OC conf call 12-4-09

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FIRST ORGANIZING COMMITTEE CONFERENCE CALL

3pm EST, 2pm CST, 1pm MST, 12pm PST.

Working group reps: please remember to submit your reports on the wiki by Friday morning at: http://wiki.ussf2010.org/wiki/OC_working_group_reports_12-4-09

OC agenda draft (1.5 hrs)

• Roll call
• Check-in/agenda edits
• OC process and accountability
• Summary of working group reports and feedback needed
• Int'l Solidarity Committee
• Personnel...Contractors/Staffing
• Registration
• Website redesign and edits
• OC-NPC Albuquerque meetings logistics
• DLOC, anchors, staff reports or feedback

• Roll call

Sylvia, Michael, Rose, Alfredo, George, Steph, Cindy, Mayowa, Mallory, Will, Maureen, Jerome, Jennifer, Diana, Oya

• OC process and accountability

Sylvia--Through OC conference calls and face-to-face meetings we hope to be able to provide the direction, decision making and feedback needed for working groups to do their work. On issues that require more political input and that are related to the budget, we will refer them with our recommendations to the NPC. Additionally, all working group reps or alternates are expected to be able to participate in these meetings and so that working groups don't hold up the work of others. Each rep should come to these meetings having submitted written reports in advance on the wiki and prepared to make decisions for his/her working group.

All reps on this called agreed to this.

• Summary of working group reports and feedback needed

GENDER JUSTICE: setting up biweekly calls to have mtgs and infuse GJ analysis in diff committees, incl security. with pma talk of pma assembly proposal, initiate convo on pma effort and gj wg. can oc help provide feedback?

ICT: Mallory & Tdaka are tech coordinators and are formulating their goals. 75% finished with Consulta process. 75% finished with registration form & working to couple the workshop submission forms for the first of Jan. Received wire frames on the website design - Putting together final designs and by the beginning of the year, the website package will reflect what folks want and are looking for

Alfredo - question: How do we approve the Registration Form? There are many dynamics - the leadership of USSF needs to test it before it goes public - What is the process? Who makes the final approval?

Maureen - Most critical part of our work right now - Registration process needs to get nailed down, the pay rates, the online aspects, tech support for folks, online payment - Got to be before the end of Jan

Mallory - Another ICT task that has been ongoing - there is always online support - over 200 tickets opened and answered - Encouraging point people to use the support tickets as the best way to get in touch with ICT group

Sylvia- there is also a way to get there on the wiki [1]

LOGISTICS: based off ATL work hoping to establish key contact points in ATL and nationally to help with best practices, and other support work. much is happening in Detroit. have 2010 hotel rooms plus working on more. contacting southwest and spirit airlines to negotiate rates, also amtrak.

Jerome - Liaison from the program committee - please put me on the list and notify me about the calls

OUTREACH: 1) Part of the consulta team - online 390 responses - sending out reminders to USSF list so that folks will have 1 week to respond - initital report about the feedback so far - great process - goal is to get 500 minimally - written snail mail process has been slower - distributing by email & paper - important that the npc members and organizations have filled them out - 2) Outreach toolkit has been worked on and there are a few edits - FAQs and materials are out - Sending them out in the next week 3) Conversation with SWOP and others about the next NPC meeting to do targeted outreach to prioritize indigenous communities, border, rocky mountain/plains - mobilize to be part of the meeting and be part of the mobilization - Who are the key contacts? - Outreach meeting will get landed soon 4) Staffing - report & recomendation will come later

Maureen - international folks - working out visa issues - what do i do with those calls? Cindy - Jen is repping the International Cmtee - transferring contacts to Louis & Rocio

PMA: Calls 2 times a month. Great team - Web team getting PMA web presence with the Organizing Kit, history and short 5min video: - proposal around NPC meeting & PMA - Organizing Plan that includes key regional contacts and sectoral contacts - Will post calendar and notes to the wiki

CULTURE/PROGRAM: Registration Form & Workshop proposal forms (concern is to stick on the deadlines as we can). Program goal is Jan 1 for workshops and registration, can't register for wkshp without paying reg first. Want to see program work links up with liaisons from other working groups Culture side: we're keeping the culture and program work together - to increase our abilities to integrate culture into all aspects of program

Will - Folks can also submit ideas for cultural work as well - that's getting worked out

RESOURCE MOB: Things are moving well - Ben & Jerry giving additional $100K than they had before - other foundation decisions will be made in Dec - Non-Foundation strategies - hired Sha Grogan - he's been awesome - fundraising appeals process - working with registration forms - grassroots fundraising toolkit for folks trying to raise funds to get to the forum - updated and collecting the Pledge forms for the NPC - new deadline is Dec 11 - eleven forms have been submitted so far with a total of $58k in non-foundation pledges. / Difficulty is around material sales - how to fulfill orders, etc. - Sha is looking to link with other organizations / Online Fundraising - for folks to set up pages linked to donation - Call with 11 people the other day - growing - next call - jan 11

YOUTH: in good motion...several folks nationally who can do nat'l call out for young people's orgs: co-chairs, general purpose, goals, etc. by ABQ, should know more.

INT'L SOLIDARITY: 1) Invitation from friends in Cuba to send someone to International Film Festival. Genaro Lopez Rendon from Southwest Workers Union will go to rep USSF on a panel this weekend 2) Figuring out visa process - couple different levels of participation - International Council, Hemispheric Social Forums - raising resources, working on visas 3) Key folks from Canada, Quebec, and Mexico to participate/observe meeting in ABQ to build more relationship and integration to think more concretely about politics, logistics, etc

• Updates on staffing & personnel

-- Diana sent out accountability process with evaluation and communication. Field organizer is last to be hired, Steph sent out proposal around that. Will, Tammy and Steph went through the applications and have a recommendation.

-- They recommend Akudu on a part time and B as in-kind staff: B prefers to work without a salary but both will be called staff. In the next few months we could take a look at staff and evaluate where we are in terms of funding and if we can bring both on full time. Is this structure something we can support and formalize this as “in kind”? B is also asking for health care, internet, phone and travel reimbursement.

-- Is Akudu currently working currently with an organization? No (I did not catch all the orgs she did work with – but sounded like a lot)

-- Question to the OC: B. Loewe offered to work without pay for first couple of months and Akudo as part-time and recommend to bring them both on because it doesn't increase amount. They'll collaborate and move faster.

-- Maureen: doesn't know the Philly candidate, but concurs with Steph's recomendation. Supports B.

-- Need to formulate the contract with B. to show his work as in-kind

OC can support.

-- Cindy: B is requesting healthcare and subsidy for travel

-- Sylvia: all need clarity around processes for healthcare and travel expenditures going forward, personnel will be able to help with guidance

-- Accountability plan: Personnel will create some guidelines around stipends and contracting.

-- Jerome and George are transitioning into Personnel as of January.

-- Project South is currently holding down all the contracts right now – so Thank you PS! it will transfer to Praxis Project after 1st of the year with new processes.

Registration

The two proposals out there are:

1. Sliding scale from $15-$100 (early) and $20-$125 (late), like last time in 2007.

2. Tiered structure, which has been proposed as:

professionals: $100/person--5,000 registrants ($500,000)

blue collar working people: $75/person--5,000 registrants ($375,000)

lower wage working people: $50/person--5,000 registrants ($250,000)

seniors/welfare/students: $40/person--5,000 registrants ($200,000)

unemployed/homeless: $10/person--5,000 registrants ($50,000)

Need feedback for registration draft: https://community.ussf2010.org/civicrm/event/register?id=4&reset=1

Decisions to make: tiered vs. sliding scale pricing, language, phone help, paypal, follow-up information (like housing, workshops, etc.), online/offline registration

Maureen: telephone calls are coming in about registration now and people want to give money and want to get into the system asap.

Tiered vs. Sliding Scale pricing

-- Michael reports that in the resource wg people are leaning towards tiered structure because it gives more guidance to registrants on what to pay. The presentation that Maureen made in Atlanta is something people are interested in. We should have some category names – but there is agreement that tiers are positive. Also for organizational as well.

-- Registration committee were generally okay with the proposed tiered structure for individuals. Helps with organizing goals for how many people we should do outreach to depending on the tier. Need to revise the "names" given to the tiers. A campaign in 2007 was to push the registration process as fundraising and people ended up paying the higher level because of the pitch.

-- If we go with tiered, how can we encourage people to give more? Support the tiered, but let's make up a number that reflects the cost and asks people to contribute to that amount if they can during the registration process.

-- Can people volunteer to offset registration? Because the tier has a low start people do not feel that is necessary.

-- Is there a way to explain the ‘real cost’ of the USSF to help encourage people to give more if they are able? One response is that we are trying to bring a different set of people coming out – so we should make it affordable but this may be a good idea to do for Orgs etc.

Consensus on Tiered for Individuals (with need to adjust names and organize a campaign)

Idea for focusing on Organizational Sponsorship.

-- Should there be a sliding scale for organizations? We should make sure the categories are very clear. Larger organizations should really be more of a sponsorship.

-- The group registration is complicated. The org registration form is fraught with political decisions and it will take a lot of time to work through. This form is the most linked to the workshops and that also needs to be taken into consideration.

-- The registration committee is working on a lot of these issues. It sounds like we can support the tiered process and taking the questions back to the registration committee. We are pushing to get the form up in a couple of weeks.

-- If we can get in initial form in a few weeks we should be in good shape to resolve issues. If we can at least get some consensus around housing and if that is going to be on the registration. It is alright if we do not having housing on that.

-- The workshop process always come after the registration form – but they both will be launched at the same time. But when the registration form is presented on the 15 the workshop may not be presented yet – but the launch will have both. We might need to come up with recommendation from ICT about resources and capacity. Can a proposal be brought to the OC? It will be talked about.

-- Do we have capacity to do translation? That will be a consideration. We may have to identify some volunteers for translation. Maybe the International Institute would be able to contribute. Arab and Spanish have been identified as the first 2 languages. There is also the issue of hearing and vision impaired. Oya, Cyndi and Jen would be identified as people that will discuss translation along with the language access group.

-- By 12/22 OC call share and review registration form and get registration committee to work on org rates. Meanwhile, Alfredo will draft political questions related to registration and data collection.

• Website

-- We will re-launch the website committee. We will need each working group to look at their page on the website and add updates etc.

-- The wireframe of the website should be back next week. We are hoping to have the cut-ins done the next few weeks.

• Albuquerque OC-NPC mtgs

-- The PMA group talked about using the PMA process as an outreach tool. A proposal will be sent out. That facilitation team would get together with SWU and SWOP in planning the NPC meeting.

-- Melissa is working with SWOP on the details about where would stay and then looking at stipends and solidarity housing. SWOP is on the local logistics for the area.

-- We are officially meeting the 7th to the 10th. There will be some time for outreach to other communities.

-- We need to create an overall budget – especially for Detroit because we need different people that are playing key roles. Also for indigenous folks – are there key people we need to get there.

Meeting adjourned 4:53