Facilitation Team
- Moderators: Carey & Eslerh
- Stack: Tara
- Time keeper: Amanda
- Notes by Lainie
Consensus was reached to do proposals first.
Hand signal review
Proposals
Proposal #1 – Claire - Finance Working Group (FWG)
Working on FWG Policies and procedures
Section 6, Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
- CQ: about item 3 there seems to be a question about a loophole that will allow one person to stonewall the process and not allow an item to pass.
- A: General Assembly overrides decisions FWG have made
- FA: If the person that initially declines the request is not at the meeting, you call a special meeting to pass the request
- DR: If the person who has the concern isn’t there, the concern needs to be addressed
- DR: The person who has the concern can write down the concern so that concern can be addressed in absence
- DR: Can’t you call people?
- DR: You can’t make people answer their phone or show up
- FA: Any denials have to be written down, so the written concern is present at the next meeting
- Friendly Amendment Passed
- Item 3 Now reads: At least three members of the FWG must approve every reimbursement request. If one member of the FWG declines to approve a reimbursement, the reimbursement will not be issued until a quorum of five FWG members that includes the member who initially declined the request consents to issue the reimbursement. FA: The member who declines the request must put concerns in writing, so they can be addressed regardless of whether or not they are present at the next FWG meeting.
Donations, Items 1-9
- Maryann has LOTS of clarifying questions.
- 1 & 3 seem to contradict
- FA: #1 FWG is solely responsible for monetary donations (not for collecting them)
- DR – Cedric: We need to have FWG track the finances for the sake of transparency, so working groups don’t collect money without authorization.
- CQ: So workgroups can’t collect their own money?
- A: All WGs who collect money should give it to the general fund first
- CQ: If I raise money specifically for a cause, do I have to give that money to you?
- A: We need to record it. So we avoid a problem where you report 5 even though you took in 10.
- CQ: Does this mean FWG needs to be present at all fundraising events?
- A: We should
- Dave suggests we table the discussion, since the next section has a lot of repeat information.
- There are concerns about whether working groups can raise their own money
- Cedric: we need to make our books accurate, or FWG is liable for that money at tax time
- Concern: We’ll be doing a LOT of fund raising around SXSW – if only FWG people can collect the money, there will be a bottleneck
- DR: We need more people in finance
- DR: Even if we have 15 people in finance, we won’t have enough people to collect all of the money.
Temperature check: Donations, Fundraising & Development are both tabled.
Proposal #2: Caroline – End Corporate Personhood
Sample resolution they would like to introduce to City Council to overturn corporate personhood
Collaborating with Coffee Party, Move to Amend, and other groups.
CQ: have you been in touch with any council members about this?
A: Not yet, but they are ready to move forward. It’s time to be in solidarity with this.
CQ: Can you read it out loud
Temp check: Who wants to read out loud
Consensus to read out loud
Caroline reads the sample resolution out loud
CQ: Will the “can’s” become “Shall’s”?
A: The constitution has no can’s, it only has shall’s…so all can’s will be changed to shall’s
CQ: How long will this take
A: There are several other partner organizations and we are in solidarity with them
Temperature check: Are we ready to move to consensus?
Sparkles
No concerns
Near-unanimous consensus
Proposal #3: Maryann – Occupy Southby
Proposing budget for Occupy Southby
Promotion costs $352 (posters, marketing, etc)
Production costs $975 (permits, prizes, food, etc)
Total cost is $1327
Due to generous donations, tonight, the request is $707
CQ: Is it possible to wait until we get more donations?
A: We can give money back if we get donations, and some of these items will bring in money
CQ: There’s no water on the list of supplies
A: The $200 for food includes water, and there’s been talk of partnering with a vendor
CQ: With $620 of donations, what can we eliminate from the list?
A: The permit was donated by Million musicians march
Concern: Why are we paying the poster designer?
FA…question about the process: Can we go through item by item, or do we want to just approve the whole budget.
Wonder if we can only discuss the items that people have concerns about.
CQ: How are you doing sticker and t-shirt printing?
A: T-shirt printing is not in the price yet, stickers will be ordered online.
Person in the crowd is saying she might be able to make stickers for free and t-shirts for cheap
CQ: What kind of guitar were you trying to get
A: Specifically a Fender Tele
Braettie/Crumbelina has a guitar she wants to donate Yay!
CQ: have you tried getting food donations yet
A: that money is to supplement the donations that we already have, to guarantee that we have food at all times
Concern: If you are going to donate something – please come through
DR: We have rules in place for finance issues, let’s just get on with it and allow those rules to be in play
FA: Supply cost seems low – we might want to increase that
Friendly amendment passed
CQ: Are you going to get porta-potties?
A: We will have a map of toilets
Concern: You can’t get into the convention center without a badge
Concern: How are you going to keep your books
A: Receipts will be kept, and if any receipts are rejected…can’t hear
Random guy says stuff about porta potties being too expensive
FA: This money goes on a pre-paid debit card so we can track all expenses
Friendly Amendment Passed
FA: why not get two cards so you can send two people out
Friendly amendment withdrawn
Temp check: Do we want to come to consensus
Are there any more unheard concerns?
Concern: Basically can you tell us how you are going to spend this money?
A: We can go through line by line
FA: Remove the $100 for the graphic designer
FA: Let’s give her a poster, instead
Actual FA: Change the honorarium from $100 to a large thank you poster
Friendly amendment passed
FA: Can we auction off the original art and give her a portion of the proceeds
Friendly amendment denied
Concern: You are talking about all of these things you are selling, but you aren’t talking about where we are going to sell things. Where are we going to be?
Answer: We don’t have the space yet.
Concern: It’s not ok to sell stuff, legally. We need a vendor’s permit to sell stuff, we need a donation process or to give stuff away.
Concern: There’s a mixed message – are we trying to sell stuff, or are we trying to raise awareness
Answer: I think it’s some of both.
Point of information: There’s a way to accept donations as payments – and Maryann says that’s how we’re planning to do it.
Concern: If we consent to this part, pending profit off of the items we’re purchasing on another proposal we have not consented to yet, we’re not sure if we’ll make the money back.
FA: can we specify that we are not selling things, but we are accepting donations
Friendly amendment denied – not relevant
Do we consent to $607 for the occupy southby working group?
Consensus! Yay!
Announcements and Reportbacks
ADAPT having a major fundraiser on 4/21 & would like to invite occupy to join in. This is not a proposal, it’s an announcement. Would like to meet with people who are interested to develop a partnership. Contact Sarah @ findingtheramp@gmail.com
Duffy:
- O.A.T.S at Dominican Joes. #F29 will be a combination of occupy corporations and occupy your food. We’re screening The World According to Monsanto for free in multiple cities (lockhart, freds’bg, college station) Austin screening 2/29 3-6 at History Center on Guadalupe. We’re delivering cease and desist orders, signed by many people, in an attempt to evict Monsanto. There will be more events. To make good on the cease and desist orders, we will come back on m16 roughly to lockhart or college station and occupy Monsanto.
- Has petitions, we need to have them signed as homework. No slackers, we need activists
- We need people at the events. Let Duffy know if we can carpool to other cities to shore up numbers
- We need people to come to the movie so we have positive P.R. when we blockade.
- We need P.R.
Amanda:
- March 2nd day of action – rally at the capitol around 3 & then marching.
- Speaker from board of education.
- Endorsed by Education Austin, Texas Coalition of …all sorts of endorsements!
- Needs help flyering!
- CQ: Do you have flyers now
- A: In my car
Daniel: talking about NDAA from Occupy Little Rock. 2 occupiers have disappeared. He’s going to New Orleans to rescue his friends. Daniel Kimery. If he disappears we knew what happened to him.
Heather – National fundraising call:
- cedric signed up. Interocc has multiple national phone calls that we can be on.
- National Consensus process…google it.
- PoI – You might want to bring interocc to spokes
- A – have done it.
Dorie: Sign making workgroup on Sundays at 4 PM
Lainie:
- Kite festival
- Kite making on Sunday 11 AM-3 PM – Location TBA
- Occupy the Kite Festival ¾
Dave:
- Resolution to city council to ask to divest from bank of America
- Dave can help us reach out to local banks
- Bank Action meetings Tuesdays at 8 PM
- Mike, Joe & Brian are going to talk to some democrats about occupy
- Coordinate voter registration and voting workgroup – talk to Dave to form a team
- Wednesday dinner at UU church 5:45 Lainie, Maryann, Eslerh, Justin, and Chainey
Peaches:
- Long march home demanding a women’s shelter
- End homelessness meets across from Angel house 11:30 on Sundays
- PoI – the park is 7 blocks down the street and angel house is two blocks further
Eslerh:
- Wants to have a contest for the dirtiest area in Austin
- Post pictures on facebook event, choose a spot, and then clean it up
Maryann:
- Occupy Southby is doing lots of planning
- Meeting Wednesday night after GA at 9 for calendar ironing
- If you have bands or anything to suggest, meet up with them
Heather:
- If anyone wants to run for city council, March 3 is the last day to sign up
- There’s already an occupier who is running
Caroline:
- End Corporate Personhood needs help
- Join them at 2 PM on Sunday on the mezzanine
- Flyers & facebook page available
Brian:
- Moving the fairy kitchen again
- Needs help cooking and extra kitchens
- Needs cooking, donations, transportation
- Phone 512-662-9775
- foodoccupyaustin@gmail.com
- Bring bowls and utensils when you come to ga so you can eat
Phrog:
- Nathan & Phrog are working on the move/expansion
- No public place that they can find where we can be somewhere after 10 PM.
- We are going to have to file formal charges against marc ott
- Bring all ideas to Phrog and Nathan
- phrogandheather@gmail.com
Heather:
- If you have storage space, talk to Heather.
- Is there anyone who needs a place to stay & is there anyone who has space for people?
Tags: General Assembly, minutes, Occupy Austin
