Resources

This is a long term discussion group that sprung from reading Strategizing For a Living Revolution by George Lakey. We meet every Friday at 6:30 pm at the World Community Center, 435 N. Skinker Blvd. We have cancelled meetings until after Occupy the Midwest. We will start up again on March 23. 

Pay Day Loan Action for May 1

In order to tie concrete change to actions we are proposing this idea, which we will vibe check at GA and on the Forum after OMW:

• pick one Pay Day Loan business that is a national chain and preferably financed by BOA to Occupy

• have Occupiers stand in line asking financing and business practices questions to essentially tie up their business for the day

• have Jobs with Justice (JWJ) and the Organization for Black Struggle (OBS) petitions available for people to sign:  1. to raise the minimum wage by $1.00   2.  to cap pay day loan interest at 36%

Bank of America Conference Call

• OWS is working in coalition with Matt Tiabbi (reporter from Rolling Stone) and many, many affinity groups to foreclose on BOA

• OWS is calling for actions on March 15 and April 15 to increase public awareness of BOA’s impending demise (see proposal passed by GA on 3-4-12 posted on occupySTL.org>News for details)

Abandoned Buildings

• can get a list for $1.00 of LRA properties from City Hall. These are abandoned and/or city owned property that can be purchased for the price of paying the back taxes, or sometimes the city will give this property away if there is aldermanic support to do so

• create community centers, gardens, coops, housing, etc. with this property

Media Working Group

We observed that many of our working groups do not seem to be operating at full capacity. In terms of long term strategy, planning for the spring and summer, it seemed like a good idea to start with the media working group.

• While Facebook and occupySTL.org are being manifested, gmails are being answered, the rest of the tasks of this wg seem to be languishing

• we put together some ideas (which are currently being vibe checked on the Forum>General Discussion) that we hope will help get us on track. We thought that it might be a good idea to divide this wg into 4 working groups.

Social Media

• Essentially, the social media would remain unchanged. A nominee would still need to go through GA consensus to be on it. Is there a process for removing someone? Anyone could be on any of the other media wg.

• responsible for:  Facebook, twitter, tumbler….

Organizational Media

Responsible for:

• occupySTL.org

• creating Facebook events (in conjunction with the working group responsible for the event)

• occupystlouis@gmail.com

Press

Responsible for:

• press contacts:  both maintaing a media list of press contacts and a list of Occupiers to speak to the press

• press releases for radio, tv, printed press

• media training

Livestreaming

Responsible for:

• Livestreaming

Originally, flyers had been the responsibility of the media working group. We think it might be better if the people responsible for putting on an event or action also be responsible for making the flyer.

Do we need GA approval before putting occupySTL.org on a flyer?

Maybe we could use an apprenticeship model for training new people as they join the media working groups. There is a model the Zapatistas use which could be helpful. It’s called sortition and is Greek Athenian model of participatory deomocracy:  http://youtu.be/KsnNpcJtwoo

Other

Would it be helpful to have a Concern (Circle) working group?

What is currently going on with the other Occupy St. Louis (OSTL) working groups?

We are working on a May 1 flyer to be distributed at the St. Patty’s Day parade.

Bob Levine, Bob the Button Man, can make 99% buttons. Mark will ask him to make a bunch.

Did You Know Flyer

The trifold flyer is ready for distribution when it gets GA approval. This is a “Did You Know” flyer that talks about Economic Inequality with OSTL contact information. Zach ultimately plans to taylor this flyer directly to the neighborhood(s) being targeted in the city and county.

Neighborhood Associations

We need an introductory flyer that includes info on GA’s, working groups, and future actions. This, along with the trifold flyer, will be handed out when teams go speak to Neighborhood Associations. We agreed to wait on setting up these speaking engagements until the second flyer is complete and we have more information about future events.

Concrete Long Term Strategy

We discussed Occupy the Midwest Regional Conference (OMW) and May 1. We agreed that long term build up for big events makes a more lasting impact with our message. It is also good to have fact sheets and information about future events/actions to distribute.

May 1 will be a global event and we need to begin strategizing for it now. Ideas that were brought up:

• a day without the 99%
• remembering, the history of May 1
• anti-corporation: An action at the Peabody Shareholder’s meeting is already being planned during the first week of May by MORE, SEIU, Wash U, Young Activists United, and the Greens. Peabody has a long track record of union busting, not paying taxes, record profits, and environmental destruction–flyers have already been made.
• connect May 1 to something concrete
• St. Patty’s Day-do May 1 outreach
• anyone who can’t participate in May 1 can step outside at a predetermined time and bang pots, or make some other type of noise and/or wear a button that says, “I”m part of the 99%”

We also want to strategize on ways to make concrete changes in our community, such as reclaiming foreclosed and occupying abandoned properties for the purpose of establishing resources, like a community center. We agreed that after identifying a building we would first need to speak to the neighborhood to see what their needs are. In order to facilitate this it would be good to identify block units and their captains. There already exists a Federation of Block Captains. A phone call system to alert neighbors of actions/events happening in their neighborhood will ultimately be developed.

Canvassing is already happening in the 14th ward, which is Annie’s ward, so it makes sense to continue to do outreach in this area. This is Carol Howard’s ward. She is a new alderperson. Cathy will bring a proposal to GA for this canvassing to be a part of OSTL outreach. Ultimately, as part of our efforts to effect concrete change, we want to help promote mutual aid between block units, develop alternative economic systems, such as bartering, and to promote the formation of more General Assemblies.

Other means of effecting concrete change are the petition drives that the Organization for Black Struggle (OBS) and Jobs with Justice (JWJ) have been spearheading. One petition is to raise the minimum pay in Missouri by $1. The other is to end the usurious interest rates on pay day loans. These petitions could also be a part of any outreach team’s efforts.

Newbies

We began a discussion about how to promote connections with new people who come to OSTL through outreach, OMW, and nice weather.

As GA’s have sometimes been fractious, and because this is often someone’s first contact with OSTL, how do we improve the GA process? And, do we need to strengthen our welcoming team and pamphlets? Perhaps, when the weather is nicer and GA’s are more plentiful, we can have a once a month newcomers meeting instead of GA.

Ideas discussed to make GA’s run smoother:

• Stronger facilitation–Cathy will talk to Colleen and set up more facilitator training.
• It can be hard for some people to respect the GA process. Experienced facilitation training should help newer facilitators be comfortable with the process.
• Possibly have newer facilitators co-facilitate their first few meetings with a more experienced facilitator
• It’s important that everyone’s voice is heard and therefore important that no one dominates the process. Progressive stacking is one way to alleviate this.
• Make it clear at GA what the expectations are.
• Consider going to a 10% block. That way, when there are large numbers of participants, it will take more people to block. This helps to maintain a balance so, for example, two people couldn’t block a proposal 100 people are in favor of.
• We need to emphasize being concise. Most of what we have to say can be said in1 1/2 minutes. Often, people end up repeating themselves.
• When doing vibe checks, remember that taking a straw poll can actually yield more information than twinkles alone.

We also discussed possible ways to ask someone to leave the movement if they repeatedly over a significant length of time show an unwillingness to be a respectful participant. Ultimately we thought this would be a good issue to bring toConcern Circle. Cathy is going to do Concern Circle Facilitation Training.

Other topics touched upon:

• Work groups that could form out of these discussions: Neighborhood Outreach, Alternative Economics, Art.
• McKee is buying up land and the rights to buy land on the North Side.
• We need to plan a year in advance for some artistic endeavors like big puppet and stilt walker parades. Floats.
• It would be good to have liaisons to affinity groups, like OBS and JWJ. We could call them “links.”