Occupy San Luis Obispo, CA — OccupySLO

Occupy SLO General Assembly Minutes
March 31, 2012
Petra Café

1) Treasury
a) Money needed for the cost of the venue ($57) is covered by individual contributions by some Occupy SLO members.
b) Dana will talk to Barbara about funds to get more occucards.
2) Administrator capabilities on occupyslo.org
a) We are having issues with oversize files
b) Steven made contact with the former site administrator and is now able to perform the same administrative tasks.
c) Rascal volunteered to assist Steven with posting on the home page.
3) Phone “tree” System
a) Jim and Jeanne are going to be the primary contacts who will call everybody
4) Alternate GA location in the event of rain
a) It was decided that Petra’s (corner of Toro & Higuera) will be the location for General Assemblies and education sessions when there is rain
5) April 7th Event
a) We are organizing a major event celebrating the American Spring to be held at the Courthouse on Saturday, April 7th. The event will raise awareness regarding homelessness, foreclosures, recent attacks on women and the Label GMO campaign. People are encouraged to bring snacks. Festive event.
b) There will be a mini-Hooverville art installation and a women’s table with possible representation from the SARP Center, the Women’s Shelter and SLO Hollaback!
c) We will need tables, chairs, etc.
d) Maggie and Jesse are hosting a dinner at their home tonight (Sunday, 04/01/12) at 4:30 PM with other tenants to discuss the recent evictions by their rental agency.
6) Information from other Occupies / upcoming nation-wide events:
a) Don’t buy gas on April 15th (Sunday)
b) Occupy Earth Day – Monday April 23rd
i) Steven suggested community gardening or participating in a trash clean up while wearing Occupy SLO t-shirts
c) May 1st General Strike (Tuesday)
i) Everybody is encouraged to do research on this event and return to the April 7th General Assembly with ideas.
7) Consistent Event Locations
a) Maintain consistency. For example, Food not Bombs and education sessions have always been at the courthouse, let’s not change the location
Outreach
a) Continue trying to reach out to others to get more involvement
i) Steven discussed his experience of talking about Occupy SLO in front of a large group at Cuesta – many people are still interested, but are not aware that we still exist
ii) Dana talked about reaching out to local businesses and posting materials
iii) Jeanne talked about calling in to a radio show
9) Homeless Task Force
a) People who volunteered to be on the task force are encouraged to email the group with their ideas
b) Attend the upcoming City Council Meeting and use the public comment period to raise the issues of lack of 24 hour public bathrooms, a need for places where people can park/camp, etc.
c) Jim and Dana will work on designing a flyer with major points regarding homelessness.
d) Jeanne is interested in learning more about a day in the life of somebody who is homeless. She would like to follow a person for a day and write a narrative of the experience
e) Rascal suggested we all participate in a volunteer day to work with homeless people
f) Damion talked about a homeless resource booklet containing information like social services.
g) An abridged version of this was discussed to put on a card to hand out at Food not Bombs. It might be possible to receive funding to print these through other channels such as a non-profit or government agency.
10) Trade Circle
a) Rascal mentioned that sometime soon we would like to participate in a trade circle. People can bring things to trade or give away to others, involving no exchange of money
11) Nonviolence Training – April 9th 3 PM – 6 PM at the SLO Public Library
a) Jim, Steven and Eve covered the cost of the venue. Thank you!
b) We are waiting to hear from moveon.org as to whether they have matched a trainer to this event. Trina expressed that in the case that there is no match, then we would need to find a volunteer with good group facilitation skills. If no such person is available, then Trina will facilitate the training.
c) Projection – Mike O has been contacted to see if he has AV equipment that we can use. Steven offered to see if he can borrow equipment from Cuesta.
d) Trina reviewed training format and agenda. There will be a video presentation with breakout sessions. We will cover topics such as history of the 99%, our individual 99% stories, nonviolent direct actions, the economy and how to de-escalate tension. We will participate in activities such as role plays and planning out our American Spring direct action.
e) The training is free and everyone wishing to attend should sign up through this link: civic.moveon.org/event/events/event.html?event_id=128154
f) There will be a participant guide that Trina will send to all registered participants prior to the training which each person should print out.
12) Thursday April 5th, Farmer’s Market March Theme – Homelessness
13) New General Assembly Structure
a) Rascal proposed a new structure for general assemblies involving introductions when there are new people and time limits for speaking:
i) 5 minutes for the person who introduces the agenda item
ii) 1.5 minutes for all comments, unless the next person in stack concedes their time
iii) We will apply the new structure on a trial basis to next week’s meeting and decide if we want to continue that structure.