OWS Animal Issues Working Group

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Minutes

Argo Tea, Broadway between 22^nd and 23^rd, Manhattan

7:15PM-9:45PM

In Attendance:

Adam Weissman

Ruth Santana

Dan Kaplan

Alexis Brill

LOUD Coffee Grinder

No facilitator.

Notetaker: Adam

BFC Day 2:

Can we condense agenda to fit after Marisa Miller’s talk at Metropolitian Community Church?

Before condensing, the schedule looks like this (workshop order is flexible, though Vegan for Beginners should go first):

Day 2: Sunday, May 13, 2012 (unconfirmed)

Registration 9AM-10AM

Vegan for Beginners – 10AM-11AM
w/ Alexis Brill & Dr. Milton Mills

Can Meat Be Sustainable and Humane? 11AM- Noon

w/ Calla Wright and Zaac Chaves

Lunch Break – Noon-1PM

Animal Agriculture’s Impact on Land, Air, Water, and Climate 1-2PM
w/ Mike Hudak and Calla Wright

War Against Consumer Information on Factory Farmed and Fished Foods 2-3PM
w/ Rachel Meeropol and Adam Weissman

Artists Confront Industrial Animal Agriculture and the Use of Animals for Food 3-4PM
w/ Louie Gedo

Animal Agriculture, Animal Welfare, and the Law 4-5PM
w/ Adam Weissman

Climate Conscious Eating 5-6PM
w/ Noam Mohr and John Maher

Here’s a condensed version (Call Wright can’t make the 2-6 time slot):

Vegan for Beginners – 2-3PM
w/ Alexis Brill & Dr. Milton Mills

Can Meat Be Sustainable and Humane? 3PM- 3:30PM

w/ Zaac Chaves

Artists Confront Industrial Animal Agriculture and the Use of Animals for Food 3:30PM-4:00PM
w/ Louie Gedo

(Moderator, Ruth Santana)

Animal Agriculture’s Impact on Land, Air, Water, and Climate 4:00-5PM
w/ Mike Hudak, Noam Mohr and John Maher

(Moderator, Ken Gale)

Animal Food Industry and the Law 5:00PM-6PM
w/ Rachel Meeropol and Adam Weissman

Arguments for and against doing Day 2 on May 13^th:

FOR

• Can publicize next day event at Brooklyn Food Conference, keeping it fresh in people’s minds

• maintain credibility by not cancelling something we’ve aggressively promoted

• carryover audience from Vegucated screening

• Milton Mills and Mike Hudak, who are coming in from out of town, are expecting speaking opportunities on the 13^th

• Vegucated screening is having a free vegan reception, so we don’t need to provide food

• Get it done vs. dragging things out to a third day weeks later, which will create more work.

AGAINST

• with little time to go, we haven’t started promting location

• Mother’s Day

• if we don’t do it at Metropolitan CommunityChurch, we are competing with the Vegucated screening

• haven’t confirmed a venue within preferred parameters (near OWS or Brooklyn Tech)

• We will lose a number of speakers who can’t come on Mothers’ Day (vs. moving Day to do a later date when more speakers may be able to attend

Potential Options:

1. Scrap Day 2

2. Limit Day 2 to out of town speakers (probably at Metropolitan Community Church) and hold a day 3 for the rest

3. Do all speakers available on Day 2 and do all other speakers at another date

4. Keep looking for site and go ahead with full Day 2 as planned

5. Do condensed Day 2 at Metropolitan Community Church

6. Move Day 2 entirely to a later date, probably in June (can promote at Veggie Pride Parade on Sunday, May 27^th)

Day 3

• Alexis feels a limited Day 2 (only out of town speakers) with a fuller Day 3 gives us more time to promote and is willing to work on this. Dan agrees.

• Adam is concerned that Day 2 was intended as a direct followup to Brooklyn Food Conference, targeted at Brooklyn Food Conference attendees, and that by pushing back a few weeks, we lose that impetus and much of the reason for holding these workshops in the first place (reaching out to a non-animal rights audience interested in food justice issues).

  Adam suggests that if we do a Day 3, we need to clarify the goals and audience of it.

Outreach

Lots of events to flier. Dan and Alexis will be out of town. Dan also pointed out Brooklyn Food Book Fair this coming weekend as ideal outreach event.

Table @ BFC

Need banner w/ group name for table. Adam will contact graphic design volunteer to help. Dan will ask his work colleague. Adam’s friend at New School may be able to print. Ada may be willing to skip 1-2 workshop sessions to staff table. Alexis is also willing to help with tabling.

Literature

Dan feels we need more attractive literature with full schedule. Adam points out that literature is designed for space efficiency so we can print it in large volumes and full schedule is provided in link on flier. Dan will contact designer friend about brochure. Wants to distribute to veg restaurants, etc.

Recording

We should photograph, video, and audio record all talks. Most important is video, because we can pull the other two from video. Dan and Alex have Flip cameras. Global Justice for Animals and the Environment has two still cams with video, but both have problems – one doesn’t see to want to transfer content, and the other turns off when in use and things batteries are dead when they aren’t. Adam will email OWS livestreamers and ask them to stream events.

Author Signings at Table?

Should we do this? We only have half a table. Dan thinks this is hokey. Adam agrees, but thinks it might help authors sell books and draw people to table. Suggestion that we can play it by ear. Adam feels this won’t be feasible logistically – we need to plan it in advance or plan not to do it. Need signs for when authors sign. (Easel w/ author name, photo, book cover, one for each author displayed while they sign). Everyone agrees signings seem pointless, but people like them.We left without a hard decision on this, but leaning seemed to be against doing signings. Maybe we can do a bit of it in workshops themselves.