#Occupy Wall Street

Meeting Minutes 10/22/2012
Faciliation: Justin S-D and Sean McKeown
Minutes: Ingrid

6:30 Call to Assemble by JSD
Introduction to Facilitation team Sean & Justin
Explanation of Calendar & Agenda Building
New Events/Actions written on paper cal
Call for 1 Minute Action Report Backs from Stakeholders and or participants

6:45 Call to Assemble with ‘If you can hear the sound of my voice’
Call for Time Keeper, Minutes & Fac Team Help
Reminder to bring suggestions of Agenda Topics to Sean by 7 PM
Introduction to Action Report Backs
Action Reportbacks:

Hofstra: disappointing.

Occupy Trinity: “Some of the most courageous people I’ve known in my entire time of organizing on the right are the people sleeping in front of Trinity Church…We need to provide financial support for those people. I’d like to express my respect for their determination…please find a way to give them support.”

Golden Farm: “Workers are denied rights…paid below minimum wage for over 10 years. Formed union, won vote….99 pickets organized an action at Golden Farm with expired credit cards, pennies, slowed down commerce in the store for about 45 minutes. Really fun, we hope to expand the tactic.”

Occupy the Pipeline: “Last action was a solidarity action with all people fighting pieplines on October 15. They pre-emptively closed construction for the day in fear of us. Next event is a Goodbye Spectra party–they have to stop construction on November 2nd. Party on 28th, Sunday, there’s gonna be an action in collaboration with Environmental Solidarity.” Meetings Wednesday at 7:30pm, Brecht Forum.

Global Noise: “We had a day of action on October 13, part of global day called by Spain and France. We had a get-together at Columbus Circle, panel by Free University and then went on a casseroles. POI: “No Arrests!”

Occupy Goldman Sachs: “Inspired by the GS action we went to Blankfein’s house a week ago. We camped in an alcove jutting into Central Park. Highlight (in my mind at least) wrote up individual statements and then invited everyone to sign them into agreement. This proved really successful. Today was the first day the police cracked down and in my mind it was the tipping point…very unsure footing right now.”

Justin: “We use community agreements that were first developed in OWS Spokescouncil, Meghan’s going to read them…” (need to include link to this document right now I’m not on the internet and would prefer not to retype them…)

Justin: If this is anyone’s 1st time to an Occupy Meeting or it’s your first Movement Monday please feel free to introduce yourself one by one to the group. This isn’t to single you out but to welcome you.

Intros

Housekeeping announcement about lack of Accessibility for those in wheelchairs. Group will work with Disability Caucus on solution.

Sean: “So we’ve got what looks to be a fairly jam-packed agenda. We had some breakouts last week that we might happen again…Movement Building (this needs to have more focus, according to those from last week), Halloween organizing, and action after budget.

Guy whose name I missed: “I would like to discuss physical occupation for the group as a whole.”

Other guy whose name I don’t know wants open discussion on November 15th/TPP

Environmental Solidarity wants to give a brief presentation to the group on N17.

Black Friday: breakout would probably be better. Also, FYI, I’m doing orientation.

SunDrop Reminds group she’s doing orientation to people who come late to the meeting or have questions.
She has a sign on her chair by the door

Sean: We forgot that…ah.

Thanksgiving wants to meet with Black Friday group since they’re so close together.

4 breakouts and 2 group discussion

{Minutes: I am losing track of the meeting, lots of people are sidetalking.}

Jerry: “Often we’ve devoted 8 minutes to an agenda item and then we’ve opened it up to discussion, if people are up for it.”

TPP group: “This is one of these subjects that I wouldn’t have gone into a breakout group about unless we’d presented it.”

Lopi: “What is TPP?”

Susan: “Exactly!”

Physical Occpations:

“I’ll be less than 2 minutes. There’s been a tremendous impact on the physical occupation of lower Manahattan…I remember the days of civil rights, SDS…these kids are tough. One of these kids got badly beaten by the cops because his feet were just over the line of the line the cops set for where you can sleep and where the sidewalk is…when I speak out at Federal Hall I get really great feedback from people all over the world. I think that there should be some way, some finance could be allocated, and some way that there could be a consistent circulation of people….the impact in Wall Street itself would be enourmous if 30-40 people were coming in, circulating, speaking out on the steps of Federal Hall, it would be tremendous….”

Stan: “I think what you’re talking about, we, there’s, different people have set up different ones there, I just…to me it seems like you’re making an invitation, but uh, yeah, I think it’s a great idea.”

“A zillion trillion things….it comes to an issue of resources. If you really wanted to flip them out and send a message, yeah, having a $200 neon sign and legal, well, that would really be something…what they’re trying to do is hide an occupation, say ‘oh, it’s just a bunch of homeless people…’”

Josh: “I think that there’s a lot of problems…the problem with Trinity is complicated and the problem that Trinity has is the same one for why we all feel so busy…there’s an illusion of a scarcity of labor by these people who have all these projects, and yet there are all these people outside Trinity who are doing an important thing but also are bored, and want to know how to help, and how to organize….they’re communicating in a different way than we’re communicating…they’re not enfranchised by meetings. If we can figure out a way to communicate we could see a lot of these problems resolved….also, winter’s coming….as a way to allow them to make better decisions, we should help them with their goals.”

Justin: “POI, there are occupations not just at Trinity but also in Central Park and Union Square.”

Kerfuffle: Mark wants to know if he can livestream, there’s some uncertainty, needs further discussion.

“Allow me to understand, the reason that people can’t come up to these meetings because they’re occupying?”

“These people don’t have metrocards to magically fly up here….”

Stan: “The only thing I know I can offer to Trinity is a shower or a place to sleep, if anyone wants to offer that, I can start a list, come talk to me.”

Susan: “I just want to say as a member of Accounting that we have no resources, any of our remaining funds have been allocated to the bail fund. Those who are new and come here excpecting assistance need to know that they need to raise it themselves.”

TPP discussion:

Ken: “TPP stands for Transpacific Partnership. The Nation called it NAFTA on steroids…as an environmental solidarity group, we have that part of TPP covered, we do not have the job loss aspect covered. We need someone connected to the labor groups to interface with them…there’s 29 chapters in the partnership, only 3 are on trade, the rest are basically about the loss of trade….this will allow them to do anything they want, they can sue for things in a secret WTO court, they won’t even let Congress see it, they won’t let anyone see it because if they did they’d go nuts. We need someone working on banking reform stuff. They want to get rid of generic drugs, anyone working on healthcare…there are so many different issues connected to this. The discussion we need with this…the scope, frankly overwhelms me. I’ve been an activist since this hair was dark and this is the most overwhelming thing I’ve ever seen….these 600 corporations want to destroy everything. Despite trade justice working on this for a year, this is a new issue to a lot of people. Because it’s so complex we’re having a series of teach-ins…{Minutes missed a lot of the date and times announcements, hoping to get those after}…Nov. 15 topic is labor, putting together banking…{minutes: awesome, I just got a flyer with dates, will add later}”

Lopi: “So you guys are looking for health speakers and outreach?”

Ken: “Right now environmental solidarity and trade justice have been working on it and no one else. This affects so many people…”

Justin: Could you further articulate your needs for support?

Ken: “This is my 3rd meeting and the other two were all process so I kind of zoned out…{Minutes: LOLZ}…I don’t understand how something becomes and Occupy Wall Street “thing”, but I think this needs to be a part of every Occupy Wall St action.”

Name I missed: “Our first 2 teachins are going to be about different issues, we’d like endorsement from different working groups, collaboration, if people could tweet this, get the word out there….if anyone is interested in a potential action, the Panama agreement is coming up for ratification…”

Ethan: “We’ve reached the time limit on this, do we want to keep going on this?” Some downtwinkles.

Susan: “This is what really got me about this thing: lost future profits.

Lisa: This sounds like a perfect thing to start a spokescouncil around. You’ve got a big thing that needs to be covered by smaller groups. That might be a model that might be a good one for you to use.

CQ: DI just wanted to know if you knew about an action that Strike Debt is planning for November 15, you might want to talk to them about that?

Winter: People’s bailout is launching on November 15, Rolling Jubilee, totally unrelated action.

Ken: “So October 31 might be a good action for doing something around this…basically anything to raise the profile about this before the election is really critical.”

“Some people at Occupy are like, against countries, so this might sway them, but on the other hand, people who don’t identify might see this as the US giving away its sovereignty…if you say it in the right way you might be able to get more people behind us…I really think that sovereignty right now is our only defense against corporations…maybe someday we can get away from countries but right now the only thing that we have to defend ourselves from total enslavement by corporations is countries.”

Ken: Environmental Solidarity meets on Fridays, the first teach-in is on Friday, so it won’t be like a regular meeting.

Sean: Environmental Solidarity’s N17 action presentation.

“So we’re planning an eviction defense of earth, because we all love to eat dolphins and if we destroy the earth we’re not going to have any dolphins to eat…{some laughter} We’re trying to organize the energy from this summer and push it to a single goal. On N17 they’re going to be having a meeting at the UN to prepare for climate talks that are happening later in Qatar–not a good sign…our plan is to go to the UN Mission and then go to our favorite corporate targets. Would really love to invite the Occupy Wall Street community to this…we’d love to get a town square going, like to invite Free University…yeah, I’ve talked a lot…”

Facilitation uses Action report to transition to final discussion on shape of 2nd Part of Flexible Work Space: Break Outs.
Each person who wants to bottom line one of the discussions from the list is given time to explain/pitch:

Halloween: “Just a large event where Occupy can have a presence, also an outreach opportunity. Occupy Halloween: Nightmare on Wall St, night of the living debt, maybe the village Halloween parade…”

N5: “Plan to have a pre-emptive victory party for Wall St because no matter who’s elected, they win.” N6 want to do a Times Square Town Square speak-out type thing…N7 Democracy Day one …{Minutes: I missed a lot of this}”

Black Friday: “So I don’t know how many of you have been paying attention but a lot of Wal-Mart strikes and actions…looks like they’re going to be a strike on Black Friday. Since there’s not Wal-Mart in NY, we might do something in New Jersey, maybe a line slowdown….”

Josh: “would like to have a conversation about factionalism and better communication amongst the movement”

Nicole: “wanted to add something, I want to host a breakout…we have an offshoot group called Where’s Wall Street, trying to connect everyday issues to Wall St, working with Crown Heights Assembly to tie gentrification to Wall Street and the fare hike.”

Bottom Liners of break outs are asked to identify themselves & pick where they plan to meet in space.

Sean: Temp check on 1 hour for rest of flex work space with a check in at 45 mins
Temp all good

5 BREAK OUTS:
Black Friday (6-8 People),
Movement (6-8 People),
Where is Wall Street (5-6 People),
Elections (12-16 People)
& TPP (10-12 People).

Groups asked for full hour time, given.

Call for Round Backs from Discussion Groups

Jsd: Please keep your report to under 2 minutes with a focus on what your group’s needs, goals & suggestions for solidarity from rest of Occupy.

Election: So it seems like the most energy is around November 6 itself, since there will be 10-20K people in Times Square anyway, create a public-facing entry point so that people can feed into all the different projects…Occupy Town Square is feeling too maxed out to pull off something like an OTS so we’d like to design something that would bring people in…1 part open assembly, some other kind of cultural thing…the design of this assembly is what we’re trying to figure out. Next meeting Thursday, 7:30pm, 20 Jay St in DUMBO. Would need people with experience facilitating, interested in coming up with something creative…

Suggestion to talk to Occupy the Stage!

AM: We have to make a plan for a week of action for the fare hike before we have these public hearings, the first one is November 7, we need to draw attention to communities that have been affected by all of these communities that have been cut off.

WWS: “So Where’s Wall Street, it’s behind the fare hikes, behind austerity…they just launched a $20mil campaign called fixthedebt.org basically saying we have to fix the debt by giving tax breaks to corporations while cutting Medicare, Social Security…we will have a better idea of our needs next week.”

Black Friday: “This might be a good springboard…I thought that this would be a good way to build onto another action…our theme for Thxgiving and black Friday–theme “from wall st to wal-mart” so on thanksgiving we’re gonna feed people because that’s what you do, and we’re gonna connect all these issues, worker’s rights issues, indigenous issues…we have some pretty significant needs from the community: food, money, places to cook, people to help cook, a space to heat up food. We’re going to work reaching out to unions, places like that, we’re also gonna be working on our messaging….day 2 is Black Friday going from Wall St to Wal-Mart. Goal to affect Wal-Mart’s bottom line, educate consumers about the cost of shopping at someone like Wal-Mart. We’re gonna need hundreds of hundreds of people to do something like a line clog, pickets. Also maybe transportation because the nearest Wal-Mart is in NJ….if you know anyone working with OUR Wal-Mart or the group organizing against Wal-Mart. Meeting 4-6 Saturday, passing around a handout for signups.”

TPP/N17: “We had a very fruitful conversation…goals are to educate, teachins already announced…{minutes: paper being rustled and side conversations right next to me it’s hard to hear}….goals for the 17th is to build a kickass day of action with our brothers and sisters in Brazil, and Australia…this pertains to the TPP because these mofos, whethr you’re talking about the climate or trade, it’s corporations exerting their influence over the government. So we wanna gather at the UN and march to Bank of America Tower, you can do that for a lot of issues…support from community would be to attend this teach-in….”

“Not a totally set date plan, but something maybe for Oct 31 for the Panama trade agreement thing, if anyone is interested in that, talk to {what is this person’s name I missed it}”

Movement building: “So we went over several tools for building a movement…talking about a tool kind of akin to a Kickstarter, except for actions…like “I will commit to this action if such and such number commit to this action, we would need a team to do that…next we were talking about physical spaces and the need to bridge the knowledge gaps, so we were thinking printing up reportbacks from meetings like this and bringing it to the physical occupations, do it as a newsletter-type thing, internal memo, printing resources needed, and someone to coordinate this…another idea of this was to have the meeting in the Trinity Courtyard…also discussion of a strategy map, like an online strategy map, but I don’t really understand it, and keep in mind that a general strike will be happening on Nov 14 in the Serbian Peninsula and Greece that might be catching on.”

End of Discussion Group Round Backs.
Jsd: Call for Round Backs from other groups, projects or actions? If you need to announce an event this is the time to do it, but please express the goals, needs & requests as the discussion groups did.

Drew: Pea has been doing a phenomenal job working on the NYCGA website, we’d just like to invite everyone to utilize the calendar function on that, need people to use it, if anyone would be willing to help with documentation on this meeting, post minutes, post documentation of the physical calendar, talk to me.”

Stan: “1st: I have a project, there’s a project at this space on wWednesday 6:30-9, it’s called the Icarus Project, it’s a radical mental health project, if you feel a lot of burnout due to social justice movements….any sort of disorder, you’re free to come and talk about what’s going on inside yourself outside of this mvoement as a whole. Also a project with the Worker’s Defense League…the guy who works here, John Bloom, he wants to hire around 12 people to be advocates for people who have been fired from their jobs and want to get their benefits, you’d be trained to be legal advocates, can do it anywhere in the city or state once you’re trained.”

Ethan: “Arc38 and Occupy Farm: Weekend healing event…grand opening of free store, bring things for store, food, 426 Old Route 22 in Wassaic New York on Saturday the 27th into Sunday.”

Jerry: “Ongoing project called the rolling jubilee…jubilee is when debt is abolished. Trying to raise $50K to buy a million dollars of debt and abolish it. There will be a telethon and event at Le Poisson Rouge to raise money for this…There’s all kinds of ways to plug in. You can email rollingjubilee@gmail.com. @rollingjubille twitter account….”

“1pm Union Square Occupying subway, we’re leafletting information and

Ingrid is reporting back. Assembling documentation on how we organized #s17. This would include logistics, convergence organizing. If you were involved and would like to help come find Ingrid so we can put together this documentation.

AM: Tour of vacant properties in Harlem…2910 Adam Clayton Powell Blvd, 129th St, sponsored by Picture The Homeless and the Housing is a HUman Right campaign….call for week of action by Occupy NYC Transit…first hearing ia November 7pm, 5pm at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott, the second meeting will take place in Manhattan, Nov 13, {Minutes: I am missing a lot of this, I think these dates are also in a previous set of minutes…apparently also on mta.info

Something at 7pm at Housing Works Caf√©, I think it’s a workshop. 12-2 on Saturday, picket at Golden Farm. 6:30-8:30 91st and Amsterdam, Saigon Grill action, all information at 99pickets.com

Mark: “Popular Assembly! Wednesday 6-8. Also letters to the Northwest resisters, please just add even just 2 words to the notepads that are on the table over here.”

Feedback:

JSD: “Instead of subjecting the group to all of facilitation feedback, we’d like everyone to come talk to us individually right now while we clean up…