notes from yesterday's meeting!

[Cara]

Hello everyone! It was great meeting with everyone yesterday. I
wanted to post a recap of our discussion as well as some action items
that different people committed to taking on. If there is anything on
this list that no one has taken on yet please feel free to do it! Also
if I got anything wrong or am misrepresenting any group decisions
please let me know!

Our next meeting will be Monday, February 13th at 2:00 PM at a
location to be determined. Arielle has volunteered to facilitate.


FUNDING:

We should be aware of the terms and conditions of any funding we
receive.

-potential funding from the group previously known as ACORN (Courtney)
-cooperative loan funds (Ian)
-grant funding (Arielle and Colin)
-OMG (Ronny)
-Kickstarter

RESEARCH:

-Talk to existing work co-ops (Colors, Blue Stockings)--Colin, Leia,
Cara
-Look into health and safety, fire code and sanitation regulations
-cost (Courtney)
-licenses (liquor, etc.)
-local sources for products


SPACES:

-Ridgewood, Bushwick, Crown Heights, Fort Greene (Colin, Ian,
Courtney, Cara)


LEGAL:

-everyone! Let's all look for people who can come to our meetings and
help us with the legalities of creating a work co-op.

BUSINESS MODEL:

What do we want the ownership structure to look like? How do we
create an ownership structure that allows those of us mired in debt to
work without risking the business? If we are running a cafe with
seating for 25 and are open on a daily basis how many people do we
need/can we employ and at what rate of pay? We seem to be in
agreement that a portion of our profits should go into helping other
work co-ops get off the ground.

-LC3 vs. non-profits (Ian)

COMMUNITY AGREEMENTS/MISSION STATEMENT

-everyone! Let's figure out what our mission statement should say.
We seem to be in agreement that we want to create a cafe/bar that
would serve as an intentional space for revolutionary minds. What
agreements do we want people in this space to abide by?


Ok see ya'll next week!

Cara

[Leah Feder]

Hi everyone!

I've created a Wiki page on wiki.occupy.net and added the notes from
yesterday's meeting. This could be a great tool for collaboration,
where we can document and throw up ideas to build on our collective
work. Please add any and all content & ideas so we can make this
project happen!

http://wiki.occupy.net/wiki/Work_Co-op

See everyone next week!
Leah

[benre...@gmail.com]

Hi everyone,

I found a couple of good resources on how to start a worker's co-op. Here are the links:

http://www.usworker.coop/education

http://arizmendi.coop/resources

I also reached out to Brooke Lehman from OWS facilitation and Blue Stockings to see if she could meet with us and talk about what she has learned from her experience at Blue Stockings.

-Ben

[Courtney Burke]

Hey,
A quick correction--the Acorn group was the group of people who provided legal services to Acorn, not funding. I can't remember what they are called but will get back to you.