GA minutes 2/8/12
Big Softy facilitating. David moderating. Sara taking minutes.
Misty read pledge. Hand signals.
Announcements
Tim – Planned action at AT&T next Tuesday, rally 11-2 Help save working class jobs
Misty – Welcome to all the new people! Free school at the Teardown, posted on Indymedia. Videography/editing class
Sara – Labor issues affinity group. Bringing proposal to call for repeal of exceptions to NLRA of 1935 on Saturday. Also some of us went to Mitt Romney’s campaign stop today.
Colin – Bike shop open Mon 1-5, come in and help. Seeking donations.
Big S. – 451 affinity group wants books. The ‘zine wants submissions, print version and website, outreach for Glen Iris house and other things.
David – Event at PnP on Saturday, possible press coverage, positive representation of what is going on there.
Ed – Have been occupying in the park, approached by three different GSU professors who are sending students out to interview. I will be speaking at GSU tomorrow night at 7 pm for the Student Union. We are getting visitors from all over the place, including Germany.
David – Proposal for modification of the pledge coming up. Will include correction of grammatical errors and a phrase about diversity of tactics.
Big S. – Occupation at PnP: Task Force will have to continue legal battle. This may mean that Occupy Atlanta may have to move out.
Copper – We need more original occupiers out here because yesterday people walked away with four tents. If you have time, please come occupy.
Committee report backs
Legal – Shayna: Copper had court Monday, all charges were dismissed. Copper: I appreciate everything Occupy Atlanta has done for me. We need to remember this is a non-violent movement. Sometimes tempers flare and we forget what we are really here for.
Action – Robert AT&T action, talk to me or someone on Action about our plans for that.
Misty – Conflict mediation working group exists! contact me, Andrew, Daniel, etc…training available from Sacred Space. Restorative circles.
Q from BS: Would it work for other Occupations?
Misty: I think we should try it.
No committee related proposals. Other proposal which was previously tabled:
PROPOSAL TO CUT GAs to 2 times a week. The time limit for ga would be rescinded.
Friendly amendment to go to 3 per week due to the anticipation that there will be much more business to deal with in the spring.
Response: The proposal can include a provision to add more GAs as needed at the discretion of the Process team. Also people don’t come on Mondays and Fridays, so there’s no point in having meetings people don’t come to anyway.
Friendly amendment to go to just one per week.
Response: People have different work schedules, and if we only have it on a week night or a weekend some people will not be able to attend at all. Twice a week is manageable.
Friendly amendment to have a think tank on a day that there is not enough people for a ga.
Response: This seems like something Process or somebody could just decide to do, doesn’t need to be part of the proposal.
Point of information that it is discouraging when there are not enough people for a ga.
Concern that there are not enough committee report backs at ga.
Response: That’s not so much part of this proposal, but I have a plan to address that.
Proposal passed that the ga would just be on wednesdays and saturdays without the strict 2hour time limit.
Other business
Adam – There was no Free Market on Sat. Tried to go to Gardening meeting and Education and Training meetings, neither one happened
Copper – I would like to see more up to date pictures, etc on the website. We need more conflict mediation at the occupations here, I have heard the same thing from travelers. This is a young movement and we will have conflicts, keep it peaceful.
Daniel – Firedoglake.com had a vote about which Occupations were the most successful and Occupy Atlanta was voted into the top five. We won a tent. We have a few options of what to do with it, but I feel strongly this should be an open discussion
Sara – read text of proposal for Saturday: “We, the General Assembly of Occupy Atlanta, call for the repeal of Georgia’s statutes which suppress worker’s rights in favor of employer’s rights, specifically the ‘at-will’ employment law and all laws contravening or allowing for exceptions to the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.”
Emelle – Will and I have been in Haiti, we are doing a report back Feb 12 6-8 at the AFSC building about the work we are doing. Will: There is no Occupation in Haiti, we would like to galvanize one. The youth there are very displaced morally, I would like to change that.
David- we had an informal meeting with Task Force. Anita feels confident that an appeal will be accepted. We think we should have a plan B, C, etc and contingencies. We also need to prepare in case we need to “Occupy” the building. We need a group discussion and a plan for action.
Misty – I’m sorry that things fell through, that happens some time. I’ll give out my phone number to the new people. Larry had mentioned that he can dry blankets, I know another guy who runs the Bread coffee house at Emory, if the foks in the park need that. We do have a conflict resolution working group, come get training.
? – I was on the de-escalation team at OWS. We would get training in non-violent communication and would be on duty at given times. If there was a conflict, you would call the person on duty and they would try to address it.
Will- We have some blankets, I’d like to bring them.
