2024-01-11 General Meeting
- Presentation
- Recording
- Transcript
- Drive Folder
Attendance
Campaign Coordinator: @chima
Membership Coordinator: @HipGnosis
Treasurer: @Turcotte
Secretary: @Robert_H
Other members: @Adri_Martinez, @Bozzii, @Christine, @anon26178869, and @Joanna
Meeting Notes
Opening
- @chima served as Meeting Leader
- roll call taken; quorum present
Approval of Minutes
- The minutes for the December 14th, 2023 General Meeting and the December 21st, 2023 Steering Committee Meeting were placed on the Discourse Forum. No corrections. Minutes approved as posted.
Reports of Members Sick or in Distress
Reports of Officers and Committees
- Campaign Coordinator: going to be talking about renewing the tenant union focus campaign and a possible new future focus campaign; previous first meeting for the tenant union was cancelled
- Membership Coordinator: we have a of couple new members; working on the handbook, the membership pipeline and education stuff
- Secretary: No report.
- Treasurer: We’re going to do database stuff.
- EWOC (presented by @chima): EWOC asked if we had any updates about the guy that we’re supposed to contact but haven’t heard back from @Lucas or the guy we were organizing with; signed up for EWOC with North Central Valley DSA; we were supposed to reach out to one person who was interested in setting up a union at his workplace, but over the holidays, he kind of disappeared, so we gotta reach back out; for the most part, people who reach out end up dropping out; if you’re interested in labor organizing, you can join the committee
Unfinished Business
- no items
Renew Focus Campaign: Tenant Union
- @chima: Was what we did worthwhile? Is it something that still aligns with our goals? Is it something we want to continue working on?
- @Turcotte: It was great. I think we learned a lot. We should reauthorize because, like you (@chima) said, we kind of promised these folks that we were gonna help figure something out.
- @HipGnosis: I’m just gonna agree with @Turcotte and say that abandoning them now would be, I think, wholly counterproductive.
- @Adri_Martinez: I would agree in reauthorizing. I also think another important component of modifying or improving the process would be to see if we can identify someone from the community (CalVilla) to be part of the campaign.
- @Bozzii: Unions are really important. It brings in people from a more general, non-political thing, and then you can start to show them that you are having these problems because of bigger issues. You’re not really taught about your rights or how to stand up for yourself, so I think this is a really big and important thing that people should know that there are organizations that actually care and want to help them with their landlord issues because there’s a lot.
- @Robert_H moved to reauthorize the tenant organizing as a continuing campaign. Seconded by @Adri_Martinez. Motion carried 8-0-1, with the one abstention coming from @anon26178869.
- possible dates for the first meeting with tenants: 02/17/2024, 02/18/2024, 02/24/2024, 02/25/2024
- dates for canvassing: 01/25/2024 and 02/08/2024 starting at 4:30pm until dark; if you’re busy or working during the start time, come when you can
- dates for online working meetings: 01/15/2024 and 01/29/2024 starting at 5:00pm or 5:30pm
Proposal For Focus Campaign: Free Palestine
- @chima presented
- @Christine: talked about cop unions, libertarians, workers lacking a revolutionary political education, passing out educational fliers
-@Bozzii: agrees with @Christine; thinks education is very important whether it’s passing out fliers or online teach-ins; a lot of people feel that there’s something wrong but don’t necessarily have the words or the understanding of what exactly it is; people don’t really understand that American Imperialism has ties everywhere and because of that, when it comes to Palestine, people are like, “That’s their problem.”; floated the idea of having teach-ins or a presentation once a month to educate people and bring people into Working Class Unity - @Adri_Martinez: Could there be a way that we can create a focus campaign that still allows us to focus on Palestine that isn’t defined as Freedom for Palestine specifically–in way that allows us to do all of these things that we’re talking about but also knowing that it has larger ties to not just Palestine but to also U.S. imperialism and how it aids in our local efforts maybe? Could there be a risk if we create it as a focus campaign that, in two or three months, there’s a really important local thing (example: elections) that we can’t provide our energy towards?
- @chima: brought up Side-Quests in response to @Adri_Martinez; the limit on two focus campaigns is about capacity and us being disciplined about the stuff that we’re doing
- @HipGnosis: I have a feeling that Palestine is gonna be so important to the politics of 2024 that it’s gonna be something that we should focus on; we could combine outreach (flyering) and follow that up with seminars or discussion groups or reading groups
- @chima shared his views on elections
SIDE-QUEST: Free Palestine
- @chima presented
- @chima listed options for what we could do as a one-time side-quest until February 1st, 2024; asked if there were other ideas; we could also do none of these things and just wait
- @Adri_Martinez, @Christine, @Turcotte, @Bozzii, @HipGnosis and @chima engaged in the discussion and provided input/feedback on what Free Palestine as a side-quest/teach-in could include
- @chima motioned “On the 27th [of January], only if we have something good to contribute to society, will we hold a teach-in, um, webinar. And if we-- there’s some group that’s, like, let’s do it in person, we can do it here and have it be hybrid. And then on the 15th [of January], we’ll discuss. And then if we can get like three people to kind of form like a little subgroup to keep working on it, um, like on the 15th.” Seconded by @Adri_Martinez. Motion carried 7-0-2, with two abstentions coming from @anon26178869 and @Joanna.
BYLAW MODIFICATION
- @chima presented
- went over existing language under Article VIII, Section 2
- @anon26178869 moved to approve the first reading of this (Article VIII, Section 2) Bylaw Modification. Seconded by @Bozzii. Motion carried unanimously.
- went over current quorum standards under Article IV, Section 3
- @anon26178869 moved to approve the first reading of the Quorum Bylaw Modification. Seconded by @HipGnosis. Motion carried.
Meeting Changes
- @chima moved to change General Meetings to the first Thursday of every month and Steering to be the Monday before the third Thursday of every month. Seconded by @anon26178869. Motion carried.
IRS Form 1024-A
- no discussion or action taken
Steering Committee WhatsApp
- no discussion or action taken
- @chima: “Steering is not gonna use this anymore. We’re just gonna do direct 1-to-1 communication. And we will post whatever was in our WhatsApp Group . . .”
Adjournment
- @chima moved to adjourn. Seconded by @anon26178869.