Sunday 12:30 pm - Ad Hoc Group Working on Statement of Purpose

[George Lee]

Hi all,

Two people (I think Frank and one other person) approached a group of us in South Station working the other day on a statement of purpose and asked if we would post the next meeting date online. A third person Joey was with us and I misplaced his e-mail address. I joined the wiki but the main pages are protected, so I'm e-mailing these groups here. Feel free to post online or share on camp.

Our next meeting will be Sunday, October 23, at 12:30 pm at somebody's home in Mission Hill near the Roxbury Crossing T Stop. Please text or call me (maybe a couple times) at 617-276-5651 if you would like to come so I can give you more specifics. If you are coming, it should be because you are committed to thinking about a statement of purpose that reflects the experiences of oppressed groups who haven't had as much presence and power in Dewey Square.

Some more context:

Folks who are in a number of groups (although the groups may not necessarily be sending people as representatives or signing on as a group to the process) are coming together to create a draft statement of purpose for Occupy Boston. This was started with the understanding that on October 13, the General Assembly passed a proposal for different individuals and groups to draft statements of purposes that would be used to generate a single, collective, Occupy Boston-wide statement of purpose.

The groups we've reached out to include allies against racism, the alliance of community organizers/organizations, anti-oppression group, the people of color working group, the queer/trans caucus, the women's caucus, and youth organizers.

Over the SPP list, there was heated discussion about whether existing conversations were inclusive enough and whether various efforts and Occupy Boston as a whole should wait or figure out how to structure more diversity, inclusion, and input. Many people in the groups we've reached out to have a commitment to lifting up the experiences and stories of people and communities who are oppressed. This is an effort to proactively bring in perspectives that have been missing or less present in Dewey Square and conversations around statements.

Occupy Boston's consensus process, and the process outlined on October 13, means that as a whole Occupy Boston will be looking at any statement this group creates alongside other statements to craft a collective statement. A number of folks have said they've tried to make different processes inclusive, that they believe it's important to take initiative and not wait around, and/or that they are offering statements and drafts not as a final document but to help push the conversation forward. This group is not stopping any of the existing work going on about statements -- Lindsey's work with many people, the statements circulated with Socialist Alternative, SPP, Ideas, or any other work going on -- but taking initiative to address these issues ourselves.

Many people in the groups I've named have been open to the beautiful but challenging struggle to build bridges within the 99%, and work for change together both in society and among ourselves. The expectation is that people are in turn open to engaging with the statement this group creates.

Peace, community, justice,
- George

[Gregory Murphy]

Can someone please refer me to the text of the proposal referred to in this email?  Is the GA consent in the minutes for that night and is the proposal on the Wiki?

"This was started with the understanding that on October 13, the General Assembly passed a proposal for different individuals and groups to draft statements of purposes that would be used to generate a single, collective, Occupy Boston-wide statement of purpose."

Thanks,

Greg Murphy

[Daria Casinelli]

I was at the 10/13 meeting and at a subsequent meeting where folks read message proposals. I asked Noah why they weren't conforming to his process and he said his process was not binding.

On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 11:42 PM, George Lee <georgel...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Gregory Murphy]

Noah - I am confused by Daria's comment (see below). Can you please explain.? What did you mean by non-binding?

Is the explanation as simple as people are free to do what they want, regardless of passed proposals?

Thanks,

Greg



The Proposal is as follows:

Everyone who has written or is writing a statement of purpose post
the working draft on this billboard as well as upload it to the
Wikispaces website so that people can read and comment on them.

At regular intervals, the author(s) re-post their proposal to the
reflect the comments left online and on the billboard.

After the drafts have all been posted, depending on how many and
how different they are, I propose the groups of roughly four authors
or author groups meet to merge their proposals until we have one or
possibly two documents.

After more time to comment, the merged drafts should be brought
before the GA to be discussed and voted on.

[Terra Friedrichs]

As I watch this group be "nimble" in its process, I'm thrilled, because it seems that there's quite a bit of commonality with the members of the facilitation group.  But I'd also like to see this nimbleness to be consistently applied to and allowed by other groups, in particular the facilitation group, and the methods for getting proposals to GA.

In other words, if we can transfer that nimbleness into action by all groups, including facilitation, that would be great. 

"Open Nimbleness" as perhaps the next generation of the "Open Meeting Law", which activists fought hard to get into place, to avoid supposedly public governmental meetings being held offsite, inaccessible (except by prior arrangement) and announced without time for someone who doesn't have access to the information to attend. 

(http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=cagoterminal&L=3&L0=Home&L1=Government&L2=The+Open+Meeting+Law&sid=Cago&b=terminalcontent&f=government_oml_guidebook&csid=Cago)

Yet, there are flaws in the gains we've achieved. And those flaws are yet another way that "the establishment" takes advantage of "the public".  By slow rolling productive change.

The bottom line for me is that I prefer agility, tracking everything openly... over slowness. And I embrace online tech and in-person outreach to make real change possible and more inclusive in short amounts of time.  And I don't believe that openness is absent of agility and vice versa. 

Either way, I'd expect that such a meeting, from such a group, concerned with "process" would be announced say 48 hours in advance.  At least 24 hours.  And posted on the main calendar.

I don't want to stop this.  But I want to make a point, that you shouldn't try to stop others either, with "too many" conversations about "what is good enough" in terms of outreach...Ideally, for this one meeting, you'd go into every church and school and hand out thousands of flyers to make sure people knew about it this private meeting at someone's house to discuss ideas.  If we wait for ideally, we'd never get anything done. And then the establishment wins.  And that's my point.  We are evolving past current open meeting practice, by allowing public discussions online.  Which I love. 

But we might want to consider requiring all email groups having to do with process/vision to be public, and requiring all to have regular in-person meetings where online discussions are summarized.  And requiring all in person meetings to be posted 48 hours in advance at an online location, and an onsite location.

We need to be consistent.  But we also need to be agile.

Terra

-- 
Terra

*~*~*~*
Terra Friedrichs
978 808 7173 (cell)
978 266 2775 (desk)
978 266 2778 (home/messages)

[Monica Poole]

I'm not Noah, but I can confirm that yes, people get to propose what they want. The fact that we're trying to arrive at a public statement of our intentions one way doesn't mean that other people can't or shouldn't try other methods for creating statements and propose their results to GA. Do I think that single-author statements aren't the right way to go? Absolutely. But for the same reason as I believe in creating a process that collects the ideas of many people, I believe that statement-building is not the exclusive province of any person or group--including us!

Monica

Sent from my mobile

On Oct 23, 2011 9:43 AM, "Gregory Murphy" <gsjm...@gmail.com> wrote:

Noah - I am confused by Daria's comment (see below). Can you please explain.? What did you mean by non-binding?

Is the explanation as simple as people are free to do what they want, regardless of passed proposals?

Thanks,

Greg



The Proposal is as follows:

Everyone who has written or is writing a statement of purpose post
the working draft on this billboard as well as upload it to the
Wikispaces website so that people can read and comment on them.

At regular intervals, the author(s) re-post their proposal to the
reflect the comments left online and on the billboard.

After the drafts have all been posted, depending on how many and
how different they are, I propose the groups of roughly four authors
or author groups meet to merge their proposals until we have one or
possibly two documents.

After more time to comment, the merged drafts should be brought
before the GA to be discussed and voted on.

On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 6:22 AM, Daria Casinelli <da...@casinelli.org> wrote:
>

> I was at the 10...

[Greg]

Agreed - a proposal passed a few days ago asking all WGs to hold one publicized mtg per week, run using a consensus model of their choice

G. S. Murphy

[Daria Casinelli]

Terra, are you on Transparency? Will there be a SPP working group on the new thing?

[Terra Friedrichs]

I've been wrapped up in some personal things.  So I haven't been paying attention to the different meetings.  I'll ask SPP now.  When you say, "new thing", do you mean the new process proposal?  If so, I have forwarded some drafts. But will pay more attention as we move closer to vote.  Can you forward me, personally, the most up to date copies that you want people to consider?  I'll get them out to any and all groups you want to see/comment.

T

[Daria Casinelli]

Sorry  Terra, I meant the new website/wiki.

[Terra Friedrichs]

Transparency is just a regular meeting, right?  If so, then it's just a meeting, and as long as lots of people go, then I don't need to go.

SPP is a working group that contributes to results presented at Transparency...right?

Ideas is a working group that contributes to results presented at Transparency...yes?

Am I getting this?

T

[Daria Casinelli]

SPP has been a bit too transparent LOL. From what I gather, the first real-time meeting is going to take place tomorrow night. Still, most of this proposal has been presented real-time to GA, and there's a lively on line (!) chat going about it constantly.