Meeting 7/28/121-Forum (dates, themes & organization, speakers)Dates
We discussed the possibility of changing the dates for the Forum and avoid having it the weekend before the elections. This can affect the tone of the discussions and can also coincide with activities held by groups or people that are not still part of Occupy or are but are also doing things for the campaign.
David will see if he can get the place for the 1st or 2nd week of November; if he can, we will have it then. The possibility of doing it in February again was proposed but then it was seen as too far in time. For those of you who couldn´t make it to the meeting, please let us know what you think about the dates.
Themes and organization of the 2 days
The goal of this 2nd forum will be to focus on the “how” -how to build the commons, how to create the commons, how to sustain. Ways of doing and sustainability.
We said to use the organizing scheme that we had:
legislating/instituting in common / the commons;
organizing;
protesting/reclaiming;
reproducing/sustaining;
learning/researching
and use the same fields/areas that we had in the former one
natural resources
food
arts and education
housing
labor
media and internet
alternative economies/banking
Gavin proposed to include also the theme of the “immaterial commons”
However, for this year, the aim would be to search, contact, and invite groups, co-ops, credit unions, organizations, that have been doing works as commons so as to share how they have done, and teach all of us how to create commons in different areas. Share tools, questions, problems… With this, we will be giving primacy to the HOW and to SUSTAINABILITY.
To have less groups than the other time, but an extended conversation. They will participate both days, so they need to be there all the time, not just when they present.
Following this, it was proposed to organize the 2 days like this:
1st day: Mapping/Identifying areas of the commons
-Brief intro of the 1st forum.
-Mapping the commons: identifying areas of the common.
This day was said to move as in a micro level where each group, organization, etc will introduce their work. We need to find a way of organizing this…maybe using the categories we have
2nd day:
Ways of doing: how to…..
This day, we will create more transversal connections among areas (legislating, sustaining) and discuss how to build nets and connections at different levels: neighborhood/municipal/international/ regional
Speakers
We discussed that it was better to start with the presentation by the groups-organizations, and to end the sessions with a speakers who could then act as a facilitator and can also take the discussion to a more theoretical level (to move from the concrete to the more abstract instead of doing the other way around, as it is usually done).
2-September 17-18-19 : One year celebration of OWS
Jim suggested that MW can have a conversation on the commons and postcapitalism in the free U – Madison Sq that will take place in Sept 18th (Jim, you can add more info here).
3-What we need to discuss, do, …
-create a spreadsheet where we can all suggest names for speakers, groups, organizations, co-ops, credit unions, etc.
-find point persons: each theme will have more than one point person
-start mapping groups that have been working on the commons (cooperatives, credit unions, internet, education, licensing).
-write an announcement and letter of invitation
-Jim proposed that each point-person take care of opening a doc writing a paragraph or more (a brief report) on what was discussed. We will post the reports on the web so as people who did not participate in the first forum can go with an idea of what was done, discussed, etc.
For the next meeting we need to find an indoor place that we can use if it rains (again!) — we all like the outdoors, but we said we needed to have an idea of places that are not loud. Rebecca suggested she would take care of this! (correct me Rebecca if Im wrong!!!).