Welcome to the USSF 2010 Evaluation Meeting!
Oct 8-10
AGENDA
10/8/2010 FRIDAY 9 Light breakfast 10 Reconnect 1020 Review weekend goals, guidelines, observers. Introduce Evaluation Commission and review evaluation process. Review the agenda. 11 Visioning Exercise 12 Data Review 1 LUNCH 2-5 The Goals vs The Forum 5 Evaluation Process overview 6 Closing
10/9/2010 SATURDAY 9 Light breakfast 10-1 Preliminary Report pieces presentation and discussion 1 LUNCH 2-5 Small Groups 5 CASE STUDIES 6 Celebration with Community: Dinner in Eastern Market
10/10/2010 SUNDAY 9 Full breakfast 10-1 Moving Forward
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USSF Goals:
* Create a space for social movement convergence and strategic discussion * Advance social movements agenda for action and transformation * Build stronger relationships and collaboration between movements * Deepen our commitment to international solidarity and common struggle * Strengthen local capacity to improve social conditions, organizing and movement building in Detroit
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Goals for this Meeting:
1) to further our political understanding of the USSF process and purpose 2) to understand what the major next steps are for the USSF 3) to advance the reporting on what happened in the 2010 USSF
Guidelines:
1) Everyone at the table is invested in planning the USSF (for different reasons which we don't know) 2) There is a difference between working and weight (everyone worked, and folks took different risks and carried different weight and costs). With that, this is a mutual evaluation. 3) We are linked by a purpose of movement-building, whether or not we share the same definition.
Role of observers - Welcome, glad you are here - Mindful participation - Ask your NPC buddy In large group - facilitators will prioritize NPC members - Sorry, you can't vote
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In Attendance: - Adrienne, Ruckus, staff Coordination - Sylvia Orduno, MWRO, staff Coordination - George, IPPN - Will, EMEAC - Alicia, POWER - Stephanie Guilloud, Project South - Tammy Bang-Luu, Labor Community Strategy Center + Bus Riders - B Loewe, staff Outreach, NDLON - Sha Grogan-Brown, staff Development, GGJ - Sara Kershner, IJAN - Flo Razowsky, IJAN - Mezna, USPCN - Jamie McClelland, Mayfirst/People Link - Alfredo Lopez, Mayfirst/People Link - Jamala Rogers, Freedom Road - Michael, GGJ - Cindy Domingo, GGJ - Cindy Wiesner, Center for Social Justice - Sarita Gupta w/ Suraiya , JWJ - Eddie Acosta, AFL-CIO - Louis Head, SWOP - Diana Copeland, EMEAC - Salima, Praxis - Terry Micus, WILPF - Genaro Lopez-Rendon, SWU - Rosalinda, Community to Community - Fred, DLOC - Priscilla, EMEAC - Jerome, LRNA - Walda Katz-Fishman, LRNA - Jackie Smith, Sociologists w/o Borders - Charity Hicks, Community Black Food Security Network, DLOC - Adele, staff Communications, EMEAC - Ahmina, EMEAC - Lizzy, EMEAC - Marion Kramer, MWRO - Monica, Sisters of te Road, PPHERC - Emily, SEN - Glenn, American Indian Health Services - Julio, Centro Obrero - Cara Page, Kindred - Tdka and Ife Kilimanjaro, University of Khemet - Jen Cox, PPEHRC - Tara Colon, PPEHRC
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Reconnect: - what's happened in your life since the USSF? - what's most exciting to you about this weekend? - how are you grounding yourself for this weekend?
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Visioning/Regrounding Exercise:
Alicia: Everyone in this room, plus thousands of others, made this thing go. Our framing for this is What happened? How did it happen? What are the implications of the what happened, and how it happened?
Should there be another forum, why, and what do we need to do to make it happen?
What happened? - Rosalinda: - Sarita: JWJ organized an excluded workers congress - it was very powerful to bring folks together - farm workers, welfare workers, taxi workers. There's a lot of follow-up that is coming. Also, the increased labor participation - having the trade unionists in the room. - Tara, PPHERC: i worked with the youth, brought together youth working on so many things. A lot of youth were here, and a lot weren't able to make it. - Alfredo, Mayfirst/People Link: We internationalized the USSF in a way we didn't do in 07. We were involved in a lot of the internet streaming. We were able to break the Palestine information blockade - this is one of the most moving moments for me. The work we did with Sara and IJAN. The USSF was televised almost in its entirety. I understand that there was a lot of international viewing - people tuning in. It's important that we keep that in mind - that's big for the future survival of the human race here in the US. - Diana, EMEAC: Over 25K came, and folks participated in work projects and tours - got to participate in what happens in the city. Local folks got to come together to host. We got to connect what's happening in Detroit to local and national through the PMA process. - Eddie, AFL-CIO: the unions are all very different, but our intention was to expose trade unionists to the space, to connect their work to other people's work. It was broader... - Genaro, SWU: we did the People's Freedom Caravan - we had people host us in all kinds of cities - chicago, louisville, st louis. it was about moving ppl thru a movement building process - how we get here is important. we brought a lot of young people. there's energy moving from cochabamba to cancun - since then there's more cohesion in the u.s. climate movement. the cop16 un meeting on climate change is in cancun in december of this year. - Will, DLOC: The struggle and challenge of combining local and national actions through the 4 actions that got lifted up through the DLOC process. Lots of implications, connected to national resources. Second, the creation of the healing practice space in the UAW building. A large group of folks worked to create a healing space - part of ongoing work on how healing relates to our social movement work. It was tangible, you could literally feel the energy melting away - they did conflict resolution, healing, harm reduction to soften the impact of the USSF - B, staff Outreach: we talk about the forum as the 5 days, but there's also the process of it - a little before and after. that's where the juice is. the day before the forum in chicago we got to host buses from 5 different cities. called it Taking Our City Back - we delivered our demands to Mayor Daley, and (there may not be a direct correlation) but he's not running for office. Today is day 24 of mothers in the neighborhood of Pilsen taking over a school building. The folks holding it down are folks who connected and built that work at the forum. They wanna open doors for healing and harm reduction in our movement. Across the country i think we'd see before/after the forum has been heightened collaboration. - Mezna, USPCN: we were building towards converging and convening the first meeting of boycott of israel organizers. for the first time folks saw what was happening across the country, no one knew what was happening and who was organizing. coming out there's been organizing towards regional meetings, a national meeting in 2011. been talking about ways to organize a coherence about ways to deal with backlash. - Jerome, LRNA: can't underestimate the political impact of having this in Detroit. look at the world, at u.s., then at detroit - you see the political impact. that's one of the better decisions we made. second, the whole pma process - if you look at this whole thing as a process - the pma process continued to set the basis for movements to connect with each other. helped our understanding of our movement development and process. - Louis, SWOP: Lift up international participation at the forum in general. still not sure what the data is on that. my guess is about 200 delegates. there was a lot more deliberation amongst the ppl that came. - Jackie, Sociologists without Borders: helped ppl in this country see a different way of doing organizing, and see their work in a larger context. we produced two newspapers. Educated activist public about USSF. newspaper can be brought home as on-going organizing tool. -Adele, staff communications: spontaneity, PMAs in hallway. Rosa Clemente pulled together people of color network. People being there allowed for things that weren't planned. -Alicia, POWER: alot not mentioned. thousands more. -Tara, PPEHRC: beautiful artistic marches
How it happened? - Michael, GGJ: difference between 07 & 2010 between ways people came into forum. # of orgs were more intentional & deliberate about how USSF can benefit their work. lots happening BEFOREhand in peace, climate, food, excluded workers. People had real goals & objectives to advance. PMA process helped with that. Also, the moment contributed. Hunger caused by Obama election, attacks by right --> need to get together for something. Marker of a foundation for another type of movement in the US. Also, internationally, innovations talked at global level. - Tara, PPEHRC: March/caravan from NOLA to Detroit important to expose peoplewho never heard of most social movements. Overcome challenges to access to information. Brought people who never thought they'd come to something like this. - Maureen, MWRO/USSF: about 18 months before USSF we were already in contact and planning on a weekly basis with bi-monthly DLOC meetings and tons of addtnl mtgs. intense process, people got sick, but we kept going. All consuming but important cause we were convinced that this was critical to social movement building. - Diana, EMEAC: learned from Atlanta's work and from local Detroit groups willing to put ourselves on the line to lead committees and host it. - Steph, Project South: invisible work behind the scenes (esp to connect it to its principles) need to reconnect logistics to principles. How we move people through the space requires big strategy conversation. Lot of work to get people to come AND invest in coming. Streamlined a bit of the organizing committee. Did the new structure work? USSF is unprecedented experiment to bring this many different people with different approaches together - Sha, staff fundraising: resource mobilization to take note of. 1. major efforts to build relationships and politicize funders. Also, invisible efforts; there's what we did and then there's what everyone did to participate, raise the money, thats unfathomable, new grassroots fundraising tactics used. - Jamie, Mayfirst: tech work that happened couldn't have been paid for. 6 people or so weekly meetings, 50 people 22 hour days week leading up to. Can't pay them, can politically organize them to do it. USSF stands on free & open source software is what made that possible. - Sarita, JWJ: 1. site selection work ahead of time. work done from atlanta through to here. evaluation & learning from 2007. 2. commitment to creating the space. we all had to move our own hard conversations to get various sectors here. space important to let groups organize on their own terms. 3. outreach work: actually getting the representation we had at the USSF. Need to remember the continuous narrative from before Atlanta to after Detroit. Want to ask; what are we getting out of it? - Fred, Detroit: political struggle locally within DLOC around involvement as well as goals, especially question of people of color leadership. Local PMA -> political clarification. rooted USSF locally. huge contribution from local people to make it happen. DLOC and organizations - DLOC was a body the anchors setup to move the work. Was DLOC successful? Detroit had 4 anchors (as opposed to 1 in Atlanta) - what did we learn from that? Lots of energy came out of those organizations. I think it was very positive - everywhere you go folks have good feelings locally about the USSF. There's a meeting of a lot of folks who worked on the forum locally to come up with a broad community response to the attack of rightsizing, attacking the school system. A lot of good came out of it. - Walda, LRNA: It was a continuous process from 2005, and in the piece I want to lift up - there was a real important piece around historic memory. In program and culture working group it was the combination of new people and new energy stepping with those who lived thru 2007. Victor stood here and said, if he knew then what he knew after the forum he would have done a lot of things differently - a lot of us feel that. integrating the historically piece. a lot of it too was multitasking - program and ict had to have a relationship. it included those relationships, those sleepless nights and weekend work trips by 100% volunteers. - Will, DLOC: locally we had 12 or 13 committees that formed in addition to the overarching DLOC. those committees had various relationships with national working groups. wanted to acknowledge that. Lastly want to acknowledge Ife who came in at a critical junction and helped the coordinators to shift from a working group framework to an organizational body framework - she helped us map out all the different bodies that held pieces of work. that was very clarifying - for the first time we got a true sense of all the pieces moving. for me that was very helpful. that helped us to enter the ussf knowing who was in motion and what was happening.
Alicia - that was a lot, that was 1/25th of what happened. We wanted to lift up what happened, what we accomplished is to have a grounded conversation. Maybe need to put up a sheet of what we ain't gonna do: pick the next location, the next date. What we will do is have a convo with this body, that moves past this body.
Visioning:
What would be the purpose/significance of having another USSF?
- Maureen MWRO: Main purpose in 2010 for MWRO was so working people could come to Detroit and see what happens when economic crisis goes down. In Detroit the meat was the journey -- collectives, collaboratives, that were formed along the way. What's our capacity to go forward and let folks know there are bad things going on in this world. You can suffer quietly or we can change things. - We need to make sure we document what worked well and what didn't work as well so we can inform the next time. S. Dakota 2013? - Cindy, Seattle: Shows the sharpness of how capitalism has devastated communities. Decision to have USSF in Detroit was correct so folks could learn about history of class struggle in detroit. Help our movement think about how history can show us the path for where we are going. - Importance of planning and not just rely on spontaneity so we can ensure higher participation of people of color - It forces us to work together, and also preserve space in which people of color and poor people are working. - Sara, IJAN: Detroit was an evolution from Atlanta. It's powerful & moving that the USSF was a power and not just a depletion in Detroit. We should figure out how we go from place to place and deepen power locally, and also how that's building power in the land currently called the US. Also how our process influences movement building internationally. It's a vehicle. How people are actually doing it matters. Hopefully, there's something we are preparing for.
- How to practice building unity and struggling through questions come up. AFL-CIO and IJAN within same spectrum of orgs making change? What does that mean? How do we prepare for backlash, and how do we prepare for wins?
- Rosalinda: we need a space for all of us to be able to bring together different organizing models, and recognize that this diversity of organizing models is what will bring power to communities across the country. The purpose is to end these structured models that everyone needs to follow in order to have power. That structure has hurt us and hindered our ability to move forward. Doesn't mean those models from Alinsky, Cesar Chavez, aren't valid, but a purpose of this space allows us to create the evolution and meet up with our opposition that has taken over control of public and debating space. Leaders in social justice need a space to debate HOW we will move forward, so we can come out with a unity of response, which must be diverse. Don't want to hear "that's not within the framework" one more time, it's hurting us. Allows us to change the relationship between us.
- Radicalization of grassroots happens in this space and it's crucial. - Young people's participation. - Create new models, new ways we want to do things in this new world we're all saying is possible. We need the focus on new ways of doing things together.
- Tara PPEHRC: nationally, the USSF has leveled the playing field a bit. talking about USSF in kensington, poor neighborhoods, most folks don't know anything about environmental movement, they know what they see on the TV. It's important to have this space where we get to see all the work we never knew was out there. Whatever town the social forum comes to, regular folks in that area get to see all this other movement that's happening, that another world is possible because people are living it.
- internationally, US is one of the most diverse countries. The USSF is starting to help us get to know other ways people are living their lives. we need to integrate how we learn what's going in each other's community (at every level) - i think we should have another forum. but who have we reached and who do we still need to reach? The social forum is opening doors - my kids know who they are, where they come from, and where they are going - that education isn't happening in our schools (teaching folks who they are, where they come from, where their parents and grandparents are coming from)
- jackie: it's important to have another convergence because the environmental crisis is deepening. we need to be telling another story about what is happening - american media is not going to tell that story. they will tell the story of the tea party. we need to tell people there is another way, a collaborative way of moving forward in response to crisis. on a note of hope - there's a report by a harvard biz professor that says, americans are socialists - when talking about equality in this country, they actually are socialists, more than sweden. - jamala, FRSO: there's an expectation that there's going to be another forum - at this point that is the only vehicle at this scale. at the forum there were a few ppl who didn't think the forum was politically or ideologically advanced enough...my pushback was - how do you create this big tent for folks who think they are part of a social movement or want to be? there were a # of folks who asked me about the gender neutral bathrooms, for instance. they learned. there's an institutional memory of the forum. - steph, project south: we're at the beginning of this process. how does the ussf become a mass-based education and practice strategy. - eddie, AFL-CIO: it's exciting and challenging to think about our politics and our theories of change. we don't have one theory of change. - cindy, GGJ: people were so grateful and transformed that the forum was in Detroit - the members brought that back. for young, new organizers - this was a space to see the best of the left, the best of who we can be for 5 days in one place. this is the opposition movement we want to see. for the intl folks, a couple of us go to go to the americas forum in guatemala - we saw the excitement of our comrades from people who came to the ussf - there was a lot of excitement about the methodology. chico whitaker felt like the methodology was the vision of what the democratic bottom-up process should look like. it's unprecedented that our sector held this. - Will: we should do another Social Forum, but what should our convergence look like? We shouldn't assume it's the same type of convergence we've been doing so far. - Glenn: All of us sitting here, this is a fulfillment of what Sitting Bull was calling for. “Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.” Sitting Bull This collective energy of sharing our energy. This process is imperative to develop critical thinking, and the means of communication to put that thought/energy info effect.
ALICIA: what do we need to start, what do we need to stop, and what do we need to continue?
What would be the purpose/significance of not having another USSF?
- Glenn(?) from detroit: From indigenous perspective -- we're not interested in another US, not interested in gentler kinder colonizer. We're not interested in another USSF. We're living in occupational zone of the Americas. If there's another USSF, should be a Turtle Island Social Forum. (Later clarified -- not proposing that there not be another USSF. To the contrary!) We must not recognize the legitimacy of this imperialist force in our lives.
- Sara IJAN: There isn't something other than the USSF that exists to build convergence and look at questions of building power, so if not another USSF then something else. Something else is possible, and part of this process is to articulate whatever that vehicle for what is possible!
- jamala, FRSO: also, looking at the WSF - how do u participate as individuals, if we aren't organized as a country how do we participate?
- steph, project south: if we can't deal with these things on the front end.
- cindy, GGJ: organizations that go thru this - it's really hard, you go thru a lot of struggle, you spend a lot of money, you get battle wounds. can we build alignment?
- Sarita: it's hard, given resources & capacity, for Jobs with Justice to think about another USSF. We are committed to movement building. But I'm accountable to a base who is saying, it was incredible, we were exposed to a lot of new things, but what did we really get out of it? What Alfredo put out there is interesting. Is there another way we can do this? It was HARD to get people to the USSF. The reality is that what it takes, and the work it slows down is a really serious impact, and I'm not sure we can go through it again without more vehicles being creative.
- challenge this notion that this is the only vehicle... it's not! People are doing work in other arenas and it's great. So if we do another USSF, how are we going to work with other convergences? Not sure we'll have the capacity to pull it off again. - from JwJ -- unless there is some concrete outcomes we can plug into, it's really hard to imagine engaging this level for our entire network. And I think there are lots of other groups, local groups, who aren't here because they couldn't afford to engage in this process anymore. I need to know I'm building with people that I share political strategy with, and honestly not sure that's here. Need to know what we'll get out concretely.
What are the implications either way?
- glenn: Think about impact of Terrorist Watch List.
- tara, ppherc: we assume people are educated, and know.
- Eddie: i don't know whether we should. there seem to be multiple heads of the forum - i understood that it's an open space for folks to submit workshops. but if you want something to come out of it, how do you organize to get something out of it when folks are organizing to do whatever they want to do? there was a lot of intentional work to build the plenaries, but the turn out was low - were folks tired, hungry, or having those conversations in other places? we don't know.
- jerome: where does the ussf fit in the overall movement building process? is it helping develop that process? are we in this because we like it, or because it gives us another step towards winning. i don't think any of us are in it because we like it - it's difficult. what lies ahead in this process is hard. i was in a convo about mvmt in the 30s, 60s, now. short story - the reason this is so difficult is that in involves everybody, every section of society. no section has moved into leadership. in 2007 everyone thought that we could not do it - wouldn't give us any money, wanted bigger organizations at the table. we proved that that's not true - we proved we can do it and do it good. in 2nd forum we proved we could bring all the fronts of struggle into the process. there was a great expansion of who showed up. environmentalists, trade unionists. food folks. we also showed we can mobilize around critical points of struggle. one of last convos we had was - is stuff in AZ gonna be present in ussf - also about PR struggles. and we said yes, they have to be repped. and we got them there. its important to draw from these lessons moving forward. i lived thru the 60s - the things that were good were a result of folks doing things over and over and over again. i think of robert williams in monroe fighting the Klan. next time u saw him he was in cuba. or assatta - how did she get from prison to cuba. it didn't happen cuz folks thought, "how do we get folks out of the country" - it happened because folks were building apparatuses from after WWII. there's no time to be tired.
- Fred: it's not up to us alone whether there's another USSF and what the character will be. We transform the character of the social forum in the process, it will look different each time. Sometimes it's difficult to see how things will look in the future in the time of profound transformation. PMA process is an example: they took place all over the country. In Detroit we're still talking about having PMA's that we don't have connection with. How much do we want to control, how much do we encourage and let develop on its own? It could happen without a lot of the people in the room.
- Tammy: for our members, they got a lot out of it. But was it worth the effort it took? Not sure.
- Louis: for hosting community... USSF helps enrich and reflect understanding of where they've come from.
- once an organization commits to being on the NPC, then you have a responsibility to do work at the national level and build the work, not just focus on what's going on in your work at home.
What would we need to do? What needs to shift to make IT happen?
- need to have a discussion on who have we reached and who do we still need to reach? - steph, project south: developmental phase of the forum - we're 5 years in. context is ussf and wsf - we're still inside of that beginning phase. there's a real demand on leadership to take ourselves seriously and to innovate. to think, move and practice scale. a. we can innovate a new way of talking about money. b. innovate better practices of shared leadership across regions, issues, sites, and politics? c. and how are we building systems that build capacity? make sure we're using the ussf to practice infrastructure and scale. - eddie, afl-cio: we want to be more deliberate in organizing what we want to get out of it. do we do deliberate processes leading up to the forum, parallel processes - i know the PMAs were supposed to be that space, i'm not convinced that was the space. we don't go into planning a campaign in our orgs like we do the forum - so i think that's an identity questions from the forum. - cindy, GGJ: how do we do another one that isn't the same thing, that moves the process forward, so it isn't becoming a permanent process. we need to be clear about the implications of the NPC - if the bathroom is dirty you clean it, you run get chairs if they are needed. that's the accountability for this body. im not down for a permanent process - we need to be clear what is our relationship in stride? some of us want a higher level of unity than we have. - jerome, lrna: political conversations that show where we stand - that's part of building trust, and learning what each other are good at. also, have a space for really learning about what we've done. second, learning that working class people could do this work in the big world. if we can learn from the lessons (see implications either way), then yes the forum has a place in this work. - alfredo: need to ask what kind of social forum do we want to have? practically we can get 25k togehter. the energy behind this gets transferred to logistical. each person who came represents tens of thousands more. these 18k aren't the movement - we do have optional models. mayfirst is at world educational forum in palestine - at 5 sites because that's what's happening. a multi-city social forum in america is not only possible because of the technology, but it may be whats called for due to the political situation in the u.s., and it may be more successful. i want to propose that. - Mezna: need to think about security and how it relates to the raids... it was incredibly difficult to get people from the Arab American community to come, people just aren't convinced that this space is theirs. How do we develop this kind of space? People brought up creating expanded communities, secure space that people are in control of and participate in, and feel secure. -Will: announcement--Bill Wylie Kellerman and others organized an action against Chase Bank and they're having a press conference now with the democratic governor candidate downstairs. Continued campaign against Chase Bank is one of the continued outcomes of the process. Comment that i wanted to make regarding the questions: shifts I recognize. 1. Difference between those who had a great experience and those who emphasized work, trauma, responsibility... how can we spread responsibility and even out those two different worlds. 2. Economic crisis -- jerome mentioned everyone being affected. But world social forum is a gathering of movements. in the US, this is a gathering with an emphasis on organizations. People were excluded because they aren't in organizations. what's the connection between the social forum and those people? We should decide how to reach those people collectively. It was a barrier to people participating. - Sarita: what are other ways to be converging that doesn't require this level of commitment? - Tammy: we need to think about what it means to have a social forum in the US. Name the moment, ground ourselves in what is the state of the world? State of the movement? State of the Left? We're trying to cohere a broad left that could build a movement, that could change this country. Need to talk about the kind of innovation that happened with PMA's. Social Forum has to take a different form, and we should look to the PMA to see what we were able to learn. Looking at state of the movement. We need to talk about what is our theory of change? What composes movements? For example, people in anti-apartheid movement were part of ANC, there's Via Campesina... we don't have movement building at that scale in this country. And we won't agree what that looks like. We got to see the broadness of our work but we need more clarity.
- building joint practice helps us build joint struggles in our towns, rural areas, communities. What it takes to build it... the majority of people who CAME, it was incredible. for the majority of people that organized it, we came out with trauma. - Where was atlanta post-ussf in 2007? were there more tangible relationships? what did they get out of it? Same for detroit -- what did detroit & the region get out of it? This is the basis and the nuts & bolts of what we want to create. - We need to spend some time on our theory of social change, solidify it, and then put it into practice and see where they stack up and where they don't.
- Adrienne: we need to learn how to do this, we don't perfectly know how to do this but we are learning. How do we have the humility to admit we are learning, rather than put on a front like we know.
- we are certainly practicing all kinds of models. but can we be more practical about what we want to do. Being in a facilitation position, I heard "we need to have a political conversation about that." Not sure we as a body have practiced, or even know how to have a political conversation and arrive at a point where we can say "we did that." It's like sex: you could do something but is it satisfying or not? - Accountability: how can we learn with love to bring stuff to each other directly. not talk about you behind our back, but what I will do is say: you needed to do this better. And then we need to be able to hear, ok, i need to do that better and i'm going to try. - What bodies does it actually take to pull this off at the local level, national, regional level. Not accepting a proposal that we don't fully understand. - IF we can't make it more sustainable for the folks who are in this process, then we NEED to slow it down. It's unacceptable to have such a huge diversion of experiences. That's like experiential classism -- someone's going to walk on someone else in order to have an amazing experience. It needs to be a structure where we slow it down so that no matter where you sit in this process, you get to participate. It will help more people participate.
ALICIA: we just scratched the surface. We'll be doing a lot more, so I want you to bring what you brought to this conversation for the rest of the weekend. What's the role of the NPC? What is movement building? Where does the USSF sit in movement building?
- people had courage to say, "i'm not sure we should do this." we need to do something to acknowledge when someone comes with honesty, admits we didn't do something well. - sit in question of relationships. as we bring tangible questions of how did this happen, we want to remember that we want to walk out of this room being able to say thank you to each other, we just did something amazing.
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LUNCH
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Evaluation Process:
1. Clarify budget, sources, process 2. Research & Techniques
- survey (participants, NPC, DLOC, etc.) - reports from organizing bodies - focus groups - interviews about experience - observation throughout forum in workshops, etc. - historical context
3. Preliminary Reports
- collecting, processing, organizing DATA
4. Synthesis & Dissemination
- Final report available on December 15th, 2010 - available in-depth online - print-out summary report
who: Will, AMB, Maureen, Sylvia, Jackie, George, Steph, Ife, Tdka, Alicia, + 38 reports, independent studies
Evaluation Pieces In-Hand
- Participant Survey: questionnaire of 25-30 questions, takes about 15-20 minutes to fill out. Got 818 respondants. Wanted 10%, we got about 6-7% of 17,000 emails. Cut it down from 500 to 200 pages on a powerpoint.
- NPC survey: only 9 organizations answered it, so get online and answer it. We're waiting till more organizations. We expect 45 respondants (that's how many orgs there are on NPC)
- Organizing Body Reports: working group reports, staff reports, individual reports. 38 reports included (5 held off on because they were longer). Ranged from 15 pages to 2 paragraphs. Vast majority were well-written.
- NPC Participation Report: how many calls, how many attended meetings, how many fulfilled fundraising commitments
- CA-Riverside Report from on-site participant surveys: jackie sent out link. Interviewed random sampling of 500-600 people around the USSF. There is students and faculty willing to look at other questions that we may not have considered, so if you have questions or suggestions, please hit up jackie.
- On-site evaluations, written: about 200 on-site evaluations came in that were processed; Ife will be working on putting it into a format that can be viewed on the web or that gets put onto a CD for distribution to members.
- Observed workshop reports:More than 50 volunteers spread out throughout the workshops; wanted to use this as a development opportunity for the students. Gives us a sense of how much we could achieve.
- Summary Report from WSF-USSF workshop: reflections on the work of Jackie and Nicole Dorr (sp?); summarizes international response to what happened at the USSF. Folks saw a lot of new ideas and energy coming out of Detroit, excited about the contributions Detroit made.
- Outreach report on #s, constitutencies: will have this information by tomorrow morning on numbers, who actually came, etc. These will not be the 100% numbers, but we'll give what we have information for; it doesn't represent the total number of people that were there. we'll have a level of breakdown by state as best we can; and we should also have breakdown by organization, by people, and comparison between 2007 and 2010. we won't have much on sector, because that's not information that we had. We'll also have the poll winner.
- Finances: by tomorrow morning we'll present a simpler financial review report, but it will not be too much information, more so what you present to a board.
- PMA: already on line is the agenda and pieces of PMA process; summary will be coming out.
- Healing and Safety: report is being worked on.
Overall, we should remember that this is a work in progress. If we can get stuff by the end of this weekend, that would be great. Tomorrow morning we will have a sense of going through these reports in detail. We want to ground ourselves in the larger, overall experience. What are the pieces that we can pull out about the overarching experiences?
Report of Reports IN: Bike/Youth Village (2) Communications (3) Conflict Resolution Disability Justice DLOC (2) Donors/Foundations Finance/Bookkeeping Gender Justice (3) Emergency Care ICT Immigration & Security Info Table Local Tech Report Merchandise Outreach (1) PMAs Poverty Program/Workshops Registration Resource Mobilization Sustainability (water, recycling) Tabling Tours Transportation USPCN Vendors Volunteer Coordination
NOT IN: Anchors Caravans CSF/Children C-Team Culture Faith & Spirituality Hart Plaza Health/Healing Housing Indigenous International Solidarity Labor Language Access Leftist Lounge Logistics Open Space Opening March Outreach-Local Personnel Senior Citizens Social Plenaries USSF Village Work Projects Youth
- Next we moved into goal review - see the notes for goal review 1-3 or 4-5 for details :) Synthesis is below:
Infrastructure:
NPC DLOC/Anchor/local Staff Organizing Committee the space logistics
overall:
- Trust - Conflict resolution - intentionality - comprehensive volunteerism - power shift out of any national/local dynamic - need to have someone who is clearly holding the big picture, the coordination of the parts
NPC:
- Define the NPC – what is the goal, what does it create and build? Are the expectations orientation, logistical and political leadership AND program and outreach. - theorize logistics. Everything has implications. This body needs to understand the politics and practice around logistics; division of labor on-site around logistics. NPC has to plan to participate week leading up to and week of social forum. - Need clear expectations. People on NPC cannot do programming all four days. clear direction and division of labor (Lack of the division of labor created a lot of tension.) Also accountability if folks don't come thru. - do we need design, recreate the NPC? how can it represent movement building? - broad tent or not? - clearer recruitment, additions and orientation process (window of time for that, which closes well before the forum) - how can NPC be responsible for what they don't cover, and understand that overflow lands on local community - clear, centralized goals for NPC that everyone knows. aligned as/with the ussf goals - need address and heal toxic culture
membership: - IJAN was very controversial for other NPC members, and other orgs and forces were going to those members and questioning their participation in a body that includes IJAN. we need to talk about the implications of that...we represent a confrontation of a power structure that is a great opportunity for movement growth. how do we prepare for that.
rosalinda: "there are leaders who position themselves for reasons other than political movement building - it's funding related, other stuff. that discussion needs to happen."
DLOC/anchors/local:
- prioritize creating space for convergence at the local level - understand that there was exploitation of people, inconsistencies in payments and demands on people - need to ensure folks who create the space get to participate in it
staff:
- more strategies and systems for conflict resolution for USSF staff
- needed more support - shouldn't have had staff managed just by working groups, made it hard to have cohesion on the staff
- Walda - Staffing should be handled holistically. Not that workgroups make a proposal. This is a political decision.
organizing committee:
- need to clearly define the Working Groups – clarity about scope, goals, procedures, program, recruitment, skills needed - need to assess whether this worked or not - is this the central organizing space of the Forum?
the space:
- need a registration/welcome space that is calm and clear (mini-orientation groups with q&a; better way for opening march comes into opening session) (flow) - Signage needed to be A LOT stronger. - Information tables in more places to be able to deal with people's need for support. - need to understand folks capacity to use the whole space we create (is it too much to walk a mile?) - highlight and centralize healing space, healing and safety. includes healing for staff and organizers in the forum process - emphasis on sound - need to address safety in political context of ICE
logistics:
- need to acknowledge that logistical convergence that was back-breaking and not well distributed and ended up being very reactive; - need to reframe logistics - people still think we're doing it for them and not bringing what they need for themselves
Political Programming
workshops PMAs plenaries culture actions open space youth space tents overall forum agenda
workshops:
(need to acknowledge that program set deadlines and limits, and outreach organized them to lift those limits and extend those deadlines.)
- need to be willing to reject workshops if we accept more. this takes time. need LESS WORKSHOPS - need to understand how many workshops are productive - need to recognize workshop submission is an outreach tool - need clearer workshop outcomes - do/can we have standards on workshops?
PMAs:
- need to look at case studies for which PMAs were successful and why? - need to think about how to create an organizing kit that reflects diversity (allows PMAs to reflect what each community needs at that moment) - need to understand building PMA process in u.s. with our different orientation to movements (we have organizations, not movements) - need a more intentional convergence of PMA work, less individualized. - need to make sure folks aren't creating PMAs as another way to take space - need a better way to share results of PMAs - no more overlapping - need to force convergence - lets get more regional in PMAs (and forums)
Plenaries:
- need deepen the analysis of what the plenaries are? - need space to learn from local AND connect local national and international - plenary is a space to learn - the convergence and strategic discussion stuff needs to be a tighter machine that can facilitate this in a more powerful and effective way, thru that internal experience we build the expertise to do this at a movement level - need to stop folks moving thru plenary process with their own organizational/movement agenda instead of an eye towards the whole - need to drive participation into plenaries if we are going to build them
culture:
need to highlight cultural movement and media; arts and music
open space:
- need to be highly intentional about open space. this could relieve the workshop burden, allow more convergence and true self-organization
youth space:
- need better ways to integrate all of the different pieces of the forum, bring youth up out the basement to intersect with the rest of the work.
tents:
* need to Look at the model from Brazil on the use of tents: there, physical space was used for programming that was ongoing; it didn't stop just based on the time slot. organic programming continued on and folks could just expect that.
Overall Forum: - recommend we look at WSF model to build and look at that process with some level of coordination. (at WSF we didn't talk about the connections) in 2010 there was no intl forum, there were 40 local, regional and thematic forums. - recommend that a next forum needs to be a mix of PMAs, working bodies - the cochabamba model, some ground-up platform development to specify what it means to support these things. - need to consider that it is as important for Forum to consolidate as to converge-we need to know what we are converging with or as - How do we match the social forum to the state of the movement in the moment - would we ever organize a Forum without workshops but all organized around convergence and strategic discussion; maybe two days workshops/education/skills building and then convergence and strategic discussion on two days
- RESTRUCTURE FORUM – culture 2 days/ PMAs in middle/ and then workshops on what to do
- need more space for political debate. are people thinking of Forum as conference rather than convergence; can the national planning committee let go of this, is the movement ready for that
- need to name that social forum cannot be all things to all people.
- need to highlight goals much more.
* We need to do another consulta: on a) whether or not we got to these goals through this process. on the question of what do people see as strategies moving forward. this would help us answer the question of should we have another social forum and what form should convergence take? b) what did this group get out of it? How have our organizations been impacted by the USSF process? We need to know what people were inspired to do coming out of the Forum. How has the commitment changed in this room as a part of this USSF?
- let's do a serious of phone calls that ask some particular questions about what was accomplished and what's next?
- need Activities to encourage people to come out of their silos
- need regional forums. regional forums! ******** regional forums and a regional consulta to grow the process; Road Show to gather input guidance and buy-in *** - this needs to be an alternative educational space! - need political plan to include after the forum!
agenda:
need Workshops and PMAs at different times: PMA and workshops were in competition - ended up being competition between sector/organization specific and convergence. need to not have Detroit anchor workshops same day as opening morning need to create an opening space for people to come in and orient need pauses and moments to regain clarity
Political Leadership
- we need a theory of change conversation
- we have to take ourselves more seriously as a political leadership body. we have to take stances (have a process for doing so and negotiating that) - (we didn't talk about our) we need to talk about our opposition, infiltration, the challenges - need to acknowledge and address that we took a step backward in relevance and depth of indigenous struggle - need to see more youth involved. - we need more education with participants about health and wellness; to ensure that people know about it and can have space to learn about it. Making sure that we dont just individualize the health and healing; we also need to do that collectively.
- are we ready to say that we're ready to practice collective action as opposed to just creating a space?
-on point of political clarity vs. political unity—i.e., Zionist question tolerance of racist groups? - Political conversations need to happen face to face. Thinking forward to elections of 2012—anticipating > polarization; repression…People need space or guidance about what NPC/USSF recommends - need to Address questions of leadership – purpose, roles / claim it, and who it is, - No more self-selection into leadership positions - memory is a part of leadership - how do we remember all the conversations we have had?
Resource Development
· political discussion needs to be about really building the space. whether we like it or not that means strong parameters. if you're on the NPC there has to be clear expectations and accountability if folks don't come thru. if we want to change this country that's what its going to take. we can't be all things to all people. we go back to the nonprofit industrial complex in this country. there are leaders who position themselves for reasons other than political movement building - it's funding related, other stuff. that discussion needs to happen. · a challenge is that we didn't have money. we became a funds allocation committee, though we didn't want to play that role. there were no assumptions about how we should spend that money. we went with our gut. we w GGJ, which was helpful. It happened with a few others. if they had resources, then we could help them out. some people on the plenaries thought we would cover their costs, but we never knew that. So these things affected meeting the objectives. · Half of the money had been cut to D2D. They had already identified who they were going to bring in. I would like to get a sense of if these pepoel were NGOs? Or grassroots. This put us in an awkward situation. It led to some tension. In the end, making some linkages..it helped to promote the world social forum. But I think there is room for improvement. · who funds NPC? And then who funds USSF? If you get money from corporate sponsors, there are some political positions that are difficult to take. The tension is always there. You asked a question (to jamie) about what the NPC versus what is happening at the forum. On the ground things are happening. But where money comes through, · Needs fundraising team that is working to build throughout
Comms/Media
· In the USSF, is there some collective sharing back? we could do this to discuss how social movements were advanced; there hasn't been anything concrete after the forum to talk about what's next. let's do a serious of phone calls that ask some particular questions about what was accomplished and what's next? · The stories are amazing; we didn't figure out how at the Forum we could say in real time that these different people came together. How are we creating the narrative about convergence? There has to be a way that we do that differently. · FRAMES – connecting local realities to global realities