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OC Conference Call 8/16/10

Facilitator: Sylvia

Agenda:

  • Roll call
  • Working group and DLOC (brief) updates
  • Financial update (Victor/Sylvia/Stephanie)
  • Merchandise update (Adrienne/Diana)
  • Evaluation and documentation update (Will/Jackie/Adrienne)
  • NPC October meeting (including volunteers for Agenda Development-Facilitation-Logistics Teams); budget proposal (Adrienne/Sylvia)
  • Websites, social web, e-blasts, and wikis update/status (Adrienne/David)
  • Next OC call: Mon, 9/13 or 9/20

Who's on:

Sylvia, Marian, Steph, Alfredo, Adrienne, George, Maureen, Jamie, Akudo, Roberto, Maureen, Victor, Diana, David, Oya, Jardyn, Mary, Tapeka, Jen, Jackie



* Working group and DLOC (brief) updates

ICT (Alfredo): - Mayfirst wrapping up stuff delayed by USSF - gonna get together the mammoth report which is late. - techie follow-up meeting for formal eval, have been in touch with and done informal eval with the 50 techies they are in touch with.

Comms (David): - From social website, we still have twitter/FB accounts which are really big. been posting daily since USSF to retain base of followers & share news/reports. - Have a elist of 18-19K - need to decide which information goes out and how to use this for messaging. we need to think of what's next for ussf movement, how to use this for donor appeals, press releases, organizing, news about PMA actions, etc. - What will website look like over next months/years? - What's the status of photo/video from the forum and how will it be used here?

PMA (steph): - putting out summary action report. - 2 year plan for building towards 2012 elections, on actions. - site is up, fielding resolutions and questions

Youth (Jardyn): - mostly been jardyn and corina - put stuff on fb to get feedback, still a work in progress - seems like at least 600 ppl came thru each day for lunch (didn't keep a sign-in sheet for the space)

Culture (Oya): - report not in yet, blame oya not collective - creativity lab report is done. had over 500 ppl a day participating, artists from all over. - film festival had close to 400 ppl - more on oliver stone's premier night - hart plaza was harder to track. - working to write it up so next forum doesn't go thru same issues

Poverty (Mary/Marian): - 4-500 participated in Poverty Summit, very good discussion with conclusion to have a campaign to eliminate poverty & build assemblies & leaders grounded in theory and political understanding. - also want to support & participate in the World Court of Women - working on a conference to consolidate & act on some of the conclusions/decisions - good buzz coming out of the event, more of a coalition formed.

Language Access (Roberto): - left Detroit in the clear, with all but 1 set accounted for. need to figure out how to expedite that process. - getting frustrated calls from folks who want to be paid

Logistics (Maureen): - has yet to firm up official report. team was physically spent, has been resting. a mighty report will be coming with much-needed valuable info.

International Solidarity (Jennifer): - also behind on evaluation. Louis is forming report. - no formal numbers on international folks.. 200? - international visitors response so far has been extremely impressed, especially with grassroots base & leadership of the forum. they're looking to those aspects for lessons & leadership for the forum process on the world level.

Outreach (Akudo): - having preliminary conversations about their report - numbers we announced were 15,000. (since have noted at 16,000, and are announcing 18,000 with walk-ins. - outreach is drafting a letter around (bathroom) LGBTQ/Youth accountability issue from the USSF

Gender Justice (not on call)

Indigenous WG (not on call)

Resource Mobilization (not on call)



* Financial update (Victor/Sylvia/Stephanie)

- Stephanie has been checking with WGs on financial records. - We need to get paper back work to finish in order to get the books straight with Praxis Project. - In terms of specifics of $ needs you may have, please check in directly with Victor. - Victor: USSF is not broke... we do have some money after concluding some contracts post-USSF. Victor is reviewing invoices & cutting checks, still catching up & confirming details regarding refunds/payments/reimbursements. - Various issues came up with reimbursements for transpo, solidarity housing, registrations, May Detroit meeting, etc. - Victor needs to report financials to Praxis ASAP for their reporting purposes. - Numbers not final yet on posters, tshirts, other merch. Books still need to come togethering regarding some of the revenue producing aspects of USSF. - Leftist Lounge, financials have been paid/cleared, with some minor things coming in. - In all, close to 150 different types of transactions during the USSF week. - Some additional funds have been trickling in late, (i.e. registrations)

When can we expect payments on some of the reimbursements? - Victor is trying to push out reimbursements for the personal costs that folks took on, especially this week and weekend. If you've updated your mailing address since mid-July, please email Victor know asap so your checks can go to the right place. - by October NPC meeting, finance team will be categorizing payments & transactions.




* Merchandise update (Adrienne/Diana/Maureen) - First DLOC meeting is August 17. - DLOC is considering post-USSF tshirt & poster sales. - We have a ton of printed programs leftover. - We have many beautiful posters (4 different designs) left. We're putting these together in packages to fundraise for the forum.


DLOC update: Lots of the local organizations who didn't make it to the USSF are really curious now about what it was and how to be involved. We'll be getting them involved with DLOC & getting merchandise to them.

- can there be fundraising to get local folks to Senegal for the 2011 World Social Forum? - DLOC is guaging whether the local/regional groups want to stay involved with the social forum process in between forums on the local level.

Planning for a well-outreached September DLOC meeting to discuss these and other issues.



* Merchandise update (Adrienne/Diana)

- posters shipped to Cali to Favianna Rodriguez, Just Seeds will manage online sales & shipping. (include this in our online outreach) - many left also in the Detroit/MWRO office. packages of posters/tshirts will be used for giving away and sales. there is a tshirt sales site- folks can purchase by credit card. We are finalizing what this shipping & handling process will look like and who will handle this from USSF/DLOC/Centro Obrero's end. - it's been an idea to sell tshirt/poster/program as a package and ship it to folks, but the poster doesn't ship easily so it won't be included. - business plan needed for tshirt/package sales, with Centro Obrero really involved so we aren't losing funds. how do we navigate local vs. national sales, in person vs. online, etc. - some local stores may be willing to sell them as retail, Centro is looking into it.



* Evaluation and documentation update (Will/Jackie/Adrienne)

- During the forum, Sylvia/Jackie printed & helped get out a paper evaluation. - Jackie helped coordinated observation of various aspects of the forum. - July 31st was a time for staff/OC/NPC/volunteer reports to come in to the OC based on a template Adrienne sent out.

We still need reports from:

- registration

- poverty

- senior citizens

- culture

- Children's Social Forum

- Child Care

- Caravans

- PMC

- outreach (local & nat'l)

- opening march

- logistics

- leftist lounge

- int'l solidarity

- indigenous

- housing

- Hart Plaza


Will/Ife are shoring up what the evaluation of the forum will be from here on out & reporting back on that process this week. How do make sure we map everything that happened as it happened.

We have video & documenation from the forum. What does a long video look like? Will is volunteering to help.

Large paper will be on the wall at the DLOC meetings for in-person feedback in addition to the local discussions.

How are we going to gather information from all participants of the forum to give them a chance to offer feedback.

Evaluation in general- forward looking to provide possible future forum organizers with insight & context.

Jackie & George recommend providing funds to a coordinator (Will?) for the evaluation/synthesis process, which will be shored up & consolidated by the October in person meeting.

Maureen: - workshop organizers & others are calling in asking how they can participate in the evaluation process. Steph: - how do we do a tiered/weighted evaluation process incorporating various perspectives. George: - there will be some level of interviews.



* NPC October meeting (including volunteers for Agenda Development-Facilitation-Logistics Teams); budget proposal (Adrienne/Sylvia)

Budget (sylvia): - proposed budget is $28,600 for around 75 travel stipends for NPC/OC/staff/former staff & key participants. travel/shuttle/food/meetingspace/food. - Budget approved over call

Agenda development team: - Will, Alicia, Adrienne - need reports to get in before really developing agenda - let Adrienne know if you want to join agenda team/help facilitate. - we'll be covering basics/finances of course - also want to get into the 5 goals

In-person Meeting will be Oct 8-10, 2010 in Detroit.


Websites, social web, e-blasts, and wikis update/status (Adrienne/David)


- we need a plan for the website/wiki/social networking/email - what are we going to put out there, what is our team that helps do it? - what is our management protocol for how to stay in contact with the USSF and hear from the USSF? - how do we follow the slogans/messages of the social forum? how do we support the local organizations within this messaging/communications infrastructure?

What is the health & status of the local organizations. We did all this building for the USSF process, how do we continue to support the local organizations & health of Detroit organizers.

Adrienne, David, Jamie, Tdka will be coming up with plan with moving forward around website, wiki, social web, e-blasts, media.



Anchor Meetings status: - Anchors have met only once since the forum, haven't had a chance to make Anchor org reports. Will be discussing it at DLOC meeting a bit. - How do we support the local organizations within this messaging/communications infrastructure?



Next OC call: We'll need another OC call before the In-person meeting- sometime in September. Will be sent out over email. Get in your reports!