Occupy Chapel Hill/Carrboro
General Assembly, Tuesday, January 3, 2012 (first GA of the New Year!)
Facilitator: Katya
Stack: Katya
Timekeeper: Brandon
Notetaker: Sonia
Greeter: Rob
AGENDA:
• Legislators’ vote Jan 4 in Raleigh to override Gov Perdue’s veto of repeal of the Racial Justice Act
January 10 Celebration:
• specifics on how we move forward
• Mayor K question (Is it ok for Mayor Mark K. to attend the Jan 10 event?)
• other guests
• update about the press release
• program for Jan 10
• vision for plans for future
• food at party
Other possible venues for fundraising (TABLED)
[Minutes of last GA not read]
WORKING GROUP REPORT-BACKS
Direct Action – will meet Wed, 6pm. Maria bottom lining nomadic Occupy
Education 0
Events 0
Facilitation 0
Finance – Steve P says we have $300
Legal – Legal observers’ training session, Sat 12-1:30 at Chapel of the Cross (next to Planetarium) Eli and Katya have organized (email Katya for more info)
Medical – Amanda, temp in abeyance
Media – Becca: there will be a teach-in to learn how to Ustream on Sat in Raleigh. Could do one here for folks who have phones with video capability
Music – 0
Nightwatch – about to be phased out
Outreach – Harry: Outreach WG had mtg just before GA with many good ideas. Harry will post details on listserv. Some possibilities discussed were connecting with:
Faith groups + community groups
Rogers-Eubank group opposed to landfill
Sierra Club
Audubon Soc
Reconnect with Perry at Justice United
Regular presence at Farmers Market
Really-Really Free Market, Speakers Bureau
We should have a regular print presence: Citizen Carrboro
ANNOUNCEMENTS were made early today:
Anne: there will be a foreclosure workshop, Sat Jan 21. 11- 1 at UUMC, the Methodist church across the street, in fellowship hall. Live broadcast with three law professors at Central and a dozen attorneys onsite at the church lead discussion…It will be interactive
Lucy: Jan. 11 Bus to Wash DC to protest continuation of Guantanamo, 2 scholarships available from WILPF
Occupy Greensboro reached out to OCH for Jan 17, Occupy Congress (they plan to have a bus, Becca is getting more details)
Harry: Teach-in on Poverty in NC, Sunday, Jan 8 at Campus Y, 1-2:30 p.m. by expert on subject, Gene Nichol
Maria: Really Really free market, this Sat afternoon; and Mysterious Rabbit Puppet Army on winter tour, Sat at 7 p.m., at iBooks
Bert: will bring truck, Thurs 3pm, to load the wood pallets!! Ron will help plus two others…all other offers to help welcome!
AGENDA: started, 6:30
Carol E: Legislature meets Wed afternoon, re Racial Justice Act that was enacted to determine whether racial bias has affected inmate’s case…This Repub. legislature repealed the act, Gov Perdue vetoed the repeal, so now she has to call legis back to vote on it with a bigger majority. [Oy vey!] Note: Fracking could also be slipped in there and voted on!! Be there!
Raleigh tomorrow 2pm.
Carpool leaves CH 12:45 from University Mall, parking near the K and W.
Contact Carol or Sonia. Carol has put out legis email addresses on listserv for people who can’t go—email your legislators ASAP, like tonight!
Mayor Kleinschmidt – invite or not to Jan 10 (specifically in response to his email to us saying he would like to attend, but that he doesn’t “want to be a distraction to our good work”)
Ron: we have been emphasizing our inclusivity
Maria: he said he doesn’t want to be a distraction, and he needs to be prepared to face the people he authorized to turn guns on.
Katya: if people start to heckling at our press conf re the assault that IS a disruption Maria: he has to be prepared to face questions
Geoff: it’s an open event
Diane: the plan is to have various people from Occupy speak
Bert: it would be rude to show any discourtesy considering how helpful the Town has been
Consensed to write back to Mayor K and say ‘yes, you can come’
(Side note: e-mails within the group have changed the outcome of this consensus and will be worked out at Thursdays GA)
Invites will be sent to any other people you know who should attend like prominent activists, other group leaders and activists, donors to OCH. We already have a good list already but the more people the better PLEASE SEND NAMES AND EMAIL ADDRESSES TO KATYA
JAN 10 CELEBARTION PROGRAM
3pm, cleanup of tent city
4:30 press conference
6pm GA
8pm party with music, by Jil
Ron: are we anticipating a total cleanup of the tents
Katya: we can discuss in ad hoc group after GA
Responses already from media to our press release sent Tues morning: WPTF-FM, WCHL-AM, Katelyn Ferral, N&O (she was detained at Yates Building: Katya asked whether she had received an apology from the Town, and Katelyn said she hadn’t)
Geoff: are we emailing to media outside our area, we are one of first encampments to leave camp voluntarily etc. Sonia working on a small national media list.
Katya: Has reached out to Pacifica about producing a story on Occupy Chapel Hill/Carrboro. They are doing a series on Occupy and theme of the next show is the Future of Occupy, to be broadcast Thurs, Jan 12, “Sprouts” is name of the show. People who want to participate pls contact Katya. Amanda has volunteered to work on this. Anyone with audio expertise also pls contact Katya or Amanda.
Ustream – we need someone to Ustream Jan 10!! (Becca at work) Stephanie has said she can.
How to make visioning plans concrete
Vote: is it ok to use OCH $ for food for Jan 10
Becca: lets take donations then supplement with our own $
Stephanie: we need to know how much we have first
Steve: we have $300
Geoff: this is a press conference—-let’s not have food
Steve: eating together is an important thing.
Ron: if you really want to have a party Becca has a great house/ it’s going to be cold
[additional notes from Katya:
Several people down-twinkled the idea of moving the party off-site.
Group seemed to be moving toward having a potluck. The post office will be open till 9 so we can have a refuge from the cold till then. Afterward could decide whether to stay on or move the party elsewhere, like Becca’s]
Andy: an indy filmmaker from Albuquerque breaks in – is going to start shooting if it’s OK, no one objects
VISIONING
It’s about our evolution.
What are we going to be doing next? More outreach needed with existing groups, which ones and who is bottomlining. Purpose: to bring in people – 5 min discussion
Bert: what is the presence going to be here on a daily basis? We had talked about still keeping a sign + a schedule of 2hrs per person.
Ann: compared our Occupy to a hydra: you cut off head and more heads come up. Website: make a section where the community could add comments and a J school student could synthesize and publish in Carrboro Citizen ? bottomliner ?
Steve: Outreach is a retail operation..face to face thing, building relationships with people, eating together with different groups is a great way to develop relationship
RoseMarie: A legislative Group needed where we visit offices and talk to our legislators. We make a statement even by simply being in their space; might work with Outreach. She has worked in a legislators office…says this is effective advocacy!
Geoff: we’re very white, very ‘college’ …what about the brown guy, what about the guy who can’t read
Diane: anyone know vets coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq? Ft Bragg is close by. A natural place to find potential Occupiers discontent from their experiences
Becca: fundraiser a great way to meet people + music concert, relaxed setting
Lila: this post office is ground that’s been gained. we need to redouble efforts to be present everywhere
Steve: asks for bottom liners
Lucy: African-American folks not active? How about Northside, the anti-landfill folks in the Rogers Road-Eubanks Community, HRC, and the Burmese community. The only reason they’re not joining us is no one has contacted them
Maria: wants some continuation of keeping two tents
People wearing Occupy t-shirts
Ann will bottom-line the visioning questions on the website and synthesize, Becca will take care of getting it on the website.
Steve: will do music concert fundraiser
Geoff: will do HRC connection with Heather
Diane: will try to connect with Vet groups and find another person to bottom-line.
OTHER POINTS:
Katya asks:
What is it that will make people come out to our mtgs/events? What brought YOU out?
How do other Occupies sustain themselves/ their numbers
How can we become the movement for political and economic justice that we strive for?
Geoff: You must envision what you will look like when you succeed.. What is our reason for being? We have no mission statement. It’s time to talk about the why first rather than the how
Maria: Occupy was/is a way to address social and economic justice in innovative ways that are not being used by other groups [Sonia didn’t catch, this is from Katya’s notes. Hope it’s accurate]
Geoff: you got it right there
What brought me?:
Becca: watching OWS Ustream live brought me in, not chopped up by the media and misrepresented
Steve: I was ready to fall over when Occupy came to be. I assume there’s others out there who are ‘wobbly’ and ready to join in like me
Brian: we were excited about sharing space with people who may not nec agree with us but shared our goals. The sense of possibility before. We’ve been able to deliver that.
I’ve seen a lot of people There was a translation group who eventually felt marginalized. Lot of my friends were here, their energy has disappeared from here. There’s a bureaucratic discourse that says if people sound like us, they can be part of us; others who don’t sound like part of us are marginalized. By the way, you’re inviting Mayor K who pointed guns at us???!?
Diane: camp has taken lots of bourgeois people like me who has been brought out here and faced situation where we don’t have our comforts. My heart is breaking because we’re breaking camp.
Katya: in the path we’re going, what are we losing?, who are the people who didn’t follow us?, who was neglected? Recently, Berto came with Judith Blau (from HRC) asking if there was a translator, I said no, but I said I would be sure to speak more slowly. But that wasn’t helpful enough.
Brian: there are specific people who we know, who are gone, we can ask them why they left—it’s the best way to find out what we need to do to get more people
Temperature check on whether to stop GA now . Yes, let’s close mtg now
Other discussion questions tabled till Thursday:
How do other Occupies sustain themselves/ their numbers
How can we become the movement for political and economic justice that we strive for?
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