
  • jacqi: if nobody else is down to take this task or wants to, and emily is able to, it kinda makes sense to me. but open to other thoughts.
  • emily: another part is getting at least a debit card set up. current one is expiring in june, and some of the signers are moving off the account. part of this is gonna be helping structure the bank accounts, which will set us up for the mortgage loan. it sounds like generally this is something people want to happen and might need to happen.
  • joe: is this the reason we haven't gotten paper towels?
  • yar: not opposed to emily spending money, just don't want her to do this all of the time since it isn't a skilled job. Also need her timesheet from the past two months.
    • emily is resistant to sharing timesheet - "i shared it with the person who onboarded me [jake] and that should be enough, it's not appropriate to be surprised with this demand at a delegates meeting"
    • yar: i asked on slack and you resisted. it's been 2 months, it's not unreasonable to ask to see a time sheet. there's no way for anybody to assess the most valuable use of emily's time until we see concrete examples of her time being used in the past
    • emily: i'm working in the 10-15 hours / week range
    • Jake: Emily did submit a timesheet, it's in the documents
    • Yar: jake please link to it, i can't find it
    • Emily linked to a screenshot of dec 1-15 timesheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10PBkwRHl0svr8gWJ67OYeWA1V7IDZD49/
    • Patrik: Emily's contract says "Contractor will submit invoices to the Client, include in each invoice sufficient information to support the invoiced work, and provide other data that may be requested by the Client." We put that language in intentionally. We should clarify the correct reporting chain.
      • Sarah: in the past invoices got sent to finance list
  • Yar: i think emily should feel authorized to pay things when necessary but shouldn't be "the designated person"
  • John: in favor of Emily having ability to make payments
  • Sarah: we do need someone to be the "bottom-liner" for payments
  • CONSENSUS: YES (silvia/CLP, bogss/geraldo, LL/john, mop/jacqi, CCL/Patrik, jake/sudo, fnb/joe), ABSTAIN (none), BLOCK (none)

info emails

  • Incoming emails to info@omnicommons.org, which is listed as our contact on the website. Need more people to handle these emails
  • Yar set up an "emails" slack channel

friday event

  • What happened on Fri 1/27 until ?AM in the ballroom?
  • discussion of details
  • deonce and his group had a halloween event which did not go well. they asked for another event this weekend and we said no. rather than accepting "no", they manipulated chicago into requesting a fake event, ostensibly for his daughter's birthday, but it was not his daughter's birthday. the event was just a fraudulent front for deonce's group to sneak in and throw a wild party with booze, strippers, and loud music until very late. it was completely out of control and caught everybody by surprise. nobody was able to hold them accountable, and they left a huge mess. neighbors rightfully complained about the nuisance, and omni received no money. deonce claimed to have paid chicago $1000 but chicago denies receiving any money. there was no deposit or contract because we trusted chicago who said it would be a small chill private birthday party. there is profound disappointment at this broken trust. we are weighing options to recover money and damages. anyone associated with this party should never be rented to again.

events group

  • silver wants to discuss participation in events group
  • Emily: need a better process for events. There is no more events working group, but events are happening? What is the plan to make sure this does not happen again in the future?
    • Silver: we do have an events group, meet every Monday. All volunteers - need more support. Collectives should pitch in. Should take Deonce to small claims court. Doesn't want Chicago to be banned.
  • Silvia: Need a hired staff person to do events - insane amount of effort, nobody is trained to do this.
  • Yar: delegates have acknowledged that events group needs a paid person
  • Sarah: need to clarify how much money Events team has to work with
  • Emily: Events manager would really benefit Omni, doesn't have to come out of events income
  • yar: i think omni should commit to subsidizing event manager for a couple months in advance, but we should also expect that they start generating their own pay beyond that. also, i think this is one of those cases where "borrow from the gofundme pile to invest in something which will pay itself back" is reasonable

free store

  • proposal to relocate Free Store Back to 48th St Facing Wall of Entrance Hall
  • The current location of the Free Store is regularly not only blocking one of Omni's electrical panels, but it makes it super awkward and sometimes impossible for people to access their mail in the mail cubbies. (per Slack message from MA from CCL)
    • yar: that's what i'd proposed last year, but we need to fix the floor in that spot first
  • Can we ask them to have a smaller square footage if they are blocking egress to entrance, office, and the panel
  • Patrik bought some yellow/black striped floor tape, and a couple "KEEP CLEAR" floor signs. We also propose to use one of the white dividers from the ballroom to make sure there is a corridor to the mailroom that stays clear.

End of Meeting

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