OC working group reports 4-12-10

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Working group representatives: prior to the 4/12/10 conference call, please submit your written report below. This information will be used to help draft the agenda and will allow other working groups to be prepared with feedback.

Each report should include the following:

• Summary of working group projects, activities, and/or organizing work.
• If applicable, summary of working group (sub)committee projects, activities and/or organizing efforts.
• Upcoming deadlines or milestones.
• List of feedback, direction, and support needed from the OC and/or specific working groups.
• Name of representative(s) who submitted the report.

To edit this page, click the "edit this page" tab at the top of the page, scan down to the header for your group and type or cut/paste your info. Use wiki coding to enhance your text, save at bottom of page. Brief wiki coding (or use icons in edit box):

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Gender Justice

1. Continues weekly calls

2. Generated an outreach list to a number of gender justice organizations. Sent out calls to register for the USSF and to estimate number of organizational members attending USSF 3. On-going planning for gender justice PMA is happening and the process has moved up a notch

4. Planning programming at the USSF, security/logistics, infusing gender justice throughout, etc.

5. Continue participation and planning with other working groups and committees: Queer, PMA, poverty, program/culture, etc.

6. Next conference call this Wed., 9:00 eastern (see GJWG Wiki for call-in number)

7. Website navigation and content upgrades & coordination are underway. New Program, Logistics, Fundraising & Press/Media Sections are up

8. Social Media is making some buzz. More blog buzz coming in, our research team is keeping a pulse on the USSF online. Facebook is really happening in a big way- lots of buzz. Multimedia sharing networks are in place.

9. Email Marketing is being handled by B Lowe & David M, less by Charles L- planning to move to a weekly email-blast schedule.

ICT

• Completion of process for entering mail in registration

• Completion of process for entering mail in workshops and PMA's

• New search interface for workshop reviewers to find workshops and process them

• Continued work in partnership with Comms on the Peoples Media Center and continued work on the main website

On the Horizon:

• Continue improvements in making registration changes easier

• Managing workshop/scheduling/room assignments

• Develop principles and roadmap for the Peoples Media Center

• Outreach and organizing: brining more techies in

Outreach

Outreach report

#’s are from April 7, 2010

Registration #s: Here are the latest registration numbers as of this morning: Total # of people registered: 2863 Total organizations registered: 688 Total amount raised: $80,163 (of which $47,362 has been received)

Update on PMA + Workshop Submission: 198 workshops 2 PMAs

PMA instructions: If you want your PMA to be included in the scheduling and to appear in the printed program for the USSF, please follow these steps: 1 – Register the sponsoring organization 2 – Press the ‘Submit Workshop or PMA’ 3 – Fill out 4-hour form and check PMA box 4 – Include 3 collaborating organizations in addition to the sponsoring organization 5 – Submit online or by mailing the form to <Project South address> 6 – If you submit online you will receive confirmation of receipt of ‘workshop’ 7 – Coordinate with PMA Working Group to ensure inclusion of your Resolutions for Action in the National Assembly

PMA are not counted towards the org 2-workshop limit. It needs to be submitted if it is going to be printed in the program.

USSF Spokespeople We need 15 more names, bios and photos. There are gaps in the region and sector. Email: brigid@pushbacknetwork.org. She is the main coordinator of names/spokespeople.

Calendar:

• April 10, 2010 immigration reform events. Teamsters 705 in Chicago 10am Seattle, more
• April 10-national day of action on immigration reform in many cities, Seattle, Chicago, Las Vegas, Philly, and others.
• April 17-19, 2010 North Carolina. SNCC 50 reunion, Akudo attending. Third World Coalition and Strategy Center will be attending.
• April 22-25, 2010 in Orlando AFL-CIO State Federations and Local Central Labor Councils are getting together. Expecting 400-500. Targeting the Midwest Region since there will be regional breakouts. The head of the Detroit Center Labor Council has endorsed.
• April 19-21, 2010 in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Indigenous Environmental Network, Movement Generations, Grassroots Global Justice are on a joint delegation. Cindy, Tom and Genaro will be attending. Use the outcomes to inform USSF programming. Will be doing targeted invites to Latin American Social Movements to attend the USSF.
• May 1: PPEHRC is coordinating with Take Back the Land: will be doing actions across the country will be doing press conferences against foreclosures and general housing crises. Will promote the USSF- workshops and PMA's on these issues.
• May 1-Marching Otro Mundo es Posible-creating presence of USSF at the immigrant rights rally.
• Month of action on Dream Act -leading to larger activities at Detroit
• Juneteenth-Black liberation in various cities across country.

Major Push from April 20th Deadline Please send out USSF announcement to your listserves, member groups and allies.

Next call: Tuesday, April 20, 11:30 am PST, 12:30 pm MTN, 1:30 pm CTL, 2:30 pm EST.

Program & Culture Working Group

Program

what we've been working on: -reviewing workshops that are being submitted -preparing with logistics to plug in workshops into room locations during time slots; planning to come to detroit in early may -communicating with ICT around remaining submissions and site issues -collecting submissions that come in on paper--some of which are complete, most of which are not -coordinating with language access around interpretation of workshop short descriptions for online and printed program -developing a grid (with logistics) that will allow us to assign workshops to rooms and locations and time slots

key questions / issues coming up: -we're still receiving some PMA submissions--need direction from PMA on how to proceed. should we approve them or should there be some mechanism through we we communicate about how to proceed? -there is still old language on the website that says the wrong deadline for workshops which needs to be changed ASAP as the deadline is approaching in about a week -there are still folks having trouble submitting workshops on the site, though it seems like most are getting through -many workshop submissions are asking to be slated for the last day--we are preparing an email to all submitters that says we've received their request and will do our best to accommodate it, but that we can't guarantee that your workshop will occur on the day you've requested. -a second email will also include logistical information about where the workshop is located and at what time, so that people can do their own outreach about their workshop

needs from the group: -ICT: we still need an administrative password to be able to make key needed changes on the program / culture site. we also need the language on the site to reflect changes made during the last few meetings, included but not limited to the updated information on paper submissions, updated information on the changed due date of workshop submissions. -PMA: we need direction about how to approach PMA's submitted through the workshop submission site -DLOC: we need to collect any additional workshops that have been submitted in paper form

Resource Mobilization

As of today it looks like we still have to raise roughly $225,000 to reach our core cost budget (see figures below). We have 3 outstanding foundation requests totaling $150,000, and outstanding registration fees of roughly $51,000. If all of this income comes in we will only need to raise an additional $24k to meet our core cost budget needs as identified in the last OC meeting.

The major donors subcommittee met last week and has set a goal of $50k to raise from major donors (contributions of $250 or more)

Core Cost Budget as of March 2010 = $771,130

Balance to be raised as of 5/10 = $224, 676

Projected Income

• Foundations (Surdna, Solidago, Jessie Smith Noyes) $150,000

• Registration outstanding $51,000

Total Projected income $201,000

Remaining Balance = $23,676

International Solidarity Team

- Invite letters to international invitees are going out; Mallory is handling most of this

- We are starting to get confirmations on international participation, at this point from Latin America and Africa; we should be able to give more specifics soon on this

- Rocio can no longer co-chair IST because she is having to devote as much time as possible to local organizing work

- We are developing criteria for disbursement of funding that we have to cover costs of international participants

We are working with plenaries team on role of international guests in the plenaries

We also want to look at the possibility of setting up some space for international participants, informal interaction etc at the USSF, maybe tent or maybe in Cobo hall or something. We can create a proposal around this, but just wanted to raise this to start with.

Jen Cox