NYC General Assembly # Occupy Wall Street

OWS Working Group Coordinators Meeting 1/11/12  10-11 AM, 60 Wall St., NY, NY

Liberty Square is Accessible for the 1^st Time Since November 15, 2011 (Thank you NYCLU!)

REPORT-BACKS

Organization WG – Meeting Wed, Jan 11, 8 PM, 60 Wall St.

Group is compiling list of Projects, Working Groups working on projects and outside allies – to be made public, online and print.

Visions/Goals – Meeting 5:30 PM Wed., Jan 11, 60 Wall St.  – getting close to a ‘vision statement’

Movement building/Outreach – looking at a process for a convention in Philadelphia

Interoccupy calls are happening regularly

visiting different GAs in NYC area (visited Jersey City – meet Tues/Thurs), helping them craft community agreements

helping the Sunset Park MLK events (with flyer)

Education/Outreach

coordinating on March 1 student events

working on model for teach-ins (looking for locations, interested professors)

Housing

flavor changed in last 48 hours – residents taking more responsibility

Medical – goals changed in the last 24 hours J

Puppet Guild – going to Grant’s Tomb, Upper West Side, NYC for Monday, Jan 15 and to Occupy Congress in DC next week

The Solutions Clearinghouse – a new working group, meeting Sunday, 1/14/12 at 5 PM. 60 Wall S.

Direct Action – subgroup, RADA (Random Autonomous Direct Action) is planning activities against SOPA, efforts to get allies to defeat the internet-restricting bill; THIS BILL CAN BE DEFEATED!

Infohub – Meeting Thursday, 1/12/12, 6 PM, 60 Wall St.

ANY FLYERS NEEDED TO BE PRINTED, PLS SEND TO PRINT@NYCGA.NET

Also, want to plan parties – FUN –for folks who work hard on actions, to celebrate!

Occupy Fashion – A BIG Event planned for Sat., Jan 28 from 3-6 PM, with NYCLU – A Fashion Show to expose police abuses.  Judson Church haw donated space, models (of all body types) are volunteering their time.  OWS Puppets and other amazing graphics will fill the church, 50% of the proceeds go to OWS.  Need volunteers to help make this event work. Bill at Williambuster63@gmail.com to volunteer

Tech – Trainings for People’s News Wire offered; scheduled for every Monday (see NYCGA.net).  Close to public release.

looking to aggregate feeds from InterOccupy, tag them, release to public.  NEED ‘corps of curators’.

planning ‘Reuters-style’ news serverice – news.occupy.net.

bringing (hopefully) ‘Freeedom Tower’ back to Liberty Square for plugging in, charging, etc.

writing (with community’s assistance) web policies, like privacy and proper use policies for any lists collected, etc.

check out tech@nycga.net blog for more info

AGENDA – 3 Items Selected: Status of Liberty Sq., Parties, Consensus Process

Agenda #1 – Still some ambiguity about the ‘rules’ in the newly un-barricaded Liberty Square.

Teddy from Housing reported that food was initially allowed last night to be served in the park (Kitchen! rocks!),  but then when West Park Church volunteers  brought an early breakfast of coffee/tea, hot oatmeal and ramen noodles( THANK YOU), we were told to serve outside park, and people could eat inside.

CONSENSUS THAT WE MUST BE ‘REALLY GOOD NEIGHBORS, AND SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESSES

Agenda #2 – Parties and more fun needed after Days of Action

looking for venues (cheap or donated?) and mucis/DJs, etc. == dance parties at first.  Music Working Group supports.

Agenda #3  – Consensus process

lively discussion around Mark Read’s article about consensus vs. votingwhich is more democractic?

slaves to the process’ , need ‘education, not orientation,’ consensus means ‘not getting exactly what you want’ must acknowledge that we ‘break process all the time, but usually to accommodate Unreasonable people while we should be allowing voices who might not know the ‘process’ –- one idea: open one G.A. meeting to other forms of ‘consensus’ decisionmaking, e.g. Native American, African-American, etc.