I forgot to provide an update on the Our School meetup. We met there
on Monday and someone at Info had given our scheduled slot to the GA
agenda planning group - moving us to the library. Unfortunately, the
library had very spotty (mostly down) wifi, as we had been warned
earlier, and was far away from the rest of the Occupy activity. This
defeated the purpose of us meeting at Our School: to meet and
collaborate with the Occupy and activist community, and to show people
and work on PortlandWiki (impossible without wifi). So that meeting
didn't work.
Also, I feel I should amend what I said about accessibility. On
Monday, when I tried to get in through the back entrance (the only
entrance with a ramp), it was locked. There was also no one around to
let people in wheelchairs in, or people who otherwise have difficulty
with stairs. In addition, the area we were moved to, the library room,
has some steps to get up to and no elevator, so is completely
inaccessible. So Our School and the Occupy HQ are for the most part
inaccessible... which is very unfortunate as Occupy's purpose is to
give voice and ability to the suppressed, and many who are physically
disabled want to help if given the chance. I'm convinced that these
problems could be fixed relatively easily without having to move to
another location.
All of the above are reasons why we won't be having our main meetups
at Our School in the future. We are considering if we can meet up at
the Portland Occupier offices, though: 105 N Killingsworth Street.
kotra
On Mar 19, 4:41 pm, Kotra D <
kotra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all, Dave and I checked out Our School and the Occupy "offices" at
> the St Francis of Assisi Church (1131 SE Oak) last week
> (
http://ourschoolportland.org/) and found it to be pretty good for
> meetings, especially for working with local activists. It's a very
> interesting space, unlike any I've seen; it's worth checking out even
> just to see what it's like.
>
> Accessibility seems mediocre but there... a ramp in the back, no steps
> absolutely necessary as far as I could tell. Bathrooms unknown... forgot
> to check them out.
>
> Unfortunately, our regular Wednesday meeting time of 7pm (or
> thereabouts) was not available, as the only wifi-reliable place there
> has the Occupy Radical Caucus meeting at that time. So, we bit the
> bullet and scheduled Monday evenings (7pm-8:45pm), since that was an old
> meeting time that seemed to work for people.
>
> Therefore: *This Monday* (today), we'll meet at the Our School offices
> at 7pm. No agenda has been suggested for today's meetup (perhaps you
> could work something up Dave?); we'll probably default to an ad-hoc work
> & chat session about PortlandWiki. If you have trouble finding the
> place, feel free to call me (kotra) at
503 206 1305.
>
> *Wednesday*: I suggest we either scrap this meeting (since we're doing