Post by kim on Mar 11, 2012 20:45:38 GMT -7
Agenda & Minutes to GA of 03/11/2012
~ 22 people in attendance
Agenda
Review of process & principles of consensus.
Working under set stack: take 10 comments on stack; go through all before adding more comments to stack. Peacekeeper & doorkeeper facilitation team members added.
I. Announcements
II. Confirm Date, time & place of next assemblies
III. Working group reports
1. Communication
2. Direct Action
i. General
ii. Foreclosure Defense
iii. Occupy Congress
iv. Move to Amend
v. Encampment
3. Facilitation
4. Finance
5. Strategy Session Planning Group
6. Union
7. Consensus
8. Education/Tuesday Forum
9. New Groups? –
IV. Proposals
1. State aloud/Scribe
2. Clarifications/questions
3. Concerns
4. Resolution
V. Discussion of Proposals
VI. Other Business
VII. Confirm date/time/place of next meetings
VIII. Evaluation of Meeting
IX. Adjournment: Discussion & Soapbox
Minutes
I. Announcements
a. Development with Moveon: Rally on Thursday 12pm for foreclosure defense at 800 Kensington near Brooks and Mount. Nuts&Bolts: How to use the listserv & gmail.
b. 73 page police document put out is held by someone in Occupy, trying to locate it; it’s a Justice department report on how to respond to tent cities. Please return to Mary Alice
c. New group Montanans against fracking, meeting on the 16th at the democratic party fundraiser in Helena. Silent protest. Will forward the email to the list.
d. Forum on using direct action against coal exports. Will be on the calendar. Q: what about internal coal? Against all coal but focus is on what Montana is doing. Monday, March 19th, 6-7pm in University Center Room 330
II. Confirm Date, Time & Place of Next Meetings
1. 2pm at Union Hall. Next meeting is a working GA. Facilitation group meets at 1:45pm, same place.
3. Wednesday: Forum, 6 pm Union Hall Theater
4. Friday, Occupy the Oval: School is back in session, Mondays meeting at 3pm(?)
III. Working Group Reports
1. Communication: N/A
2. Direct Action:
a. Foreclosure Defense Group/strategic planning group: (see announcement)
b. Move to Amend working group: Met at the library, near the entrance off main. More contact with Stand with Montana (new group, planning a statewide referendum or petition). Meeting again at 2:00 meeting tomorrow, in the board meeting room. General organizing meeting on April 4.
c. Encampment working group/Food not bombs: N/A
d. State Bank: N/A
3. Facilitation: Meeting pn Sundays prior to each GA (both Decision and Working). We still need more people every time!
4. Finance: Thirty dollars in the Denny’s print account.
5. Strategy Planning: Met as the forum on Wednesday. Workshop will take place March 24 & 25. Agenda is partially complete, mainly about developing goals strategies and tactics. Talking about skyping in a speaker. Will be bringing the agenda as a proposal.
6. Union Working Group: N/A
7. Consensus Group: N/A
8. Educational Working Group/Forum: Wednesday at 6pm, Union theater.
9. Others? N/A
IV. Proposals
A. Statement of Proposals – Scribed
a. Proposal: Anti-Coal Action. Working on the local level but hoping to take it to the state level, planning to go to the capital for the land use meeting. Two Parts:
i. We as GA endorse action in August, (2)
ii. OM sends an affinity group.
b. Proposal: Adopt Principles for Decision Making with modifications from last GA. (3)
c. Approve agenda for strategy weekend. (1)
B. Other points of discussion:
a. N/A
V. Discussion of Proposals
Prioritization of Proposals: Will be in order numbered above.
a. Proposal 1: Approval of Agenda
Questions, comments, & concerns:
i. Can we add an evaluation period at the end of the day? Written evaluation?
ii. Concern about wording it potluck and socializing: "socializing" doesn’t sounds like you have to stay. Should we have a film, or should we have the evaluation and potluck together, to ensure people stay?
iii. Add documentary or something around the potluck. It’s especially important to have an evaluation on Saturday.
iv. Agree that evaluation is important, to sum up action items, what’s been decided and what needs to be done after Saturday.
v. Practical concern: how will we keep food? No fridge in kitchen; stove & microwave work. People will bring coolers and crockpots.
vi. Evaluation best done at the end of a session.
vii. Something even really short is kind of nice, like friction in the machine.
viii. Short is key! 15-20 minute to bring everyone’s focus on the same thing.
ix. Don’t like film-how about role play or game? More inclusive and active.
x. Music-bring guitars and play and sing music together.POI: Casey has a band that can play for us./Have them come and jam, but not play a free show for us, keeping it interactive.
xi. Have more confidence in our ability to hold conversations with each other!
xii. Intermingle, sit and talk to each other, so we know more about each other. Build solidarity. Eat and talk together.
xiii. Structured schedule all day long, prefer a nice get together in the evening, relaxed.
xiv. Participatory music session!/Will bring readers digest book of folk songs
xv. Synthesis?
xvi. What time do we need to be out of here/5pm from theater, no set time for rest.
xvii. What about the rest of the agenda?/ Logical sequence of thinking through this stuff indicates that goals and vision would include SWOT. Talking about SWOT Sunday doesn’t make sense. Swap out occ-topus and SWOT, because once we’ve identified goals, you go on to evaluate options for getting there, i.e. identifying Strengths Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
xviii. First need to identify SWOT, before doing anything.
xix. Start with SWOT. We have goals, we haven’t talked about objectives. Nebulous goals but need objectives, ex: Apolitical demands such as “radical equality” that may not be tangible. There are different types of goals to make: as an organization, as a movement, etc.
xx. Pre-session with NCBI? Laying groundwork for starting strategic planning weekend./Time frame got crunched. Differences in terms: affinity groups, affiliations, associations.
xxi. If we wanted to address the things around homelessness we would be building collations with other organizations around the state. Probably the same for other issue agendas.
xxii. Affinity groups definition... POP: back to proposal.
xxiii. Vibe check: possible to consense on the proposal? Re-synthesis of changes to be made to the proposal first: 5pm-7pm general mingling, discussion and talking-getting to know each other. SWOT discussion move to Saturday at 11am-12pm following language discussion, then 10 minute break, then start goals and visions discussion; break for lunch, return and have a speaker and then continue the goals/visions discussion.
POP: Barry brought an announcement form an affinity group: Ignition Party. Petition for medical use of marijuana-collecting signatures. Friday March 16. All day long, events and music getting wilder as it gets later. At the American Legion Hall. Event w/ soapbox for all. Flier left with OM GA. Republican and democratic conventions this summer will have a kitchen camp feeding for anyone with a warehouse. BTW: As someone familiar with Missoula houseless scene, portapotties, showers, place to store stuff is what homeless need!
Synthesis/Conclusion:
i. Passed: Working group will send out the revised agenda to the listserv.
b. Proposal: Endorse Helena coal action solidarity, 1 week in August.
Leading up to State land board meeting August in Helena. Asking OM GA to endorse and send an affinity group there. The University group is reaching out to as many groups as possible for inclusion. POI: Weeklong actions will be preceded by trainings in Powder River Basin.
Questions
i. When and where are the trainings? Directly before the August 13th
ii. What do you mean by direct action? Express that the rotunda has been controlled for too long by corporations and other powers.
iii. Who is seeking our support locally? / A collective has formed to organize this action. Many groups involved.
iv. Is it built on Paul Cienfuegos’ workshop? / No, not directly. This action incorporates some lessons from that but started before the workshop took place.
v. Is this a strategic land board meeting? /Agendas not listed, so coal issues may not be a part of the meeting. Will attend the public comment section. Public meeting planned for August 20 as of right now, could be changed if the land board hears about this action (and thinks it will be disruptive).
vi. “No Coal Northwest” group.
vii. Is there an Occupy Helena? / Yes. /Asked because Occupy is a taboo subject with street people there.
viii. When are the meetings?/ Does as conference calls because people are spread out, on Friday evenings at 6pm. Details from Nick.
ix. Proposal is in two parts; affinity group would have an ending point. What would you want OM to do?/ Have some people participate if OM endorses it, so those people would attend some meetings and determine how they would want to participate.
x. What are the written objectives? That the land board halt all new and existing coal mining on state land. Large mobilization needed or they will keep handing out leases to Arch Coal and the likes.
xi. How will mass action impact them? /Almost all members of land board are up for election this year, so without the action itself having to engage in politics, the board are already in a weak position./Not endorsing any party or candidate./ The threat is they may lose their seat, but you aren’t going to go after their seat, so they will determine that there is no threat.
xii. “Endorsement:” who is the larger coalition and what does endorsement mean?/There will be a link to Occupy Missoula and OM will be named on their website, saying OM is one of the groups supporting this action.
xiii. “Goals:” to get the land board to not sign any more leases. Single issue actions are something we will be looking at in our strategy session. How does it connect or help accomplish the broader goal? /We may not convince the land board, but it may help mobilize more mass movements in Montana.
xiv. Thanks for organizing this; coal export could be a uniting issue. MT history shows that large industry has trashed this state. Show that we are no longer looking the other way.
xv. Agree that if we are looking to put pressure on them it’s not that effective. Land board members are not elected directly, they are appointed elected officials. Come to the strategy session to plan it more.
xvi. Support the action to show Occupy is alive and well in Missoula.
xvii. After many visits to capital, have seen very good points made and they don’t even blink an eye. If you’re going to organize to get people there, we need to make sure it is going to have a real effect. How are you going to get leverage over there? People could get hurt and/or jailed, so just going to say you’ve been is not enough./ Strategy may not be a winning strategy but those on the board are up for re-election, so they won’t be happy to have a bunch of people show up during this. The idea is that whoever is elected to fill those seats, we will continue to show up if they continue to hand out leases.
xviii. Occupy movement in general has become so visible that every time we take a step against these issues it builds momentum and they are paying attention. Land board made a mistake before and people of Missoula showed they were angry.
xix. Best to make this decision after the strategy session.
xx. We need to appoint the land board.
xxi. Two parts, can we consense on the first part, and endorse the effort (that coal should stay in the ground)?
xxii. Paul Cienfuegos talk could contribute to this discussion and to the strategy session, can we have a rundown from that a the next working GA?/Will can synthesize the Cienfuegos meeting at a future GA. / Please put it out to the listserv too.
xxiii. Students have come to us a couple of times, giving our support is in keeping with what people are saying. We don’t know enough about the land board itself, but that is irrelevant. Comment that we should endorse the group at least.
xxiv. POI: The state land board is made of 5 officials who decide where to use money, e.g. for education, etc. Trying to tie people to specific issues won’t work because they won’t talk about an issue until it is the item on hand.
xxv. Approach brought so far not well developed or seemingly effective, GA member volunteered to help develop ideas.
xxvi. This discussion is good; share experience with actions. This is what we didn’t do in the past, was reach out and do coalition building. Tactics were similar, but this is important.
xxvii. We can endorse that they are willing to do it, and work on strategy.
xxviii. Empower them, everyone can work on it and learn from mistakes.
xxix. Call for consensus on general endorsement but not one to send out into public spheres until tactics and strategies have been discussed. /Disagree, just endorse them and send them on, we can work with them as they develop strategies./Concerns still exist; not every group that seeks endorsement has worked things out fully; just good visions doesn’t ensure positive ends. Endorsing without a really good plan leaves too many details open ended. GA participant will help to develop a more detailed plan to present to OM.
xxx. One blocking concern can stop the process?/Yes.
POP: 4:20pm, table this proposal? There is quite a lot of time before the action.
xxxi. Discuss this at the next Working GA? Make part of the next GA involve discussion of Coal Exports and Paul Cienfuegos workshop review. / Consensed
xxxii. Students are a part of OM, as well as member of their other group. Will also talk about that in the next GA.
Synthesis/Conclusion:
i. Tabled for further discussion
c. Proposal: Continue with the other parts of the Consensus group documents: Consensus Decision making (set aside other two documents, the OWS statements, for another day). Came up with two modifications to address concerns last week. “Active listening” was added, and revised language reads, “Peaceful decision making is based on respecting differences and cooperating with others. Revealing your truth is sufficient to inform others of your point of view.”
Questions:
i. Contextualize it please? What is the language to be replaced? /Replaces non-violent decision making and persuasion statement, which included the words power, force, and persuade.
ii. Boiled down further to say peaceful decision making is respectful and cooperative?
iii. Objecting to words like power of persuasion: we don’t have money to buy or coerce. Persuasion is all we have, so if we don’t believe in the power of the word, I think we’re lost. /I don’t believe in the power of the word, believe in action. Well planned, well executed action. We can stand on the soapbox and get no result. How do we listen to each? Listen and interact in a respectful way, allowing others to have different opinions.
iv. This language is not about how we communicate outside but within the GA. Language as it stands is important because it solidifies that we are giving opinion. /Clarification: this is for internal, GA decision making.
v. Table this or extend the time? /Some people are still on stack, so take another 5 minutes—Vibe check: yes.
vi. This is an own deeply held concern, but not a blocking concern. Ok to give the go-ahead for adopting this document.
vii. Remember, it's a living document, which can be changed!
viii. If we can sit back and consciously think about how we will address each, especially as new people come in, it is a step forward.
ix. “Revealing your truth is sufficient,” what does it mean?/There were concerns about words in terms of trying to express non-violent communications. Speak what is true to you in this moment, though it may be based on opinion or other information.
x. Add caveat that this is an open document and can be changed?/It will be printed as part of a packet, and will have a paragraph saying what it is, where it came from, that it is a living document. Restate: Add active listening and disciplined speaking, as well as the language stated earlier. Any concerns? No.
xi. Is this the last part of the document that needed revision?/The working group will do the wrap-up and get it printed out in the coming weeks.
Synthesis/Conclusion:
i. Passed
VI. Evaluation of Meeting
Very good/good facilitation/good work/living document, so it takes time and effort, haven’t lost hope in language, but we need to learn, expand peaceful boundaries so our individual strengths don’t seem useless/not a big supporter of the power company but when the lights were turned on that was a major improvement/things go slow, but we are always moving forward/a-ok/I’m learning/really liked when the facilitator helped us determine what pieces we are working on/some people are still doing too much of the talking and others could do more/good/favorite GA so far/New participant/look forward to continuing discussion about what was raised/good that we are looking at the nuts and bolts of where we are going/forming. storming, norming, performing/no comment/echo what’s been said, recognizing a general trend that GAs are improving and becoming less frustrating
VII. Adjournment 4:45 pm.
Post Meeting Discussion & Soapbox
~ 22 people in attendance
Agenda
Review of process & principles of consensus.
Working under set stack: take 10 comments on stack; go through all before adding more comments to stack. Peacekeeper & doorkeeper facilitation team members added.
I. Announcements
II. Confirm Date, time & place of next assemblies
III. Working group reports
1. Communication
2. Direct Action
i. General
ii. Foreclosure Defense
iii. Occupy Congress
iv. Move to Amend
v. Encampment
3. Facilitation
4. Finance
5. Strategy Session Planning Group
6. Union
7. Consensus
8. Education/Tuesday Forum
9. New Groups? –
IV. Proposals
1. State aloud/Scribe
2. Clarifications/questions
3. Concerns
4. Resolution
V. Discussion of Proposals
VI. Other Business
VII. Confirm date/time/place of next meetings
VIII. Evaluation of Meeting
IX. Adjournment: Discussion & Soapbox
Minutes
I. Announcements
a. Development with Moveon: Rally on Thursday 12pm for foreclosure defense at 800 Kensington near Brooks and Mount. Nuts&Bolts: How to use the listserv & gmail.
b. 73 page police document put out is held by someone in Occupy, trying to locate it; it’s a Justice department report on how to respond to tent cities. Please return to Mary Alice
c. New group Montanans against fracking, meeting on the 16th at the democratic party fundraiser in Helena. Silent protest. Will forward the email to the list.
d. Forum on using direct action against coal exports. Will be on the calendar. Q: what about internal coal? Against all coal but focus is on what Montana is doing. Monday, March 19th, 6-7pm in University Center Room 330
II. Confirm Date, Time & Place of Next Meetings
1. 2pm at Union Hall. Next meeting is a working GA. Facilitation group meets at 1:45pm, same place.
3. Wednesday: Forum, 6 pm Union Hall Theater
4. Friday, Occupy the Oval: School is back in session, Mondays meeting at 3pm(?)
III. Working Group Reports
1. Communication: N/A
2. Direct Action:
a. Foreclosure Defense Group/strategic planning group: (see announcement)
b. Move to Amend working group: Met at the library, near the entrance off main. More contact with Stand with Montana (new group, planning a statewide referendum or petition). Meeting again at 2:00 meeting tomorrow, in the board meeting room. General organizing meeting on April 4.
c. Encampment working group/Food not bombs: N/A
d. State Bank: N/A
3. Facilitation: Meeting pn Sundays prior to each GA (both Decision and Working). We still need more people every time!
4. Finance: Thirty dollars in the Denny’s print account.
5. Strategy Planning: Met as the forum on Wednesday. Workshop will take place March 24 & 25. Agenda is partially complete, mainly about developing goals strategies and tactics. Talking about skyping in a speaker. Will be bringing the agenda as a proposal.
6. Union Working Group: N/A
7. Consensus Group: N/A
8. Educational Working Group/Forum: Wednesday at 6pm, Union theater.
9. Others? N/A
IV. Proposals
A. Statement of Proposals – Scribed
a. Proposal: Anti-Coal Action. Working on the local level but hoping to take it to the state level, planning to go to the capital for the land use meeting. Two Parts:
i. We as GA endorse action in August, (2)
ii. OM sends an affinity group.
b. Proposal: Adopt Principles for Decision Making with modifications from last GA. (3)
c. Approve agenda for strategy weekend. (1)
B. Other points of discussion:
a. N/A
V. Discussion of Proposals
Prioritization of Proposals: Will be in order numbered above.
a. Proposal 1: Approval of Agenda
Questions, comments, & concerns:
i. Can we add an evaluation period at the end of the day? Written evaluation?
ii. Concern about wording it potluck and socializing: "socializing" doesn’t sounds like you have to stay. Should we have a film, or should we have the evaluation and potluck together, to ensure people stay?
iii. Add documentary or something around the potluck. It’s especially important to have an evaluation on Saturday.
iv. Agree that evaluation is important, to sum up action items, what’s been decided and what needs to be done after Saturday.
v. Practical concern: how will we keep food? No fridge in kitchen; stove & microwave work. People will bring coolers and crockpots.
vi. Evaluation best done at the end of a session.
vii. Something even really short is kind of nice, like friction in the machine.
viii. Short is key! 15-20 minute to bring everyone’s focus on the same thing.
ix. Don’t like film-how about role play or game? More inclusive and active.
x. Music-bring guitars and play and sing music together.POI: Casey has a band that can play for us./Have them come and jam, but not play a free show for us, keeping it interactive.
xi. Have more confidence in our ability to hold conversations with each other!
xii. Intermingle, sit and talk to each other, so we know more about each other. Build solidarity. Eat and talk together.
xiii. Structured schedule all day long, prefer a nice get together in the evening, relaxed.
xiv. Participatory music session!/Will bring readers digest book of folk songs
xv. Synthesis?
xvi. What time do we need to be out of here/5pm from theater, no set time for rest.
xvii. What about the rest of the agenda?/ Logical sequence of thinking through this stuff indicates that goals and vision would include SWOT. Talking about SWOT Sunday doesn’t make sense. Swap out occ-topus and SWOT, because once we’ve identified goals, you go on to evaluate options for getting there, i.e. identifying Strengths Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
xviii. First need to identify SWOT, before doing anything.
xix. Start with SWOT. We have goals, we haven’t talked about objectives. Nebulous goals but need objectives, ex: Apolitical demands such as “radical equality” that may not be tangible. There are different types of goals to make: as an organization, as a movement, etc.
xx. Pre-session with NCBI? Laying groundwork for starting strategic planning weekend./Time frame got crunched. Differences in terms: affinity groups, affiliations, associations.
xxi. If we wanted to address the things around homelessness we would be building collations with other organizations around the state. Probably the same for other issue agendas.
xxii. Affinity groups definition... POP: back to proposal.
xxiii. Vibe check: possible to consense on the proposal? Re-synthesis of changes to be made to the proposal first: 5pm-7pm general mingling, discussion and talking-getting to know each other. SWOT discussion move to Saturday at 11am-12pm following language discussion, then 10 minute break, then start goals and visions discussion; break for lunch, return and have a speaker and then continue the goals/visions discussion.
POP: Barry brought an announcement form an affinity group: Ignition Party. Petition for medical use of marijuana-collecting signatures. Friday March 16. All day long, events and music getting wilder as it gets later. At the American Legion Hall. Event w/ soapbox for all. Flier left with OM GA. Republican and democratic conventions this summer will have a kitchen camp feeding for anyone with a warehouse. BTW: As someone familiar with Missoula houseless scene, portapotties, showers, place to store stuff is what homeless need!
Synthesis/Conclusion:
i. Passed: Working group will send out the revised agenda to the listserv.
b. Proposal: Endorse Helena coal action solidarity, 1 week in August.
Leading up to State land board meeting August in Helena. Asking OM GA to endorse and send an affinity group there. The University group is reaching out to as many groups as possible for inclusion. POI: Weeklong actions will be preceded by trainings in Powder River Basin.
Questions
i. When and where are the trainings? Directly before the August 13th
ii. What do you mean by direct action? Express that the rotunda has been controlled for too long by corporations and other powers.
iii. Who is seeking our support locally? / A collective has formed to organize this action. Many groups involved.
iv. Is it built on Paul Cienfuegos’ workshop? / No, not directly. This action incorporates some lessons from that but started before the workshop took place.
v. Is this a strategic land board meeting? /Agendas not listed, so coal issues may not be a part of the meeting. Will attend the public comment section. Public meeting planned for August 20 as of right now, could be changed if the land board hears about this action (and thinks it will be disruptive).
vi. “No Coal Northwest” group.
vii. Is there an Occupy Helena? / Yes. /Asked because Occupy is a taboo subject with street people there.
viii. When are the meetings?/ Does as conference calls because people are spread out, on Friday evenings at 6pm. Details from Nick.
ix. Proposal is in two parts; affinity group would have an ending point. What would you want OM to do?/ Have some people participate if OM endorses it, so those people would attend some meetings and determine how they would want to participate.
x. What are the written objectives? That the land board halt all new and existing coal mining on state land. Large mobilization needed or they will keep handing out leases to Arch Coal and the likes.
xi. How will mass action impact them? /Almost all members of land board are up for election this year, so without the action itself having to engage in politics, the board are already in a weak position./Not endorsing any party or candidate./ The threat is they may lose their seat, but you aren’t going to go after their seat, so they will determine that there is no threat.
xii. “Endorsement:” who is the larger coalition and what does endorsement mean?/There will be a link to Occupy Missoula and OM will be named on their website, saying OM is one of the groups supporting this action.
xiii. “Goals:” to get the land board to not sign any more leases. Single issue actions are something we will be looking at in our strategy session. How does it connect or help accomplish the broader goal? /We may not convince the land board, but it may help mobilize more mass movements in Montana.
xiv. Thanks for organizing this; coal export could be a uniting issue. MT history shows that large industry has trashed this state. Show that we are no longer looking the other way.
xv. Agree that if we are looking to put pressure on them it’s not that effective. Land board members are not elected directly, they are appointed elected officials. Come to the strategy session to plan it more.
xvi. Support the action to show Occupy is alive and well in Missoula.
xvii. After many visits to capital, have seen very good points made and they don’t even blink an eye. If you’re going to organize to get people there, we need to make sure it is going to have a real effect. How are you going to get leverage over there? People could get hurt and/or jailed, so just going to say you’ve been is not enough./ Strategy may not be a winning strategy but those on the board are up for re-election, so they won’t be happy to have a bunch of people show up during this. The idea is that whoever is elected to fill those seats, we will continue to show up if they continue to hand out leases.
xviii. Occupy movement in general has become so visible that every time we take a step against these issues it builds momentum and they are paying attention. Land board made a mistake before and people of Missoula showed they were angry.
xix. Best to make this decision after the strategy session.
xx. We need to appoint the land board.
xxi. Two parts, can we consense on the first part, and endorse the effort (that coal should stay in the ground)?
xxii. Paul Cienfuegos talk could contribute to this discussion and to the strategy session, can we have a rundown from that a the next working GA?/Will can synthesize the Cienfuegos meeting at a future GA. / Please put it out to the listserv too.
xxiii. Students have come to us a couple of times, giving our support is in keeping with what people are saying. We don’t know enough about the land board itself, but that is irrelevant. Comment that we should endorse the group at least.
xxiv. POI: The state land board is made of 5 officials who decide where to use money, e.g. for education, etc. Trying to tie people to specific issues won’t work because they won’t talk about an issue until it is the item on hand.
xxv. Approach brought so far not well developed or seemingly effective, GA member volunteered to help develop ideas.
xxvi. This discussion is good; share experience with actions. This is what we didn’t do in the past, was reach out and do coalition building. Tactics were similar, but this is important.
xxvii. We can endorse that they are willing to do it, and work on strategy.
xxviii. Empower them, everyone can work on it and learn from mistakes.
xxix. Call for consensus on general endorsement but not one to send out into public spheres until tactics and strategies have been discussed. /Disagree, just endorse them and send them on, we can work with them as they develop strategies./Concerns still exist; not every group that seeks endorsement has worked things out fully; just good visions doesn’t ensure positive ends. Endorsing without a really good plan leaves too many details open ended. GA participant will help to develop a more detailed plan to present to OM.
xxx. One blocking concern can stop the process?/Yes.
POP: 4:20pm, table this proposal? There is quite a lot of time before the action.
xxxi. Discuss this at the next Working GA? Make part of the next GA involve discussion of Coal Exports and Paul Cienfuegos workshop review. / Consensed
xxxii. Students are a part of OM, as well as member of their other group. Will also talk about that in the next GA.
Synthesis/Conclusion:
i. Tabled for further discussion
c. Proposal: Continue with the other parts of the Consensus group documents: Consensus Decision making (set aside other two documents, the OWS statements, for another day). Came up with two modifications to address concerns last week. “Active listening” was added, and revised language reads, “Peaceful decision making is based on respecting differences and cooperating with others. Revealing your truth is sufficient to inform others of your point of view.”
Questions:
i. Contextualize it please? What is the language to be replaced? /Replaces non-violent decision making and persuasion statement, which included the words power, force, and persuade.
ii. Boiled down further to say peaceful decision making is respectful and cooperative?
iii. Objecting to words like power of persuasion: we don’t have money to buy or coerce. Persuasion is all we have, so if we don’t believe in the power of the word, I think we’re lost. /I don’t believe in the power of the word, believe in action. Well planned, well executed action. We can stand on the soapbox and get no result. How do we listen to each? Listen and interact in a respectful way, allowing others to have different opinions.
iv. This language is not about how we communicate outside but within the GA. Language as it stands is important because it solidifies that we are giving opinion. /Clarification: this is for internal, GA decision making.
v. Table this or extend the time? /Some people are still on stack, so take another 5 minutes—Vibe check: yes.
vi. This is an own deeply held concern, but not a blocking concern. Ok to give the go-ahead for adopting this document.
vii. Remember, it's a living document, which can be changed!
viii. If we can sit back and consciously think about how we will address each, especially as new people come in, it is a step forward.
ix. “Revealing your truth is sufficient,” what does it mean?/There were concerns about words in terms of trying to express non-violent communications. Speak what is true to you in this moment, though it may be based on opinion or other information.
x. Add caveat that this is an open document and can be changed?/It will be printed as part of a packet, and will have a paragraph saying what it is, where it came from, that it is a living document. Restate: Add active listening and disciplined speaking, as well as the language stated earlier. Any concerns? No.
xi. Is this the last part of the document that needed revision?/The working group will do the wrap-up and get it printed out in the coming weeks.
Synthesis/Conclusion:
i. Passed
VI. Evaluation of Meeting
Very good/good facilitation/good work/living document, so it takes time and effort, haven’t lost hope in language, but we need to learn, expand peaceful boundaries so our individual strengths don’t seem useless/not a big supporter of the power company but when the lights were turned on that was a major improvement/things go slow, but we are always moving forward/a-ok/I’m learning/really liked when the facilitator helped us determine what pieces we are working on/some people are still doing too much of the talking and others could do more/good/favorite GA so far/New participant/look forward to continuing discussion about what was raised/good that we are looking at the nuts and bolts of where we are going/forming. storming, norming, performing/no comment/echo what’s been said, recognizing a general trend that GAs are improving and becoming less frustrating
VII. Adjournment 4:45 pm.
Post Meeting Discussion & Soapbox