GA Minutes from 1/19/12

[Occupy Richmond Media Team]

General Assembly
Location: 4500 Kensington Ave.
Thursday January 19th 2012 7:00PM

Facilitation Team:
Moderator: Jonathan / Claire
Temp Check: Harry
Stack: Zito
Scribe: Faith/Graham
Time Keep: Vaughn
Workgroup Announcements:
Action / Claire
- Would like to remind of a needed presence at the Virginia General
Assembly 11AM-3PM
- On the 23rd of January there will be a special Action meeting to
talk about taking a place. Meeting will be held at the Quaker House.
- Everyone is encouraged to attend Action meetings.
- Brandon is now also a point person for the Action workgroup along
with Claire.

Outreach / Bentley
- Occupy the Courts NDAA protest on the 20th of Jan. Isaac Ramsey to
preform . After the initial protest a candlelight vigil will be held,
walk over for a interactive panel discussion with ten speakers. There
will also be a soapbox portion.
- On Saturday there will also be a Media Workshop.
- Occupy the Corporations name has changed to ‘Shut Down The
Corporations’.
- On Sunday there will be a planning meeting for Valentine’s Week/end.

Media
- Developed a new way to submit events to the Media Workgroup.
- Website is events.occupy.va.org. Click on Create an event, this will
lead you to a form where all of the information needed by the Media
Workgroup can be obtained.
- Special Event: An event that has achieved consensus by General
Assembly. Will be uploaded to Facebook, and the website.
- Workgroup Event: Achieved consensus through a workgroup, will be
uploaded to Facebook, and the website.
- Unofficial Events: Has not achieved consensus; separate events.
These events will be uploaded to the Unofficial Google Calendar, but
not the website or Facebook.

Medical
- Needs people on Wednesday for a workgroup workshop meeting for
training dealing with protest related injuries. Location: TBA

Allan?
- Creating a Coalition & Network to distribute information on
resolutions that have passed and on ones being considered. A meeting
will be held next Wednesday for the Move to Amend Coalition Building
Group. Location: Quaker House. Time: 7:30PM.

Arts And Crafts / Laura
- Friday January 20th at noon there will be a planning meeting
discussing the creation of mini-paper-tents, that can be dropped at
different locals.


Informal Proposals:


1. Dominion Power March/ Protest due to Dominion Power sitting on a
fairly active fault line.
- Clarifying Question: What do we do when we get there?
-Pass out fliers, get out information, educate.
Clarifying Question: This will be a protest organized to distribute
information?
-Yes
Clarifying Question: Headquarters vs. Individual Plant?
-No date time or specific place picked out as of yet.
Point of Clarification: Create an Action group to gather info.
Point of Clarification: Look into contacting ‘Not on Our Fault
Line.”’
Temp Check: Warm
Person to Contact: Teddy


2. Assumption of Capability and Intelligence of the Scribe: That we
would allow the scribe to frame the language as they see fit.
Temp Check: Warm


3. To Create a Special Assembly to address de-escalation, the lack of
process, and the need of process to manage meeting disruption.
Point of Clarification: Josh is the person in charge of Special
Assemblies, which are to be about three hours in length with ½ of that
time being spent on soapbox and the other ½ being spent of scholarly/
or educational topics.
Outcome: Informal Proposal withdrawn, Point person for Special
Assemblies will be contacted instead.

4. To create the needed order in our assembly we should try and limit
side-talk as much as possible, if side-talk is absolutely needed it
should be carried out in a whisper so as not to be taken as a
distraction. Because the process is vital to the function of our
collective mind we should try and limit walking around because it
could be distracting to the collective mind in process. Talking to the
moderator should be done through the proper channels because it can be
perceived as sinister.
Temp Check: Extra Warm.
Point Person: Sur Williams


Formal Proposal:


1. To Immediately push the amendment to grant the competency of the
scribe, to frame the language as they feel is accurate.
- Vote Proposal does not pass/ is withdrawn.

2. Vote to verify meeting minutes at the following meeting.
- This is an informal proposal, bring it back next meeting.

3. All proposals enter informal proposal process before becoming
formal proposals unless deemed time sensitive to the group.
- Proposal is withdrawn, this is already the process.
5 Min Break.
4. Finance needs General Assembly to authorize $70 to be spent, to pay
the U-Hual bill with ORVA’s things in it.
- Amendment: A cheaper alternative should be attempted to be found by
next month. This is a one-time authorization. Amendment is Accepted.
Vote: Proposal is withdrawn; this month’s bill will be taken care of
by Claire as a form of repayment/gift.
Point of Clarification: Anyone who wants to get information about
things that are in storage get a hold of Jonathan Cunningham.

5. Seeking endorsement from GA to create workgroup whose sole
responsibility is to create events for fundraising. All funds will be
sent to Finance for the General Fund. Funds can be earmarked for
specific cases within the General Fund.
- Vote: Proposal Passes


General Announcements:
- Ghram passed around document pertaining to the threshing session.
This will be placed on the agenda for a later GA
- Chris G: Tomorrow at the Federal Courthouse there will be a NDAA
protest, candlelight vigil, and Human University Free Speech Panel
Discussion.
- Claire: Jeremy Hawthorne who participates in Copwatch has a felony
trial coming up on February 1st. He is accused of slashing police car
tires over Best Friends Day weekend. The only evidence brought against
him, is that he matches to description of a bearded man with tattoo’s
riding a bike. To show that this is not a unique look, there is a call
for a Beard Walk on the day of the trial. All people who loosely fit
that description please come to the trial to show your support, that
the above description fits lots of people in the area.
- Williams: On January 25th at 3:30PM the United States Transportation
Secretary will be visiting VCU to discuss the State of The Union
Address. There is space available for 25 people to participate. RSVP
due in by Saturday at 5:00PM. Contact William Carino.
- There is a CPR certification class coming up in February, if
interested contact Veronica.
- Chris G :In two weeks there will be a protest in front of the
senator’s office. Proposal will be made on Sunday.
- Chris G: January 24th starting at 9AM Equality Virginia is hosting a
full day of activities and workshops.
- Allan: Next Wednesday at the Quaker house there will be a Move to
Amend Coalition Building meeting. The Meeting starts at 7:30PM.
- Zito is having a Euro-Show tomorrow at 10PM at his place.
- Josh and Phillip are working on an Occupoll. The purpose of the
polls are to poll the public on what their opinions are to compare
that to the way representatives vote, this will demonstrate the way
corporate money is influencing the vote.
- Sur Williams took 2nd place in the city wide chess tournament today.
- There is a Green Festival coming up sometime soon, takes place at
the Byrd Theatre. $10 for all day.
- Josh Kadrich is working on satirical videos, if anyone is interested
get a hold of him.

Adjourned at loosely 10PM.