Agenda:
- - intake of additional NPC opinions on Facebook/Twitter logos on site towards end of resolution/compromise
- - Evaluation and Documentation plans to influence 3/26-28 OC Meeting [hint, there's a survey in it for you!]
- - OC empowerment (AMB)
- - Update on Funder's Accompaniment Process
- - Reviewing upcoming events on the calendar [Gender Justice Regional meetings, PMAs, Work Brigades, etc]
- - Offer from Leftist Lounge (rishi)
--
- Update on Funder's Accompaniment Process (from Melissa Carino)
- We’ve had 2 funder calls so far, and approximately 20 funders have participated on each. Many of these funders are excited about participating in upcoming calls, and we get new folks joining us each time. Some of the results we’re expecting are funders attending the USSF as well as joining FNTG’s funder delegation. We’re also working on ways for funders to support thru grants directly to USSF or helping their grantees attend.
FULL NOTES:
Agenda: - intake of additional NPC opinions on Facebook/Twitter logos on site towards end of resolution/compromise (sylvia) - Outreach Update, Cindy - Evaluation and Documentation plans to influence 3/26-28 OC Meeting [hint, there's a survey in it for you!] - OC empowerment (AMB) - Update on Funder's Accompaniment Process - Reviewing upcoming events on the calendar [Gender Justice Regional meetings, PMAs, Work Brigades, etc] - Offer from Leftist Lounge (rishi)
Roll Call: Kaajal, Praxis Brooke, Jubilee USA Eddie, AFL-CIO Darryl, AFSC Byron, Freedom Road George, IPPN Jerome, LRNA Maryanne, AFSCME Teresa, WILFPF Carlton, Alternate Roots Jackie, Sociologists w/o Borders Jamala, Freedom Road Adrienne, Ruckus Genaro, SWU Louis, SWOP Carrie, Amnesty International Danielle, CTWO Sylvia, MWRO Adele, Comms staff Will, DLOC Jacqui, WOCU Walda, LRNA Sarita, JWJ Cindy W, GGJ Cindy D, Center for Social Justice Rishi, Leftist Lounge Michael, GGJ Alicia, POWER Jen, PPEHRC Elena, Centro Obrero
1. intake of additional NPC opinions on Facebook/Twitter logos on site towards end of resolution/compromise (sylvia) how to make a determination around what it is that we link coming off of the social forum website
how often and in what instances will we use corporate and proprietary tools for USSF communications and outreach?
In March, we developed some technology principles. To get started, we needed a framework and a set of principles.
some of the struggles that we're having: -we have a large need to let people know about the USSF, get people registered, and get feedback about what people want to get out of the process, making it a two way conversation. social networking sites are instrumental to doing this, but they are mostly corporate tools. if we are to put them on our website, what does that mean? does it mean that we're promoting or endorsing these tools? -for the facebook, we have 10,000 fans. probably an equivalent to how many people were in atlanta for 2007 social forum. -we don't want to contribute to corporate branding and profits, so how do we mediate this? -we need some additional feedback from folks on the NPC and through the working groups.
Responses / Discussion -we have a core of 5 techies in ICT who have been working 20 hours a week for the last 2 1/2 months. they do week long sessions and weekend sessions to make this possible. we know that there is a bad relationship between radical techies (?) one of the things that we use to bring people in is the idea that the USSF supports open source principles. this represents technologists that are doing the work. unfortunately, the characterization of the website has had an impact on those techies; they feel like they put all this work in and people think its clunky. we're dealing with a morale problem internally. one of the documents i've used to bring techies into the process is the USSF principles. this is to highlight the behind the scenes challenges and to make sure that people are sensitive to this. my thing here is to explain the context of the principles to the NPC. -question: i'm hearing the hard work is being done and the need to have standards, but i'm not hearing exactly what, outside of facebook, will be done. --answer: facebook and twitter were the main things that were mentioned. the question is do we link facebook and twitter to the USSF website. the conversation is centered here, but it could also be about youtube and myspace as well. right now we don't have any links to any videos that are hosted on youtube. can we at least have a page that can direct folks to all of the ways in which people are participating? are we sending people away from the website before they have a chance to really learn about it? there is a whole communications strategy plan, and some of these ideas are documented in there. the USSF principles have been approved and highlight the ways in which we want to communicate to people about the USSF. -i think we're all working very hard and when these conversations happen morale seems to wane up and down. communications is proposing that we reach a compromise, and not have an either or strategy. using links like twitter and facebook doesn't have to be an endorsement. we want to meet people where they're at; we can link our principles underneath that. -i think this is a fascinating discussion. we should definitely have discussion about the principles and what are effective ways for communication. i heard the need for the people in ICT to feel supported. the work that we're doing in detroit with urban agriculture. it would be nice if we could require people to only eat locally grown foods, but we also want to meet people where they're at. how can we encourage people to use open source materials? we should have a conversation about it and see what are the best ways to reach people through these tools, but also what are the best ways to increase open source materials uses? from my experiences, its more about supporting it and not demanding that that be the only way. there is a need to support the technology and the people who are using it. -i haven't seen any of the back and forth between communications and ICT. if it's a question of whether or not we use facebook, etc. definitely we should be using it. we use it organizationally, and this is the way that we get people to see the work that is happening. we don't have the capacity internally to be manipulating our website. i was there when we created the Tech Principles, and i remember during that conversation there was support for open source technology, and also an understanding that these are tools that people are using and that meet people where they're at. as an organizer, we use those things as a tool. we have to be using them, don't know if we need to link them to the website. -on one hand i use facebook and twitter a lot on things related to the USSF, and just the other day on a friend's facebook page, within 5 minutes we recruited 2 new people to the USSF. with that said, i'm also doing a lot of outreach to a lot of people related to the social forum and routinely directing them to the website. i do know that it is a smart move on my part when i'm directing people to the website, i give them specific links because we need to be as efficient as we can. i certainly don't see any big contradiction between those two things. the issue becomes the old thing of whether we're trying to change the world or whether we're trying to create a world that has alternatives to what already exists. we have to be sensitive and thoughtful about how we approach this. -we weighed in early on in the process (outreach working group) but i think that the main concern is that we're in serious dire need for people to register. we're in a big problem given the numbers and the point where we are in the timeline. at this moment, we're not sure we can reach 20,000. the question of keeping people exposed to the alternatives and the processes of open source is good, and we also need to use the things we have on hand and what people use everyday. we had a serious meeting with communications where we outlined a mass strategy and part of our air war strategy is the social networking pieces. it's impacting our ability to get to a certain sector and a base of people that i think we need to be reaching out to so that they can be going back to their communities and getting more people involved. i want to respect the need to upgrade our technology principles, but we need to get moving. i'm concerned about how much longer we need to go on before this gets resolved. -we're in the process of scheduling a call between ICT and Communications so that we can get moving. -One ICT rep feels the matter seems to be resolved. communications made a proposal which we're enthusiastically supporting. we're ready to implement ASAP. i'm not sure that it's necessary given limited time on the part of various groups. i think we're pretty much in agreement. -i'm not sure that we got concensus on this. folks may still have difference. the conversations have really just been happening between a few people. -we do need to have a deeper conversation for it. good to have this space. if people want to be on the other conversation that's fine, but the idea is to have that discussion by monday, march 8 so that we can move forward with our outreach.
- Outreach Update, Cindy we've been trying to get a weekly assessment of how many people we have registered and money raised. currently we have 222 organizations, 21 which are NPC organizations that have registered. we would like NPC organizations to register. -we have 773 individuals, $23,545 raised so far. this is our main source of resource generation. -Pending: $12,589 in hand through pay pal, $10, 956 is what people have promised to send in through check or money order -march 20 deadline for workshop submissions--our assessment is that at this point, two weeks ago we had ten workshops. not sure how many others have been registered. -we wanted to propose having a discussion with the program committee about the march 20 deadline. we need to get the word out and create flurry around the social forum. -we want to propose an extension of the date and work with program to figure out what's feasible, in our perspective going for april 20 would be better. -we started off the USSF informational calls yesterday. only about 6 people came on to the call. english tuesday 6pm eastern in spanish, thursdays 6pm eastern. we need people to do outreach to send those informational calls out to your networks, regions, etc. we'll answer key questions that people need answers to on those calls. - as a reminder from NPC decisions, march 20 was the external deadline, we need to set an internal deadline as well as determine when to announce that. -program is down to talk with outreach, and is likely to agree with recommendation - lack of registrations is having an impact on our budget. we're a couple of paychecks behind for those on staff. -finance team will be meeting this evening to discuss these issues. even though we did adopt a core costs budget, we may need to make some adjustments. we're out of grants that we can apply for, so we're having to be creative with grassroots fundraising -we'll send out the informational calls information.
Evaluation and Documentation plans to influence 3/26-28 OC Meeting [hint, there's a survey in it for you!] developing a survey to get input from NPC/OC on what questions to prioritize during NPC, OC and USSF. there will be a survey that's simple; one part prioritizing questions that we have gathered that came from all of you, and the other part is where should the conversation happen. -we have 42 organizations on the NPC, so we need 42 surveys back. -everyone unmute and tell us if you're going to do this survey. -is there anyone who cannot make a commitment to do the survey? -i'll send out the link after this discussion; it's a one page survey monkey. -in regards to the eval and documentation committee; we have met and developed a more overarching plan that the survey that was mentioned is a part of. we have on the wiki site and i'll post in the etherpad a rough outline of our plan for evaluating the whole process, so we'd like your input on these questions and our plan to help document the forum. if you go to the documentation and evaluation committee link on the wiki, you'll find the evaluation plan. -there's also a checking in component in the survey on how we're doing in achieving our five goals.
Documentation and eval. committee work plan-- please provide feedback! http://wiki.ussf2010.org/wiki/Evaluation_Plan
OC empowerment (AMB) -we had this conversation on the last NPC call and we created teams to hold this work. the OC needs to be able to make decisions at this meeting, so i wanted to make sure that this is highlighted. we need to empower the OC as a representative body of the NPC. Please keep this in mind as you're filling out the surveys; are these questions that we trust the OC to address and make decisions on at our next meeting.
Update on Funder's Accompaniment Process -Mark Randazzo and Melissa Carino from Funders Network on Trade & Globalization are helping to organize these funder calls, about 20 funders. many are excited and we're expecting more. we expect funders to attend and join the FNTG delegation. -there's a link on the wiki that shows all of the upcoming events. they've been doing a lot of outreach to make sure people know about them. -12pPST/3pmEST is when the calls are, and they're monthly.
Reviewing upcoming events on the calendar [Gender Justice Regional meetings, PMAs, Work Brigades, etc]
-give an opportunity for folks to talk about upcoming events
-abc.ussf2010.org
-ruben is on a southwest tour doing a strategy tour and PMA's. Knoxville in April, one coming up in New Orleans. most of the information of what's coming up is posted on the site itself. One coming up in the Bay Area this month (March 13, hosted by PODER)
- people's freedom caravan: looking at from TX to OK, linking up with AZ and NM thru MO 6/19, to Chicago 6/21, then Toledo and Detroit on 6/22 to converge. Meet ups in St Louis. In Toledo meeting up w/ east coasters.
-Delta to Detroit march starts 4/4 in New Orleans in MLK anniv assassination (on Easter this yr), multiracial march and "eye of storm" symbolism, 7 states. In 1968 poor people's march started in MS, linking with that remembrance. Much fundraising to make possible...
- Work brigades (leading up to USSF) and projects (during USSF) in Detroit. : urban ag, cultural programs and bicycles--trying to get many donations. Need ck in with Outreach WG, much good energy in Detroit. How many people interested in volunteering, transportation insfrastructure to work sites. Contact Will for more info.
- announcement - writer's network is going to have 'correspondents' for each of these pieces of work, please recruit correspondents to help cover these marches, caravans, work brigades, etc. Stories can be posted to the wiki site's press and people stories page
http://wiki.ussf2010.org/wiki/Press_and_People_Stories . We'll try to work that into the writers network updates and get the word out. Stories can also be sent to writers@ussf2010.org
go to wiki for links to get writers info and links to what's been written and printed
- Offer from Leftist Lounge (rishi) estimating 8000 people with many DJs for big USSF party. want to offer to NPC orgs ability to sponsoring LL to have their org be part of a high profile event and get publicity (maybe banner, tabling, other promotion). More info email info@leftistlounge.com Email to NPC coming soon.
- Political Convo Ad-Hoc Groups Need people willing to help hold down these convos. Volunteers? 1-2 convos in next 2 weeks. Perhaps we need additional convos with this larger group before groups break off. World Social Forum strategy: is Int'l Solidarity Team taking up this piece? There's an overlap with PMA synthesis convo group. Make sure is being discussed somewhere. IST focusing on questions between relationship with global SF process and US. 1. Goal Evaluation [How are we doing on our 5 goals?] {Jacqui, George}
2. Post-USSF - Will there be another? How will we decide? {Jerome, Walda, Oya. Will}
3. Synthesizing the NPC PMA results - fronts of struggle, state of resistance {Sara K, Steph}
- Other announcements? hotels, real estate, faqs, volunteers, outreach materials
- I will forward you info from our February call.
- A description of all our calls can be found here: http://www.fntg.org/events/index.php?op=view&eventid=4633
- All calls are at 12pm Pacific / 3pm Eastern.