There is an assembly at St Paul’s Cathedral this Saturday at 5pm.
This event is NOT an Occupy London General Assembly and any claims made to the opposite are incorrect.
Occupy London is continuing its series of General Assemblies entitled “Creating Alternatives” this weekend.
The upcoming Occupy London General Assemblies this week are as follows. We hope to see you there.
At 1am this morning, 14th June 2012, over a dozen police vans raced down City Road, towards Finsbury Square. Accompanied by two or three coaches of bailiffs in orange jackets. They quickly formed a line round the site and dragged thoose asleep out of their tents. Some being aware of the police coming climbed into the barricade built over three of the wooden pallet houses, with one masked protester at the top of a tree in the square.
Soon enough people walked out favoring a non violent exit, after many hours the human figure in the tree climbed down. The bailiffs set up two lines of metal fencing around the pavement surrounding the area. Most stayed on the pavement watching the place be destroyed, then some to a grotty homeless shelter the council had liaised with, and some to a new site in Shoreditch Park.
However at 5am there were still about 6 people on the pavement outside, unwilling to leave their home with no appropiate alternative. The place is now being cleared and is caged up. Thanks to all those who support Occupy, and Finsbury Square. We tried to make a difference, at least we tried. If you can please come to Shoreditch Park, any and all donations welcome.
Event: Occupy London General Assembly Date: Friday, 25th May 2012 Location: Steps of St Paul’s Cathedral. Weather: Very warm with a clear sky. Crescent moon. Facilitator: Jonni Minutes: John Start: 7.05pm Facilitator: [hand signals] Announcement: Finsbury Square were in court. … Continue reading
Event: Occupy May General Assembly Location: The Royal Exchange, London Date: 12 May 2012 Facilitator: Sam Minutes: John Weather: Beautiful warm sunshine. Starts: 16:45 [following approximately one hour of speakers] Facilitator: So it looks like this is a general assembly. … Continue reading
Steps of St Pauls – 7:00pm Weather – Unseasonably bitter and cold
Facilitation – Liz / Vica Note taker – Jack
Proposals for consensus / discussion
1. Proposal for May Funding. – PASSED WITH AMMENDMENT
2. Request for travel expenses. – BLOCKED
3. Proposal to clarify objections, amendments, blocks. – DISCUSSED
4. Proposal for post-ratification of GAs. – DISCUSSED
5. Proposal to not hold an Occupy London GA on 12th May. – PASSED WITH AMMENDMENT
Copies of the Safer Spaces Policy were handed out at the start of the assembly. The facilitation team explained that the assembly was going to abide by the policy. Should anyone breach the SSP, they would first be given a warning by the facilitation team (any attendee of the assembly can notify the facilitation team of SSP breaches). If the same individual breached SSP again, they would be asked to leave the assembly. If they refuse to physically leave, they are to take no further part in the decision making at that assembly. The assembly agreed to operate under this practice.
Proposal 1. Proposal for May Funding.
Request for funding for Occupy May 12th & 15th actions (submitted by Vica)
Breakdown
Posters: 150
Flyers and map for the day: £400
Stickers for targets: 150
Caution Occupy tape: 150
Total: £850
Clarification / Objections
Tom – How much tape will you be able to afford? Can I use some of it for actions?
Response – Lots of it! Of course you can use some.
Tim – How many maps to be produced? Why A3 and full colour?
Response – Exact Numbers not known, but at least a few hundred. Corpwatch gave us so much great information we felt we had to publicise it.
[discussion about formatting and design issues. Mention of ecological impact of document printing]
[Discussion surrounding an additional funding of £100 for use in more helium filled tents. Assembly agreed to test for consensus on initial amount then discuss the additional spending.]
TEST FOR CONSENSUS – CONSENSUS achieved – No Stand-asides.
£850 granted to Occupy May WG.
[discussion surrounding additional £100.]
TEST FOR CONSENSUS – CONSENSUS achieved – No Stand-asides.
£100 additional funding granted to Occupy May WG.
Proposal 2 - Request for travel expenses
Finance request – £216 travel expenses
Amount is to cover outstanding amount from £380 which was the cost of travelling to Edinburgh for outreach and joining post play panel discussion at Traverse Theatre after the play Demos partly about Occupy London (minutes from december meeting) Saskia John and Phil all went, John as co author, Saskia as panellist and Phil with suitcase full of OT’s to give away. I would have liked to submit a proposal beforehand but unfortunately by the time we found out about it and were confirmed free performance tickets there was less than a week before the event. Also there was no apparent process for finance at the time. Due to the short timing involoved we were unable to purchase advance tickets. Saskia paid for the tickets and the play writer offered some money to John to cover his expenses. John has kindly used his entire contribution to help to cover the outstanding amount. I do have tickets and can print out e receipt as proof of purchase. We felt this was an important outreach opportunity and felt our time in Scotland was well spent. For the record this is the first expenses I have ever applied for, having covered all my own costs to date including travel to Sheffield conference.
Clarification / Objections
Pete / Mel – This request seems a little out of nowhere. This trip wasn’t discussed a GA. It seems a fait accompli. It’s a bit too much with our current funds and there seems to be an assumption of reimbursement.
Tom – This is an egregious request.
Tiff – It was a personal choice to attend, no-one was asked to go by Occupy London.
Tim – Find this request uncomfortable. The Traverse Theatre should have paid.
TEST FOR CONSENSUS – Proposal BLOCKED – 2 People Block.
Proposal 3 – Proposal to clarify objections, amendments, blocks – Presented for discussion
Proposal to clarify what an objection an amendment or a block are when used in consensus
There is a need to distinguish between an objection which is specific to the proposal being made (and is subject to a consensus that can be modified from 100% to any lesser proportion eg 80/20%) and a block which is in effect a veto. A block should properly be used maybe only once in the time you are in a group if a proposal is made that is in conflict with the core statements of the group such that it would cause you to feel that you would have to leave the group if the proposal was accepted. These core statements would be publicly available ones – in our case the initial statement and those made by the WGs and also the SSP statements.(not some subjective view of what the group is)
When disagreements remain at the level of objections difficult situations can be managed by deciding on different levels of consensus. Blocks like vetos make a democratic situation undemocratic (like the UN)
Amendments should only be allowed if the change is quite small eg only one element in a proposal changed or only a change of 10-20% in financial request. This is a matter of judgement but the way amendments should be treated should err on the side of caution. If anybody expresses any doubt at all (ie one person should be sufficient for this to happen) then it should be re-proposed to give people the chance to re-assess the proposal.
DISCUSSION POINTS
There is no mention of a minimum size for an assembly, this would seem related to me. Should we discuss Quorums?
Blocks are not secure from agitators, destructive mindsets and Aps
Blocks are an important part of decision making. They should be considered the start of the next stage in the “life” of a proposal.
We should have more facilitation workshops to help people become more familiar with Process.
If more people don’t like the proposal, it’s not carried.
[postive discussion follows, group seems keen on the proposals points]
TEMPERATURE CHECK – To continue discussing and working on this proposal with Tim to return to a GA at a later stage. – VERY WARMLY RECEIVED
Proposal 4 – Proposal for post-ratification of GAs – Presented for discussion
GA decisions in meetings to be ratified the following week.
“All decisions and payments etc must be ratified by a GA a week later following the original proposal before decisions or payments can be acted upon. (excepting in situations of emergency such as evictions, imminent police action etc )”.
This would allow for the the process in the GA to be examined calmly to see if the procedure was correct via video and written minutes.
Statements can be looked at to see if they have basis in fact (obviously there is room for differences I am referring here to gross inaccuracies) This would encourage people to make more responsible statements as they would know they would be subject to scrutiny.
There would be more time to gauge if a block was correctly made and if the meeting took place within the SSP guidelines. Amendments could be examined to see if it did not distort or exceed the proposal beyond it original intention.
New minutes could then be submitted, if necessary with suitable addenda. These would be collated by the facilitators to the meeting on the basis of objections made (all objections to be made publicly available before the GA ratifying the minutes).
These would then be submitted to the GA,with a different facilitator(s) which then would form the basis of the ratification so payments and decisions could be carried out.
(This may only be considered necessary for GAs concerning finance.)
DISCUSSION POINTS
Speed up the ratification time-line. A week is too long to wait.
Could be useful for binary choice decisions, but less so for consensus on lengthy statements.
Consensus isn’t the only game in town
A smaller commission / council could be better suited for this ratification rather than a full GA.
Standard practice in organisational meetings to ratify the previous meetings minutes. There should be a deadline like this involved anyway.
Should the GA be making any decisions at all?
TEMPERATURE CHECK – To continue discussing and working on this proposal with Tim to return to a GA at a later stage. – MODERATELY WARMLY RECEIVED
Proposal 5 – Occupy London General Assembly to not take place on Sat 12th May.
[ Discussion about merits of proposal, it's necessity so as not to coincide with M12 events. Some discussion about overall suitability of Saturday 2pm assemblies. Some discussion about trickiness of not communicating and someone turning up to put on quasi autonomous GA. ]
Proposal amended to read -
The Occupy London General Assembly will take place on Saturday 12th May. However it will be themed around the M12 events and will only perform the function of providing discussion space. No proposals for consensus will be scheduled into this Assembly (They can instead be scheduled into Friday 11th May GA or the next weekend)
TEST FOR CONSENSUS – CONSENSUS achieved – No Stand-asides.
Event: General Assembly Date: Friday 27 April 2012 Facilitator: Mel Minutes: John Location: Goldman Sachs, Fleet St. Weather: Dry despite forecast for heavy rain. Starts: 6.35 ["Fun and Games" DA training exercises] [Talk with questions and answers about Goldman Sachs. Insert … Continue reading
Saturday 14 April 2012 – Process Development Meeting
Facilitator – Ben
Minute taker – Sara
Livestream – Obi
[Papers handed out which will be discussed throughout the meeting]
Ben – we have a proposed agenda of 3 parts. Part 1 – proposing stories. Part 2 – network of trust. Part 3 – common understanding on how we collect proposals for GAs and how this happens. I have copies of this if anyone wants one.
[Papers distributed]
Julie – I have a clarification point: are you saying that with the circles of trust and proposed stories that this group needs to get consensus or is it a GA?
Ben – this is a process development meeting and we only have authority to come to agreements in this meeting.
John – they are story proposals. What we are proposing is a narrative. There are 2 stories: network of trust and proposing stories. What we are proposing is that these stories work as stories. We are trying to make good stories.
Julie – right, ok so they are not to go to a GA?
John – they may go to a GA
Julie – so its just for the purpose of the process development meeting. I have another proposal for the process development meeting. The RDWG has a proposal for Saturday. How do we get that to the Saturday GA?
Ben – this meeting is not for that. There is a Wednesday meeting to collect proposals for a GA. Then there is a GA panning meeting before each GA.
Julie – so, if we send the proposal on Tuesday, it will be considered on Wednesday and we can join in on the Skype meeting?
Ben – yes. Let’s clarify, this meeting’s agenda is dealing with the 3 points.
John – I emailed you this Julie. Check it when you get home. This meeting is about fashioning stories i.e. writing process. [John reminded people to look at the stories which have been sent out via email]
Natasha – what is the difference between a story and the way of doing things?
John – nothing
[Ben checks everyone understands the agenda – all agree they do]
[Ben then went through process]
[Ben suggests a time limit, and a finish time of 6pm which was put to the group. The group agreed 20 minutes for each item and a 5 minutes break at 5pm]
AGENDA ITEM 1 Proposals – Proposing Stories
Ben – is everyone familiar with this proposal?
Natasha – no
Ben – people who are unsure can watch and listen or interact. Perhaps we should take clarifications for people who do not understand. This is to help people understand what the proposal is. It is not a discussion about its merits.
Phil – the first example on the second page where it says ‘a more desirable outcome…’, I see you have described the background, but I am unclear whether you are defining your outcome and designing some tests, or is your outcome a series of tests? It would make sense to define the outcome and have a set of tests. Ok, it sounds like a grammatical thing.
[New people turn up, Ben reiterates the agenda and timings, and that we are currently taking clarifications only so that we are all clear about it]
Harj – thank you for including us, even though we arrived late!
Ben – do we want to include the grammar to make it clearer?
Phil – what about ‘alongside a series of tests’
Phil – wait, ‘with a series of tests’
Ben – what do people think to ‘with a series of tests’?
[Agreed]
Jack – would it be worth coming up with a series of tests as to why there are objections?
Ben – does that not come in in the second line? You are already making a statement?
Jack – should that be written in too though?
Phil – you could then insert ‘it is tested to be objectionable’ I could see that being part of the first line though.
[agreed]
Julie – the very last line for method 2: I don’t know if that concurs with my understanding. Some proposals we try out and adopt i.e. SoA.
John – a dozen of people have contributed to this over several months. The thing about these proposals is that they are social – they are story proposals, not action or statement proposals. They are one off, the stories one isn’t. They are different kinds of proposals. This section is a bit of an essay. With regards to a story proposal, its not a belief or an action, its something people can follow or commit to i.e. group commits to a story. An action proposals would be let’s propose to buy chips. Is it a good thing to do? You may agree to do that activity. The proposing stories is committing to a story. When a proposal is tried out, it is just a suggestion, it’s about trying it out.
Julie – so it sounds like you are saying we should delete method 2? Maybe the story proposal needs to be clarified that it is a suggestion.
John – I will add story proposal to the text to make it clear.
[Ben checks whether everyone is happy to be recorded – group agreed]
Natasha – I still don’t understand, can you give an occupy example?
John – GA is a story. We go through a series of stories: proposals, testing for consensus, breakout groups etc. Oh, and the need to assemble. We could use human mike etc. There are a bunch of activities there which we can decide on.
Natasha – I don’t understand. I am a playwright, I create stories
John – its the same thing. You write a script and get a bunch of authors, tickets and chairs. You go through different drafts to get it right
Natasha – who is authoring the story?
John – that’s the whole point of the background bit. We are all authors [John reads the passage about the Poors.] We are breaking everything up into a collection of stories to test what works.
Jack – 2 points, it would be written by people. Also, people often conflate fiction with story. A fiction is separate. This has helped me understand it
Natasha – what’s the difference between what we are doing now?
Jack – we haven’t proposed a way to do this in a way we commonly understand. We are going back to basics
Julie – the GA and who is authoring it example, is helpful. We have a common practice of understanding where we agree how to operate Gas -having that clarity as to how you participate. Democracy hinges on clarity. It is like that. Its that clarity and that script which is important. Its a script which everyone can adhere to
Rosa – so to trial and error the story proposals, you don’t have to come to the GA to reach consensus? What’s the process? Do you have to go to GA to get consensus?
John – with respect to the GA we talked about how the GA got changed – do we take a new way of doing things to the GA? We asked around. In Spain, they just try out new ways of doing things. As soon as we decided to try a new process in December, things fell apart. Ever since then we have never done the GA in a new way. Its ok, but not very satisfactory. There is really still a question about how the GAs work. The experience in Spain is that the process group just tries new ways, which people go along with,otherwise you are stuck in an infinite loop. The easiest thing to do is just say that we are trying out new ways.
Jack – this is where the importance of recoding things comes into it. When the GAs fell apart we didn’t adequately record things. It coincided with the breakdown in analysis. We were left in a place where we weren’t analysing things adequately.
John – how GAs work is on wiki. What we are trying to do is work through those activities, which were pre-eviction, and refashion those stories.
[Ben explains what the flowchart sheets he handed out mean]
Ben – we have made a few changes to the language on the proposed stories sheet. The proposals could just end before method 2 starts. Are we in a position where we can test for consensus on this? This is position zero as to how we make proposals.
John – first lets test whether we think this could work? We are not agreeing to do this, just whether this is a good way – a common way to fashion the ‘rules’ of the game.
Natasha – I want to know what the rules are?
John – the rules of the game are in the text.
Natasha – is it rules to help create the rules?
Ben – if we want to cross a field, there are many different pathways. Some of us create a pathway and then we see how many people find that a sensible pathway. It’s not a rule.
John – its a game we can play
Natasha – I don’t know what I am agreeing to
Jack – the first part of the background bit is key to which the rest builds on. We have a lack of common understanding of our world. This proposal takes that point and proposes how to understand the world. It is framing how to frame other stories.
Natasha – when you frame something you are automatically giving it an angle. What is the angle?
John – its all written down here
Phil – my understanding is that we don’t have a rulebook for the board game, but this is a way to craft rules. We go about these steps to create a set of procedures to create the ‘rules’. These are one set of means to create amongst a group, a set of rules so that we know how to play the game. I like part 2 best because you chat to people about the game and how to create rules. You keep on adding and testing until you have a set of rules you feel you can use to play the game.
Julie – I like it because I see people go through this. I see this as a creative process. To me it is good to have an idea, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying that this is the only way.
Ben – when I first started looking at these sorts of things, it was difficult. But it does start to make sense. We are not trying to establish a rigid framework. This is just a way to see whether we can move forward and whether this is useful.
[Break for 5 mins]
Ben – we are not checking to formal consensus on this. Just to see objections
Rosa – I am uncomfortable with this proposal because it implies that there is some kind of authority given to this. It sets a dangerous precedent that people can go off, write a story without involving those it affects. It is also phrased in a complicated way.
Ben – any other objections?
[no]
John – in response to Rosa, so there are two objections there. The complicated one is taken into consideration in the actual proposal. The first objection you have is invalid because everyone authors.
Rosa – all for trying things out, but to test things out on people who it is going to affect is wrong
John – its invalid
Jack – I don’t think anyone has written down anywhere that the GA is a sovereignty. To me, we all day to day in our lives test people and ways of doing things. This is about coming to a way of commonly understanding testing scenarios.
Rosa – the issue is about explicit consent and accountability. To call it a proposal is morally wrong.
John – we talked about this at the beginning of the meeting
Rosa – pre-proposals stories would be accurate.
Ben – Rosa your objection has been logged. Let’s move on
AGENDA ITEM 2 – Network of Trust
Ben – Jack would like to introduce, and then we will take clarification points to check we all know what this means.
Jack – I have been practising it on part of our website without complaint for a while now i.e. sharing passwords on the website. To me its a proposal as to how we can rebuild trust. A tool to gage a common understanding of trust. Its much more practical than the other proposal and easier to understand.
Ben – hoping everyone has had a chance to look at it before this meeting. I will take clarifications
Julie – where does this network of trust come from?
John – it would be better if it was called ‘commit to story’ rather than ‘network of trust’ [quotes Robert De Niro film] When one drives to Wales you are trusting them not to crash the car.
Julie – if I was to apply this to my friends, that’s fine but is it for the process group? Or occupy?
John – its not for the GA, its simply a way for the group to form an agreement amongst themselves. Its a form saying I trust X to do Y, in that its ‘I trust Julie to behave in meetings’ etc. Its forming between a group of people. I trust Tina with the website password. This is abstracted from what we learned from the password scenario. Its a way of closing activity to trust. In Occupy a lot of people feel that there has been abuse. It is like an affinity group which is open and transparent, making sure you trust x to do y, for situations which may need it. The finance team is a network of trust – how we can join this group We can’t just have anybody elected
Harj – this is what people do anyway. They know what kind of opinion they will have. I will go to John because I know you will give me a logical breakdown. Its about formalising the process.
John – its about group trust. There needs to be a common practice. I can copy the emails of the 21st February and replace the word ‘password’ with the word ‘story’. That’s all it is.
Natasha – surely the only way to make sure they don’t break that trust is to make them accountable. This is the way the Freemasons organise themselves. Have to be accountable to be democratic.
John – the thing about the password is that the only secret is the password. Everyone knows the way in which we decide trust. You ask to have a password. The group just needs to decide whether they trust each other.
Ben – John just referred to something, under ‘story’ (3rd line down), this is discussed [reminds the group that we are only taking clarifications]
Jack – its about forming a practice where everyone does this explicitly. The reasons for bringing these proposals to the fore is that it is fostering a different mindset. They are proposals. A different way of writing the world. They are not rules or legislation. They are about an understanding
Rosa – on what basis is trust attributed to individuals – is it objective?
Ben – for me it started to make sense when I proposed it to myself in terms of do I trust X to do Y. Over a period of time I know that X can be trusted. We do that everyday in our lives. Does Phil come to meetings when he says he will? Yes, I can rely on him to go to a meeting. Its not about whether Phil is a trustworthy fellow or not. Its about whether they can be relied upon for a particular thing.
Harj – so its very objective
Rosa – so its not a open network of trust?
John – there is an important aspect to this which is missing. Say you have a new person rock up to OT. There needs to be a chance to prove themselves, to figure out whether they can be trusted – give them a go, get them involved before evaluating them to trust.
Rosa – network and accountability would be more necessary. Maybe this reflects a lack of trust in the process? Trust in process or trust in the individual.
Sanya – general feeling that I get is that this type of tendency to form inner circles leads to elitism and formation of leaderships, even though Occupy is clear that it is 99% inclusive. This goes against that agenda.
Jack – I find it hard to respond to you because it sounds like a projection of your own misgivings. We all do this anyway. Your use of inner circle is discursive. The implication that there is an inner circle is the implication that there is a WG forming. There was an implication that there is a form of elitism, but I don’t agree with that.
Julie – I can see that this is about trust and accountability. I can see this from finance i.e. handing over cash to people who must be trusted. However, I think Occupy is a democratic movement for democratic change, so we need to start thinking about ways for people to join in things. What would usually happen in democratic organisations is that if you don’t turn up to a meeting, you are unreliable. You need to be clear about what your responsibilities are. Positions of power and responsibility are removed. This kind of network of trust isn’t clear because no one knows what their responsibilities are. There should be clear rules about how people can join. This network of trust could naturally exclude people as have a very cut off group. It is really about clear responsibilities and how one can access these
Ben – is this an objection Julie?
[Nods head – objection logged]
Liz – I don’t want to make an objection. I just want to make a point about all of this. My understanding is that all previous ways of resolving these problems have failed. Here we are struggling in an embryonic situation to create some new forms and experiments to work with and see how they work, and before anything has happened, familiar words have cropped up i.e. accountability., responsibility, democracy. I find these words very totalitarian and old fashioned. Be cautious in being so sure that there are fault-lines in the situation. It is an attempt to push our way through new ways and methods of coming to a place of real personal autonomy and true democracy. I welcome these experiments, without too many criticisms before we have tried them out.
John – abuse comes from deciding things in private. It could be that the way the decision is made is one of procedure. Are they good with numbers? Can they write? If not, they can’t take the minutes etc. We need some kind of qualification here. It could be made public what the qualification is. It could be dangerous in the sense that cliques could form about liking a person. So the missing thing here is that it is that consensus is achieved in private. We need to add a reasonable consideration which is published. When dealing with Safer Spaces, Tina publishes a decision in public because of x,y,z. It is an agreed way of deciding in a particular case.
Ben – just to recap, we have one objection from Julie on this. We are now engaged in what we are proposing. We are fashioning stuff. This meeting was advertised and everyone was welcome
Julie – Tina is a good example, we need to have a qualification. She is qualified to make a decision on SS. But we need greater clarity as to how they are chosen. In a democracy, you are usually voted into a position. In the Spanish system you can become a delegate, a bit like on our finance resolution, you have a rep representing a group. Identify the skills, the task and then get chosen. I don’t feel like democracy has completely failed. There are many practices which I feel have done worse. I want us to build upon democracy.
Natasha – we have a heritage. Democracy doesn’t work because of the bankers – there was a time after WW2 where we had the welfare state. Here democracy worked.
[Some members from group display disagreement]
Jack – we are never going to remove these kind of processes from human interaction. Me and Sara have a deeper understanding of trust between us than many people here. This is just about creating one way where people can use trust as a useful tool.
John – were there any other objections?
[Objections: Julie, Sanya, Natasha and Rosa.]
AGENDA ITEM 3 – how proposals get to GA.
Ben – this is about how we can bring proposals to GAs. Just to confirm that there is a Skype meeting just for gathering proposals at 8pm on Wednesday. So, we are looking for clarifications.
Julie – it doesn’t say that there is a Skype meeting at 8 and how to join. What do I do?
Phil – we have the proposals registered on the website, people upload these, we collect these over the week and then contact the proposers to tell them how to get on Skype for the meeting.
Ben – this bit of paper I printed from the piratepad may not be useful because it is very draft.
[Paper shown to group]
Jack – this is a collection meeting and nothing more. We were not talking about the clarity or merits of the proposal. Its just a collection service. Its a good way of discussing whether other proposals have come up at all.
Julie – can people join in on this piratedpad?
Ben – yes, what happens with Skype is that someone usually starts a piratepad.
Julie – could do with some clarity as to why some proposals get to GAs and why others don’t. When we get proposals from WGs they aren’t as contentious. When we get non-WG proposals quite often they represent a minority view and they can be quite polarising. Is it good to get polarising proposals?
Liz – it is encouraging to get them to go to a WG. We don’t have a common practice. I agree that they will be better once they have gone through a WG, but its not fair to eliminate minority views. It is not the job of a process group to decide whether a proposal is contentious. We see what a GA does with the proposal. All we do is get clarity from the proposer if it doesn’t make sense and how we can fairly represent it to the GA. The global Woman’s Strike wrote one which was contentious so it went through a WG.
Ben – we are working to publish a practice for how we deal with proposals in the interests of transparency and inclusivity. We have one piece of practice i.e. collect proposals. We meet on Wednesday to check we are all clear on what we have. We then schedule them in. On a Wednesday we should know what proposals are going to a Friday and Saturday GA. This will then go to the GA planners who turn up before the GA so everyone knows where we stand
Sanya – it coincides with 8pm GA at FS, so can we change the time?
Rosa – is it necessary to have the Skype meeting to discuss this?
Ben – you are misunderstanding what the meeting is. It is not deciding on merits of a proposal, it is just to see what we have and what GA they go to.
John – the purpose was to book ahead proposals for the GA so that the GA planning facilitators could see what is coming up. This helped the facilitator. [John reads aloud from GA page on website]. It just a matter of gathering proposals. We do it online because of travel cost issues which are very difficult for everyone. People can join in on the Skype, but its just a routine admin thing.
Rosa – a lot of people are making sacrifices. To say that I can’t afford to come in makes no difference to people who don’t have internet access. Maybe we should have a face to face and record things for people who don’t go?
Jack – hard to get online? Email and Skype is just as inclusive as anything else. It was a more feasible solution for those who bothered to come/show interest in the meetings. People have found their way to the meeting without any problems. Just ping the group an email and they can help you get online.
Phil – 8 people regularly log on for this meeting from all over the country. Other people can also log on. If the question is for FS specifically, collect the individuals who want to log on and get a laptop and go somewhere where you can get wifi.
Rosa – but that relies on us being able to access the internet – not everywhere is open all the time
Sophia – go to Barbican
Ben – objection to Skype group meeting by Rosa?
Ben – people call in
Rosa – so that relies on being called
[Ben – listed the regulars and said everyone can call these people to get on skype]
Ben – this process is currently working very well. We will of course keep testing this. Are people content that we keep doing this and publicise it?
[no objections now – Jack gives details to the group]
Rosa – can we make it 6pm instead of 8pm?
Liz and Ben – can’t make that.
[Ben double checks for agreement on keeping the meeting and time. Rosa is a stand aside, but everyone else agrees]
MEETING ENDS
Theme: Revisiting the initial statement
Facilitator: Tina-Louise
Co-facilitator/Stack: Tammy
Minutes: Tina
Location: Paternoster Square
Start: 19:30
End: 20:45
Proposals that achieved consensus
Points raised for future consideration
Temperature checks
[very warm temp]
Tammy – Vica, are you going to tweet the location of this GA?
Vica – I’m tweeting it now.
Tammy – You do realise that out of the 500 people following that twitter feed, 400 are coppers.
[laughs all round]
[human mic, led by Tammy]
General assembly for Occupy London starting now in Paternoster square.
Tammy – Welcome home people.
Tina-L: Everybody grab a seat, we’ll get started. Welcome to tonight’s GA, roving a very short distance. We have 4 proposals to get through, then we’ll discuss the initial statement. Does anyone require hand signals to be explained?
[Tina-L's granddaughter, Amelia, aged 7, demonstrates the hand signals]
Mark – I learned a new hand signal in Milan (waves hand in front of face), means I don’t care.
Fanny – I learned this in Nice (raises two arms up touching each other in parallel), means you’re being racist.
First proposal – Fanny for Occupy May.
Fanny – This is in a way a funny proposal to put through. I am proposing to form a working group called Occupy May. As you are aware there are different working groups planning actions for May but only one of them has got GA approval. We want to follow the process and announce an overall group that will facilitate communication among all these groups. Aim is to plan, organise and publish the actions in May and facilitate communication. Consists of subgroups 1st, 12th and 15th of May.
Tina-L – Clarification point. Have you spoken to the people organising 1st, 12th and 15th and are they in agreement with this?
Fanny – I’ve been to most of the meetings of these groups, it’s a lot of the same people, lots of overlap. General feeling is that some kind of communication between them is required.
Vica – I wanted to add that this is not an over-arching structure, just a way to make sure each group knows what the other is doing.
Tina-L – I’d like to take a temperature check [very warm hand waving]. Any blocks or stand-asides? [none]
CONSENSUS REACHED.
Fanny – Next meeting is tomorrow 4pm at Ye Olde London.
Second proposal – Faseela for Occupy NHS
Faseela – The proposal is for an NHS working group to foster closer ties with people who are NHS activists and trade union leaders and bring them into Occupy a bit more. Already got a few people in Harringate. Looking to direct actions, that sort of thing.
Sarah – These are people involved with single issues groups in London?
Faseela – Yes, the suggestion to form a working group came from them.
Jack – They need to know that the closer they get to Occupy London, the more they may have to look into changing their structures, i.e. towards being more non-hierarchical.
Vica – We welcome people to join but also to participate in Occupy in general, learn our processes, work in a collective, inclusive, transparent way. Maybe this will cause people to question their own practices.
Tina-L – Has anyone got any further clarification points?
Sarah – I can see this idea being really problematic. The way we organise is very different to other activist groups. I would be a bit worried for those people whether they would feel bullied into our way of working or us into their way of working.
Tina-L – How do you think these people will manage if they have a hierarchical structure?
Vica – I think we might be presuming too much. Why don’t we start meeting, ask them to come to a GA, make their meetings open to everyone?
Mark – I don’t think it’s very important. If this working group wants to do something that significantly relies to Occupy London, they go through the GA but otherwise they can do
Lilias – My understanding is that Faseela can start an Occupy NHS working group, will it be an official or an unofficial working group?
Tina-L – If it passes by consensus, it will be an official working group. Can I take a temperature check? [very warm]. Any stand-asides, disagreements or blocks? [none]
CONSENSUS REACHED.
Third proposal – Mark skill-sharing event
Mark – We, me and some other people, have been organising a skill-sharing weekend on 21st-22nd April. The idea is to get support from outside organisations, e.g. Seeds for Change and direct action groups, have a big event, strengthen ties, get people geared up.
Lilias – Where will this be taking place?
Mark – Two places. A Friends’ house (Quaker meeting house in Euston) and part of it in Finsbury square. There’s too much to cram in one place. We’re still in the middle of organising speakers etc.
Sarah – Would suggest you have a table at open day.
Michael – Do you know that the Occupied Times is already linking up with Seeds for Change to do the same thing?
Mark – It is the same thing. If people have ideas, organisations or individuals, come see me, Sam H. or Vica.
Tina-L – Temperature check? [all hands up]
CONSENSUS REACHED.
Fourth proposal – Vica for open day
Vica – We have been trying to organise for three weeks, next Tuesday at the Friends’ house in Euston. Idea is, this is a space for working groups to share what they’ve been up to until now, what they’re planning to do in the future but also engage people as part of the build-up for May. Unfortunately due to the tough weeks we’ve had, it hasn’t gone through the processes it should have, so I’m bringing it here to ensure that it can be endorsed by the GA.
Lilias – What time do you have for people to start preparing?
Vica – Doors open at 5pm. 5-6pm is for working groups to organise and set up the space, getting a few nibbles for the evening. We won’t be asking for funding for this, so if anyone wants to bring anything, that would be great. We’ll be talking more about this tomorrow (4pm at Ye Olde).
Jack – I want to understand the process through which we got here having this being discussed now. [or words to that effect, not exact quote]
Tina-L – I agree that the question is a relevant one but let’s go through the proposal first before analysing how and why the proposal came to be here this evening.
Vica – I can answer that question. It’s been a bit hard analysing what’s been going on, not being able to keep up with all the e-mails. Two things. First issue is that this event was advertised by Press as an Occupy London event. Second was a question about event organisation. Two issues that need to be tackled differently. Re press release, we’ve had many events released by Press without going through the GA. It would be interesting to start a process about how we deal with this. Organisation part, was miscommunication. I thought it was sufficient to talk about this at working group GAs, with minutes.
Michael – I want to register a similar point. I’m here from the Occupied Times and I know that Steve and other people were upset about how things were organised, and also it reflects a pattern of how things are organised, things being announced and then we have to conform to other peoples’ agenda. We only found out about this event a week before it’s due to happen, half of our team is abroad and we’ve had to scramble to get people here.
Tina-L – Any more clarification points? Any blocks or stand-asides? [none]
CONSENSUS REACHED.
Shout-out
Sarah – Can I do a shout-out. Next weekend is the national conference, it’s the most incredible program I’ve ever seen. It’s in Southend. I’ll go home and send this round to you, starts 12pm on Friday. They don’t want anything except a contribution towards the food. There’s camping space for 100 people. They’ve got amazing things sorted out. They need financial help with a generator and a marquee. I’d like to be able to say to Neil tonight an estimate of people going. Lots of cheap deals to get there. They’ve got water, legal placement in place. Need to bring your own tents.
? – Is it an Occupy national conference?
Sarah – Yes, this will be the first one for three months.
Jack – The Corporations working group has been asked to go down. We do have a meeting again on Thursday, location to be decided, which is cutting it a bit fine. If people want to e-mail me, would be great to get together, if only by e-mail and organise.
Mark – Where’s the agenda?
Tina – It should be mailed on the Sheffield mailing list, also uploaded on the wiki.
Sarah – We’ll be doing a Citizenship workshop between 4-6pm. Neil will have a stall at open day (April 10th). So who thinks they might go to the conference?
[fair number of hands go up]
Tina-L – Tammy will read out the initial statement, then we’ll go into break-out groups, discuss how as Occupy we can go about applying this statement and if there’s anything in it that we would like to address or change.
Tammy – Do you want to human mic it? Or then have four more people reading it together.
[Fanny, Tammy and Amelia take turns in reading out the statement]
Tammy – For the break-out groups, we need to get back to this initial statement. We’ve had an awful lot to deal with over the past few weeks, we need to do that but also get back to our reasons for being here.
Tina-L – We’re going to go with about 20 minutes. Temperature check on doing it as one group?
[very warm temperature]
Tina-L – Do you want to do this with me as facilitator? Form a circle?
[circle suggestion wins]
Tina-L – Shall we do it one point at a time? I think we can breeze through some.
Vica – Shall we put a time limit?
Tina-L – Five minutes per point?
Fanny – How about having a general discussion that could include if we think this statement should be revisited at all? Then maybe highlight some points we should specifically concentrate on?
Lilias – I think it’s perfect except for #6. This is long-winded and a bit out of date.
Jack – I actually like this being there, it gives it a temporal quality, pulls it back to the start, will make us remember that time and the situations around it.
Obi – “We are of all ethnicities”. It has been pointed out that we are not of all ethnicities. I like the way Occupy Brighton has stated “we welcome all people” – but we don’t welcome all behaviour.
Luca – On point 6, I think that yes, we should change the time reference but without cutting out the reference to the workers movement. Accept all movements attacking this system that are not in contrast with this statement.
Mark – I don’t think we should change the statement at all, it’s a reference to a point in time. We can make an entirely new statement, informing ourselves with the initial one as a guide. We should ask who are we know, what do we want now and keep it real.
Michael – Number 5 about regulators. If we were to change it, I have a problem with the idea of there being the actual ability for regulators to do anything. Regulators are intrinsically open to be captured by industries, .e.g. finance. It makes us sound a bit unrealistic and naive to think that we can actually regulate the kind of industry that we are fighting.
Fanny – I do agree that this quite beautifully brings us back to where we were in October but also that we should add some points of this, slightly change some points or come up with a new statement, Occupy in spring 2012. This doesn’t speak for example of the democratic deficit, lobbying power, the fact that we can’t change anything by voting, it lacks a global picture, e.g. developing countries and imperialism. I would like to see these issues additionally raised.
Tammy – Number 6, my suggestion would be, we supported the strike on N30 and student action on N9 and we will continue to support actions to defend our health services etc.
Tim – I was going to say exactly the same thing, I think it reads revisiting badly at the moment. Also want to support number 5. It’s a question of completely rethinking how regulation works within industries. When I’ve looked at the banks, putting new laws in place might be necessary.
Tina-L – I’m supporting a rethink of 5. Also Obi’s drawing attention to all ethnicities. Add also what Fanny says what we do overseas that’s so harmful. I don’t know about a full rewrite. I’ve seen how it warms people every time it’s read out, so I’d support tweaking.
Lilias – Add the year, 2011, to point #6. I’m confused by all ethnicities, Obi says we’re not – why aren’t we?
Obi – Somewhat pointed out that Papua New Guinea has about 100 different ethnic groups.
Tina-L – Clarification. If we added the dates, why should those two particular actions be kept in an initial statement above and beyond other actions and strikes we support.
Tina – It’s an emotional and historical reference. I think we should keep it as is and move on to a new one if we think we’re in a different place now.
Jack – I took the initiative to change the word “support” to the past tense.
[cries of "naughty boy Jack"]
Mark – I think it says a lot about the rigidity of the movement that we sometimes suffer from. It’s an initial statement that hundreds people got involved in. I’d be uncomfortable now that we’ve been reduced in population to seize the moment and reduce this down. I think we have to accept that the kind of politics we’re talking about is an ongoing organic thing, should just have this statement as a point in time of where we were then.
Arun – Are we making amendments or is this a discussion? I also feel quite uncomfortable about amending this statement. Comment about statements and policies, I think we really need to think about our practice and not something that’s on a piece of paper.
Fanny – We are just initiating the discussion of whether we should make changes.
Tammy – After this is done I’m going to be cheeky and propose a new statement working group to work on this, have it ratified by the GA as a working group, look into this more deeply and give to the GA to decide what they want to do.
Lilias – I thought we were just looking at the statement to remind ourselves of these points and how to bring the Occupy movement in line with these points.
Sara – This to me personally has temporal and spatial significance. I’m incredibly proud of this statement. There may be bits in there I’m not happy with personally but think this is something that should be framed. What we can do is go down the points in this statement and ask ourselves how, as Occupy, we’re going towards fulfilling these points.
Obi – I think the initial statement is very fluffy. I’d like to see it become more hard-hitting. Talk about fractional reserve banking. Have a second initial statement.
Jack – I think also that the mindset that makes someone desire to change that statement, heads back to the old way of thinking, as George B. put it “governmentality”. We are considering structures of modification rather than structures of rethinking.
Vica – Just that we’ve had this discussion is amasing. I think it would be nice to activate this discussion within Occupy. I also feel I wouldn’t like to change this statement but would be powerful in May with a new statement. But also see the difficulties now to find common ground. At the same time, it might be a very interesting experiment to be doing.
Fanny – Re writing a new statement, I wouldn’t start the process now, not before May. I’d rather wait, see if we can get different kind of voices involved, after May, have way more voices than the people sitting now.
Arun – We are moving towards working groups having more responsibility in their work, don’t know if we need to have this discussion about amendments.
Mark – Perhaps after May, if we’re successful, there might be a moment like October with a strong feeling of unity with lots and lots of people looking to commit to something. At this time, the London movement is really diffuse, there’s confusion as to what this movement is and isn’t. Other than that, we can make a statement for May.
Lilias – Now that I’ve listened to everyone, it reminded me of a talking circle I had a couple of weeks ago at Finsbury square. “A goose will fly 75% farther when she flies with her brothers and sisters than when she flies on her own.” Also, the transition movement talks about building a new system that will be better than the old system, works while the old system is still in place, doesn’t have to destroy the old system. If we get a new statement, that can be there as well as the old one.
Mark – I totally agree with what you’re saying that the statement is long-winded, there’s lots of stuff that if it were up to me I’d change. But I find it weird to remove stuff from something that’s historic and we’re so proud of. I can’t get my head around it. Perhaps we can be inspired by the content of the initial statement, say something loud and proud for May.
Fanny – This powerful thing we come up with before May could just be the callout for May. Looking at the other side of this flyer, it has the sites we had, it’s quite outdated now, old websites. We don’t really know what Occupy London is now or whether Occupy London exists. Having an Occupy London initial statement now feels a bit weird.
Sara – We still have about 2,000 flyers in my kitchen at the moment.
Mark – Sell them on e-bay!
Tammy – If you can let me have lots of these flyers. I’m actually opening info again this week at St Paul’s in info, just without a tent. Pop-up table with a chair. If they take that, blanket on the floor.
Michael – Papers [newspapers]…
Tammy – That too.
Tina-L – I’m now totally against tweaking this, it’s a historic document. We can have a new outreach leaflet that simply highlights the types of working groups we have, and use that as an outreach tool, telling you what’s Occupy is doing.
Obi – If we get rid of the 2000 leaflets, that means we need to print out some more. Why not make initial statement 1.1?
Tina-L – We’re doing a new leaflet for outreach exercise purposes, Sara mentioned.
Fanny – Just wondering, simply because of time, I wouldn’t go into a point-by-point discussion. People in this circle appear to be thinking in the same way as the statement. Can we take a temperature check, as a basis for future discussion? It might be worth noting in the minutes.
Tina-L – Phrasing this, that we keep the initial statement as a historic statement and in order to honour the involvement of all those people in Occupy who helped make it.
[very warm temperature]
Michael -In terms of the leaflets, at the working group GA, Ronan got consensus to print out leaflets for May.
Tina – It’s unclear what the situation is right now, Ronan promised to return the 300 pounds he got at the last GA due to breach in process. Also, I don’t think the flyers are about the initial statement but about promoting the May events. Not sure, would have to ask him.
Tina-L – Shall we move on to shout-outs?
Shoutouts
Fanny – On Saturday 14th April, I am aware that this clashes with the national conference which is quite unfortunate, there is an open meeting organised by the counter Olympics movement, a collection of community groups campaigning against Olympics, sponsors etc. The Olympic working group hasn’t been formed because of disagreement with Occupy London things but there are still individuals who want to be involved, so we thought the most reasonable thing to do would be to join other groups planning actions.
11am-4:30pm Bishops Gate Institute, I’ve sent an e-mail to groupspaces. People can contact me if they want to ask anything, I’ve been in contact with the organisers, am happy to print out the agenda and bring it to Finsbury square next week.
Amelia – I support people from Occupy London because they care about the future!
Obi – We were evicted from Limehouse. We’re now at Miles’ end, we weren’t evicted yesterday, so we’re probably safe until Tuesday. Come and join us in Miles End.
Jack – Me and Sara visited on Tuesday, it’s a very quiet place, a wonderful Occupy site, wonderfully different from anything I’ve seen so far. Slightly different way of making decisions, go take a look at what Occupy could be.
Arun – This is a callout in line of 12th May planning. This is about organising a family activity in the morning, doing a treasure hand within the city, have music etc. We’ll be talking about this hopefully in the meetings tomorrow 4-6pm at Ye Olde London pub.
Fanny – Might as well say a couple of words on Leighton marshes. The atmosphere is amazing, lots of activists, it’s nice to see people sitting round the fire discussing a campaign that really works. The court case yesterday was lost, however people are still willing to fight, bringing the campaign to places where they have even more visibility, they are really determined to stop them building that basketball site. I’d encourage people to get active in this campaign, it’s really inspiring to see such things happening.
Tammy -This is just an idea I’ve had and something I’m doing as an individual but I really want to do it and I would appreciate any support. I’m reopening info over there [points in direction of old info tent]. I know that whole area with my eyes closed. I’d like to have a chat with TCU see if we can get TCU up and running? I’d like to find out about getting some meditation going where the meditation tent used to be. I know it’s cheeky, it’s an outreach opportunity and also direct action. Also, fundraising I organised for yesterday, it was suggested it happens at Finsbury square it would be easier for people from Finsbury to attend, I couldn’t make it, got held up at the Leighton marshes court. Interestingly, only Andrea turned up, not a single person even though it was right next to Finsbury square.
Tuesday 1pm in TCU I’ll be doing fundraising for anyone interested.
Tina – TCU?
Tina-L – Essence of TCU. Old site.
Michael – I love the info tent idea and I think we’ll try and have an OT person with you at all times because we have massively struggled to have situations as good as that. That place to distribute was so incredible. People were coming to the site expecting to have political conversations. Engaging with people for 15-20 minutes, they’d give us 20 pounds for a paper. But maybe, don’t push it. If we start trying to build up too many things, they’ll try and get rid of us.
Lilias – I went down to Little Hampton, keep driving past a sign that says “200 acres of land for sale.” I called them asking for the price but they wouldn’t give it to me.
Tammy – It’s been a beautiful general assembly this evening. Thank you.
Obi – Livestream crew. Occupy Nomads are in Mile End now.
Tina-L – Also thanks to Obi for the continuous broadcasting, it’s such a treasure trove. I now pronounce this assembly closed.
Working Group Assembly – 3rd April 2012
Facilitator – Vica Minutes – Jack
SHOUT OUT
Court hearings for those arrested in N9 attempting to Occupy Trafalgar Sq. This case is important. We could see a change to the law revolving around the use of section 5 of the criminal justice act, which has been used increasingly in protests. Please come and support us. Dates are:
4th, 5th, 10th & 17th April 2012
Westminster Magistrates Courts
181 Marylebone Road
London
Vica – A decision was made at Saturday GA to bring a proposal here. The WG assembly is not a decision making body, but we will attempt this proposal tonight.
Chris – [requests to switch order and leave proposal until after WG feedback.]
A.N.On – Proposal – rather convoluted. It’s about last week’s core expenses. £370, 90 for sanitation 150 for food, 50 for generator and 80 for the gas.
Vica – we will attempt this by same procedure as a finance GA. We will ask for clarity, and possibly conditions
Sarah – another proposal – I am in favour of granting the money today but, additionally at Saturday’s GA I asked for support, in making breachers of acceptable behaviour responsible and calmly but deliberately removing them from site, as one. This isn’t about permanent exclusion. But people who abuse the process and accepted norms should not be allowed to continue.
Vica -[goes through hand signals]
Jules – you said half an hour discussion, due to the fact that food and sanitation are recognised by UN as human rights. People are begging I think it is disgraceful that Occupy London is denying people their rights. People are looking in bins, not skipping, people are malnourished.
Vica – The reason for a half hour cut off is to give a fair hearing to the right of the assembly to share information about working groups. Finance GAs are set at 2 hours, so this seemed fair. We work through consensus, we all have a right to express an opinion.
Fern – In response to Sarah, we have tranquillity who now have permission to remove people from site. We will continue this process. I personally believe food is a human right, I’d like to be able to eat.
Ronan – I was one of the blockers of this proposal on Saturday. The reason for this was that the proposal was completely going around in circles outside of process. There was already money given to cover expenses there and then. I suggested we brought it here as we were very tired in the GA by that point. This issue is wider then this proposal. FS is not currently sustainable, they need to become so. The money in the account is going down far too fast. The current culture of dependency is becoming worrying. The fact that we could be potentially funding and enabling people to lose their welfare support. This is not sustainable.
Sarah – Following from Fern, what I’m asking now is not just a team, but that ALL on site agrees to respect the process of Occupy London. You take responsibility for your community, which is tough, I understand. At Leyton, Phil was abused again, I don’t blame you for that, but if that situation was adequately covered, the situation would not have arisen. We do this, we can get back to the meetings of Occupy. We need as a whole community, across London to work together on this. It’s not exactly rocket science to ask for that. You will see fewer blocks of finance to these spaces if that happens.
Fern – Yes we do not have self sufficiency, but we need finance to do that. If you starve us for 3 weeks we’ll go home. People have given up their lives for this. To Sarah’s point, we are doing our best to remove people but with drug abuse and mental health issues this is difficult.
Sarah – How many people are on site. [Jools answers around 100] so it’s something Occupy London can do as a whole.
Rosa – I would just like to say that a lot of people are working hard at Finsbury. People who would be working hard on political issues if they weren’t supporting themselves. To withdraw the funds doesn’t help with self sufficiency. We are all aware it is a finite amount of money.
A.N.On – I don’t think that Occupy Finsbury Square should be suffering in the failure of process at Occupy LSX. Your solution seems to be shutting the stable door after a horse has bolted twice. Your suggestion, fair enough. But we’re talking about last week.
Jules – yesterday we took in £70 on the front. We have a great skipping team. We’re reasonably self sufficient. But to say we’re enabling people is wrong. There are a mix at Finsbury Square. What you’re doing is preventing people.
Sara – A question. I just came from Mile End? Are they getting finance? They seem to be feeding themselves.
Sarah – Donations, skipping.
Liz – They received a £100 seed money.
? – It’s very easy to feed smaller numbers.
Tammy – I’ve just heard from you that you have one of the best skipping teams and are almost self sufficient. So why do you say that people are suffering malnutrition. With regards to money last week, I don’t even know what to say. But the food in your bag, I could be very wrong here, I would suggest that if people are starving you take that food up there now. Thirdly, people have left jobs showing their commitment. That should be applauded. But it also tells me something else, it tells me that those people were capable of work. I myself am currently considering disengagement from the system. After the Lime-house experience I could take this lifestyle up. I could go out to work, but if you’re gonna tell me you need an address. So if there are people that are able to work, they should be encouraged.
?- There are broader issues of strategy, people here should consider the use of long term camps, its not because of people in them. They have inherent problems. Every GA has been about money. There was one big mistake at the start, centralising everything. We should distribute the money and then work from there.
Kay – Just to take on Ronan’s points. I was part of that block. What Sarah said about P. I’m not going to go back on my Finsbury Square experience. But this issue has been strengthened by it. My experience at Finsbury Square was ended by the police advising me not to return to the site. I hope the process we have here will resolve this. In so far as the culture of dependence developing at Finsbury Square, I don’t think people are starving there. Half the camp are receiving Job-seeker’s Allowance. I asked people to contribute to morning food etc… but that never happened. In answer to the question, since arrival at Lime-house, we have been supported by others.
Vica – Can we test now? £370 to go to FS. Can I take clarity?
F – The amounts listed are they for the future or now?
Vica – It is my understanding that it is money for a week, refunding part of last week and some of next week.
Ronan – In blocking you can suggest amendments? [yes]
Chris – Are receipts available for what’s spent.
Jules – In looking at a block as a veto can’t we twist that unfairly.
Fern – It’s a tyranny
Tammy – If you’ve gathered £70 why do you still need the full amount. [interrupted] I would like to give Finsbury Square a specific time to become self sufficient. They can work in that period of time to get on with it. Occupy London won’t have money at some point to give out. Eventually you will have to be self sufficient.
Vica – can we hear any objections.
Liz – Out intention is to return to finance GAs next week. The time will be announced. Because of WG assembly I would like to liaise with them about that.
[Vica asks again for consensus – 1 blocks]
Ronan – I will remove my block but with one condition. That is to compel Finsbury Square to begin negotiations about how to split the finances and allow the site to become fully financially self sufficient.
A.N.On – Are you saying we should come to a decision about the rest of the money?
Ronan – Yes, to that.
Steve – Pay the money, then deal with the issue separately.
Vica – It is the right of the blocker to suggest amendments. Ronan is asking for a commitment. This seems valid.
Fern – 2 questions. What exactly are the other events that are going on that need any money? Why is this not a democracy?
Jules – FS has a statement of autonomy.
A.N.On – This is about a failure of process that allowed this to happen.
Tiffany – Ronan’s idea that we should have a meeting, I agree with that
Rosa – It would be good to move beyond this event and start talking about strategy. To remain united as a movement. We need to get over this hurdle to discuss it.
Jack – The fact you have no knowledge of other events around Occupy that might need funding is rather telling. We have May coming up, we have corporations days of action, we have the OT, we have so much to invest in. These items have been blocked many times in previous finance GAs, which leads me to the next point. I notice that you never called the block a tyranny against democracy when it was you who was blocking spending. We respected those blocks as an expression, please do the same for us.
CONSENSUS REACHED ON £370 – CONDITION – Finsbury Square to take part in negotiations over how to split the Occupy London finances.
Vica – OK, we have another request for finance.
Ronan – We want to print posters and flyers advertising May, so that by next Tuesday we can hand them down to others at the event and open evening. A few hundred posters and ten thousand of the flyers. We’re looking at between £200-£300.
Rosa – Lee has a printer?
Ronan- that would be great and we would do that, but just in case, we ask for the money.
Sarah – The printer and EVERYTHING is ready but it is stuck in Brighton. In the next 2 days we would need it here.
A.N.On – I was at the meeting and we didn’t necessarily agree on a slogan, that is a lot of money. Also when others are frozen from requests it seems a little unfair. I guarantee I’ll give you £100.
Rosa – If we spent that money getting the printer up to London it would be much better.
Chris – you may have mentioned it, but the logistics of getting something done such short notice with Easter coming up… is this possible?
Mark – Obviously, if we print posters and flyers they’ll go to suitable places is. In these cases we have usually allowed a float to mean that if savings are made then the spare money comes back.
Ronan – I will negotiate hard on this. On Tuesday, we hope to pull many people in to discuss this stuff. All The money will also be accounted. It was much cheaper then last time, but I want the security.
F – I trust that money will be honestly requested. But if the money isn’t for outreach in a political movement what are we doing?
A.N.On – who is designing this?
[discussion forms, where it is suggested a real meeting is important, it could be online.]
Vica – I suggest that people who want involvement give their contact details to Ronan.
Fern – I have no issues as long as it is accountable.
[a little disagreement forms]
Zina – I’ve been here since October every 2 weeks flyers. We spend so much on outreach
Jack – Only £300 have come from Occupy funds for flyers. [I then breach process. Bad minute taker]
Sarah – If Jack says that, why do you not believe him? I am shocked and disgusted by the fact that you can calmly sit here and suggest that Occupy London has nothing happening to spend its money on except FS. Have you no idea what’s happen in May? How dare you ask daily support for your living expenses and have no idea about the politics behind why you are at Finsbury Square in the first place. Why not just drop out and live with your buddies in a field somewhere nice…at Occupy London we support each other to MAKE a change. I would never personally see you denied food, you know me better then that.
Tammy – I’ll tell you what, if you asked for £5000 for flyers, you could have it mate! If this movement is to succeed it needs these kind of these things. If people are really questioning the needs for flyers, plain simple flyers. What are we doing? How can [Tammy congratulates Jack about his commitment – had to minute that]. Can you all get a grip, seriously. I’m astounded. I’m not being rude. I’m just astounded that intelligent and decent people are seriously questioning one of the simplest ways of community building.
Claudine – I’m tired of being emotionally strained. The question is not that we are spending money on flyers, the question is how else have we approached people. May is global.
Fern – The 99% do know what’s happening in May, but most of us don’t know what’s going on because we don’t have phones, or people telling us these things. We don’t have the resources.
Mark – It’s important that we recognise problems we have as individuals don’t always reflect the movement. We have situations across divides, we should work on them . But if we get to the stage of doing nothing because we blame each other for everything we might as well pack up.
Zina – yes I’m an intelligent person Tammy. If I remember rightly you too were concerned about the financial organisation at one stage. You must agree that outreach has had a lot of money spend on it.
[crowd disagrees]
Vica – with only a few hundred for outreach, and thousands for camps, that isn’t accurate.
Zina – I am aware of how groups work. It’s not a case of people being dominant over others. It’s not equal.
Vica – So are there any objections further then the need to economise.
CONSENSUS REACHED – £300 float available for printing and flyers
(1 stand aside – A.N.On)
Vica – before moving to WGs . Next Tuesday there will be no WG assembly. We have an open day at Friends House in Euston instead. This is how you get involved… Space is available from 6pm-9pm. 6-7:30 will be an open day allowing people to arrive and interact with occupiers. Each WG can have a table, explaining the things they have done. Use videos, paperwork, examples of actions etc. It would be great if during this week WGs could discuss how they wish to present themselves. Most of all, think how people can engage with your WG. There may be skills that are lacking. Be clear of how to share this. Collect details. This would be also be space for camps, a chance to engage. This goes to all camps, including Leyton marsh. It would be great to bring some of the locals. We will update about food.
EVENT
OPEN EVENING FOR OCCUPY LONDON
April 10th 2012
Friends House, Euston
Space Opens – 5pm
Opens to Public – 6pm
General Assembly about May – 7:30pm
Event Ends – 9pm
Ronan – The overall aim is to provide access to the large levels of work everybody has been doing. By having an open day, a little cheesy, but a fantastic way to show people how to get involved. Hundreds of cities are going to take to the streets, this is our part of that. A call-out went out last night. This is a real opportunity to get things exciting
Vica – A press release went out yesterday. Please spread the information as widely as possible. Please can WGs contact me if they need a space.
WG Assembly Starts
OCCUPIED TIMES
Next issue ready for May 1st .
We already have some great submissions. I basically came to put a couple of points across. Emails we’ve received are opportunity for all. The first is from the Anarchist Federation asking if anyone would like to talk about Occupy London at the event, May 19th. Second request from Asylum magazine (about mental health issues from anti establishment background). They’re putting together an issue about mental health and anti capitalism. They want people to talk to from activist circles about this issue. I have lots more details then this.
BOROUGHS
Coming on nicely. Starting 5th June. Simon will be finalising the routes map hopefully tomorrow. A lot of enthusiasm. With the things of the moment a chance to focus. Jack is planning to help us publicise…soon. Issues with local concerns, trying to tie the walk in with these. e.g. Charing Cross hospital. Maybe trying to help existing groups. Communities are already fighting the injustice on their doorsteps. We maybe can add a broader picture to these concerns.
CITIZENSHIP
Emergency meeting to focus on how we work. We’re still only going into schools. Some feel that we could approach youth outside of these establishments. On Friday we want to discuss approaching some groups in local areas. Work with some university students. We’re meeting Friday Ye Olde London at 4:30pm. If it’s nice weather we’ll move up to St Paul’s. We are also doing an event at the national conference. It would be great to give a presentation at FS about the results of the conference. Steve Moore promised on Saturday to announce all events on the whiteboard on site.
REAL DEMOCRACY
Meeting once a week, a lot to do. We’re going to do a teach in. A discussion about things. We may start circulating drafts. Something about the crown, parliament and people. We’re also looking at the process of developing a constitution. One was looking at existing stuff we’ve got.
We asked the GA on Saturday about this.
-Looking at current practices
-Looking at successes and improvements
-To develop a flexible written constitution.
-Gathering information and opinions.
Vica – non facilitator – As process is the WG who deals with the process. This is their remit. It seems odd to have overlapping groups. Work together.
Natasha – We would love to.
ECONOMICS
Hello, weren’t here last week. Looking at producing a book of economics for dummies (like me!). Producing some stuff for May and June. Waltham forest is being negotiated for a meeting with the EWG. As a complete aside form that, Leyton marshes, not an Occupy thing, but I have looked into legal support via the open spaces organisation. The important thing. Is something we need to bring to the GA on Saturday. We have a proposal for providing eco friendly and affordable housing. A variety of organisations involved have been supportive, but they are scared to engage with the politics. I did go to a meeting on housing and rents in London. It was important. In essence, what I want to take to the GA is a policy paper, on the case for good housing form the leftovers of Quantitative easing. It would be nice to take it to no 10 and say. Look chaps. Housing is one of the most fundamental needs of society. We have a society that doesn’t care about this. We could shame the government into some kind of action. It would be super. That I hope will come to the GA.
OCCUPY LAW
Organising events and campaigns about law and law reform from an Occupy perspective. First the Community Bill Of Rights. And a matter of identity law about the fact that the 1% are beginning to take control of personal data online. We were very gratified by the event we had at LSX. But we have also had lots of supporting from outside occupy. There is one major set of chambers in London, looking at a research unit into these matters. OccupyLawUk is the face-book.
EVICTION PROTECTION
Report back on St Paul’s eviction: the good news is all items EP was asked to save were saved. Some loose ends still being tied up but various big tents, fire extinguishers, gas canisters etc saved and moved to Mile End/Lime-house crew, all personal items that were saved have been returned, burners moved to Finsbury & Mark W got his signpost. Re big tents where owners asked for them back, long library tent returned, kitchen tent moved to LFS to be used as Finsbury TCU, and LSX TCU now being returned to its owners. Thanks are due to EP WG esp Luke, Rawhide, Earthian, Maddy, Obi, Vicky C, Mike (Stoke Newington), Jane Spencer. We returned all we said we would, Occupy keeps its promises.
FINSBURY SQUARE – TRANQUILITY
No one stabbed at FS. Problems solved, now on track. We’re safer than at Paul’s first aid doing excellent injuries treatments over past month. We need to refill stocks of frist aid.
Mark – Talk on at mango landing Brixton 7pm called inspiring minds forum. It’s about how to organise, not burnout, use consensus.
LEYTON MARSH
The Park and Olympic authority are attempting to build on the site. People are trying to delay getting a claimant to prevent development. Tomorrow 10:30am Royal Courts of Justice is their hearing.
MAY PLANNING
The Milan international gathering was interesting. It was interesting to see them using the same language, the same way of holding assemblies. We worked out how to communicate using mumble. Nothing concrete but some interesting feedback about what’s happening in other countries. There is a Global call for action on 1st, 12th, 15th May. There is a massive DA in frankfurt 16-18 May. A plan to close its financial centre. They’re calling for people to go there, having a camp, training people for the DA the next day. Spread the word.
FINSBURY SQUARE
Lunchtime lectures at FS every day.
Meeting Ends
General Assembly 31st March 2012
A very blustery, cold day
Facilitator – Simon Minutes – Jack
Simon – First, a finance proposal
Proposal – £370 to Finsbury Square, £100 to Lime-house
Test for Consensus
2 stand asides – [request by the people standing aside, to have them registered]
CONSENSUS REACHED – no further tests
[request for an explanation of the stand asides]
Ben – I want to stand aside because I don’t understand the process being followed. I want to stand aside because of this. I won’t block because I can see the group want this money granted.
Simon – OK, more agenda items. 2 discussion topics, and one further finance discussion
First discussion item -
Julie – Proposal – to go into break out groups and consider these questions.
What does the name Occupy London mean / suggest to you?
Would it be helpful to map common processes. Setting out how Occupy makes decisions
Would it be helpful to set out current principles?
Would it be helpful to develop better practices and processes?
Should we develop a written constitution?
Peter – The very general first question should be divorced from the process issues.
Mike – This is a waste of time as a discussion.
? – What would be the outcome of the discussion
Simon – no real outcome, just a chance to form ideas. Three questions?
Jamie – May 1 May 12 May 15. Why are we not talking about this. We should be addressing violence. We answered the first question posed on Oct 15th.
Fanny – We will head to this discussion about May. We felt it was important to find these things to plan for May, to find a common message. The GA planning meeting felt it was important to discuss.
Tammy – Can everyone here. I put it to each of you that in the end it doesn’t matter what we’re called. Let’s get down to the nuts and bolts.
Anon – I think since we got married, we should be discussing the surnames. This is a very important discussion even if we don’t have it now.
Peter – Can we focus this discussion. It is too wide currently and will take too long.
? – Occupy is a global thing
Lee – I suggest we focus on finance as this has produced the biggest schism.
Simon- Finance is a proposal for discussion later. Can we hear from Julie.
Julie – Look then at our 4 principles and examine them? How they might relate to finance? Do we need to create a written constitution?
Anon – the best map is based around camps. The imperial nature of Occupy London should be dropped.
Charlie – All camps have their different meanings and what they do. Each site is specific. If we look at camps everywhere, they carve their own way of fighting the systems. The original idea was to take land and discuss how they wanted to fight the system. But we ALL fight for the same reasons, the same movement. With autonomy people can move forward.
Ben – I want it recorded that people did not want to discuss the name, than all the points we just had were about the name!
BREAK OUT DISCUSSION
FEEDBACK
GROUP 1
Started with the question, do we have agreed shared values? We looked at the initial statement and we felt we still share the desire to changes . But we felt that a written formal constitution wasn’t a good way to do this. Ideas and concepts sharing are far better.
We then moved onto the name issue. We had quite a good understanding that there’s no need for fragmentation. We can all be Occupy London. It is a beautiful idea. But in practice, how do we reconcile autonomous structures within the group. There is a need. Cooperative model could be worth looking at
GROUP 2
Steve mentioned that real democracy has an idea to set up a commission regarding the recent problems we’ve had . Some thought it would consume too much energy. Then there was the idea of a constitution. Where there are lot of communication problems, then a constitution would solve these. Some also said this would require a lot of energy. There was the discussion about WGs that are perceived as having too much power/ The need to vote members into these was discussed. There are problems with voting as well. Another advantage is that in UK we do have a constitution, just an unwritten one.
A discussion about the degrees of coherence and centralisation. Camps should have more autonomy then they do. To not tie them down. we came together to fight the same issues. If a constitution is to be drawn up could start with the most contentious issues. Some thought a full constitution would then be unnecessary . This could be done collaboratively
GROUP 3
on a personal not. WELCOME BACK to some original occupier
we talked about communication. We used the idea of a sunflower and G8 in Edinburgh. Where we bring each barrio together that have had their own affinity groups. These barrios came together at a large meeting with spokespeople from the camps and affinity groups . WE suggested a weekly meeting where all of our camps could come together and allow each to be represented.
Lot of people in camps need face to face. Some of the people we work with can’t afford to always be here. We DO need a mechanism to involve those people.
We also talked about the issue of FS, people were talking about a lack of welcoming there and others affirmed this was being addressed.
The idea that if there was a constitution for every camp. Also, involving the army, and veterans. Many revolutionary movements have used these resources. The decision making at the moment appears to be hierarchical, so a flower arrangement could work better.
GROUP 4
Why do we need a constitution? For outside people, so they know how to get involved and have a commoner understanding. Someone said about the ideological splits and how to address these. There was a lot of support about our anti corporate stance. Many reaffirmed the sentiments of the common statement.
Simon – two more topics remaining. A May planning topic and a finance one. Ronan, can you present the may planning issue.
Steve [suggests this feedback goes back to real democracy working group to work these issues.]
We meet Mondays.
? – after such a healthy discussion it would be a shame to lose this.
Jamie – great idea, so many meetings do not get followed up . Can real democracy, continually feedback.
? – can people feed this to the Finsbury Square site.
? – someone should take this responsibility .
Tammy – I see people on groupspaces that live at Finsbury. Can they do this?
Proposal – Steve – have a named individual responsibility for this.
NEXT TOPIC!
Fanny – Okay, MAY. This isn’t however exactly about planning may. That meeting is after this GA in Ye Old London. This is about messaging this discussion. We are looking for the GA to input.
Ronan – When we say messages we mean, e.g. So what is Occupy LODNON? [answer is what we're trying to find] That is the aim of this. So there are two areas… if you are asked that question we want to find a group answer to that.
What is Occupy London?
Why is Occupy London for you?
So this feedback will really help us build a message. We want to build a one page document, so people doing interviews and chats, can inform themselves of the common themes
Simon – restates questions.
Sarah – Love the idea, but would want consensus on this as it is effectively a statement.
GROUP FEEDFACK – 2nd TOPIC
GROUP 1
What is Occupy London?
Why get involved?
SLOGANS
Discussed the importance of education. Lets try and get people back into helping the 99%
GROUP 2
What is Occupy London?
Occupy London should be a beacon to the rest of the country and world that if we can stand up to these powerful institutions so can you.
Why should people join?
There was another point, I’m always asked what t occupy is about. A lot of things under one umbrella.
SLOGANS
I am not just a cat, I am a fat catastrophic
austerity burgers, I’m loving it!
GROUP 3
SLOGANS
May do, May happen, Spring Break, Blooming Bank, Spring Up, Time for a Spring Clean.
By being complacent, you are complicit.
GROUP 4
Ronan – so the feedback just given, what we’ll do, we’ll collate it. We’ll put it out and find maximum resonance.
Urgent proposal from Sarah
Sarah – this is rushed idea. We are encouraging many people to Lime-house for a party! It is alcohol free, completely. This is simply because of the issues around alcohol. A large Muslim group in the area and they will not join us if we allow it.
Can we decide that intimidation, violence, spitting, abuse of process and all -isms are NOT acceptable. This has been happening with NO consequence. What I would like to see today is that anyone who comes to Lime-house today stands today with us and that we circle anyone who does this and remove them fro the site. A soft kettling. If this works today, we will develop into a full SS proposal. I nearly went yesterday, and I know I am not alone.
If we cannot protect our own, we are nothing.
We need to ban from site, anyone who makes it unsafe to do occupy London business. If you are willing to do this come stand with us now.
[most people stand with Sarah, a couple stay sitting]
? [this seems a little vague still, we need concrete proposal ]
Sarah – yes. We need to do this by consensus, but for now. Today. We do this.
Tammy – we should use Lime-house this afternoon to test this. We shouldn’t fight aggression with aggression. Sure there are contributing factors. But action must be taken, We can’t just tut and shake our heads. We don’t have to be nasty to do this It can be loving. The majority here have just shown they find this behaviour unacceptable.
A majority here are demanding action.
Sarah – So everyone coming to Lime-house could hopefully bring some food. Soft kettle any naughtiness.
Simon – [reminds people that the GA is still going!]
SHOUT OUT
I’m here as a faith group. Occupy is simply people and places. Faith groups have been a part of moral reasoning for years. In order for occupy to represent the 99% we’re going to need to engage these faith groups. These faith groups are also going to have to open their doors
Saturday 12pm RcoJ we’re having a meeting.
I ask for your assistance in spreading this.
[Discusses a future Pilgrimage to Canterbury with events along the way.]
[My laptop packs up. I inform the GA then slink to the back of the crowd.]
minutes end. Meeting continues.