2024-11-07 General Meeting

Meeting Minutes & Weekly Updates General Meetings
1

2024-11-07 General Meeting

Meeting Minutes

Attendance

Campaign Coordinator: @chima
Membership & Education Coordinator: @HipGnosis
Treasurer: @Turcotte Absent
Secretary: @Robert_H
Other members: @Englishpete08, @PeterKraljev, @Bozzii, @Tanner, @Joanna, @SeanHun, @ChristinaCherif, @NoraG, @Adri_Martinez
Present members: 12, 7 online
Quorum: 5

Meeting Notes

Opening

  • @chima served as Meeting Leader and took Roll Call of new members

Old Business

The New Vangaurd

  • @Robert_H moves to approve WCU joining the New Vangaurd as one of the three advisory organizations
  • Vote: 2 Yea, 7 No, 1 Abstention, Motion Fails(A)
Discussion Summary
  • @chima : leadership structure: allows only 15 people to determine direction of org; core mission: creating ed materials, carrying grant funding, and directing other orgs
  • @HipGnosis : didn’t invite entire orgs just specific reps, everyone assigns themselves to the positions w/out vote
  • @SeanHun : Are the 15 positions between different organizations?
  • @HipGnosis : responded saying that positions are not proportional to the size of the organizations—each org does not get an equal number of votes
  • @Tanner : can tell what they gain from us joining, but not our gain
  • @chima : because it is a new org any WCU member who joins will have to put in a lot of time and effort
  • @PeterKraljev : what sould be expected of us if we join?
  • @chima : at least one member would join the committee and whatever member(s) join would trickle down the information to WCU
  • @HipGnosis : constituent orgs are not bound by the New Vangaurd’s decisions
  • @PeterKraljev : sees no issue in joining to learn more about other orgs and events
  • @Bozzii : if someone in WCU has the capacity to join as our representative

Elections Committee

  • Nominations Committee : @PeterKraljev and @Tanner
  • @chima moved to approve a Bylaw change to separate Education and Membership Coordinator at next meeting
  • Vote: 9 yea, 2 didn’t vote, Motion Approved(B)

Discussion

Nominations

Final set of Bylaws (tabled)

Post-election Event & Discussion

  • @HipGnosis motioned to add 5 more minutes to the discussion
  • Vote: 9 yea, 3 didn’t vote, Motion Approved(C)
Discussion Summary
  • @ChristinaCherif : not at all surprised by outcome, working class people need someone who is actually going to work for them, keep osculating back and forth between the same parties
  • @Englishpete08 : assumed for the past couple months this will be outcome, democrats fall in the same tactical mistakes as in 2016, things repeating in a dumber way, we should learn from their mistakes
  • @Bozzii : overwhelming approval for trump shocking, stop blaming third party voters for the failures of Democratic party, disappointed in the propositions that passes, people don’t care about the incarcerated
  • @Adri_Martinez : trying to be understanding of peoples shock and sadness, electoralism will not save, marketing our rights during election campaign shows we truly don’t have those rights, how to create solidarity between the working class people even if they voted for the opposite party
  • @Joanna : most of family voted for Trump, a persons voting record isn’t representative of who they are in their entirety, peoples lived experiences are different, families get divided over politics so trying to understand where they are coming from
  • @NoraG : was surprised but in hindsight makes sense, country is changing in ways people don’t like and want to turn back time, people have gotten mean and only care about their own interest, people okay with hierarchy, confused on how to reach people because people don’t like being told what to do
  • @Tanner : surprised and disappointed by others, Trump appointing more Supreme Court justices is terrifying, country was always openly fascist but shocking to see average people openly accepting it, disappointed in the way Democrats went about the election
  • @PeterKraljev : overall a good because Democrats in their weakened position make orgs like ours seem more valid, take advantage of the time and push for a new political movement, build a coalition for the next election cycles, people are moved more toward economic issues so we should focus on worker co-opts and public resources
  • @SeanHun : Democrats running on Republican campaigns (fascism v fascism lite), didn’t rile people up to vote, thought would be more excited to punish Democrats for their loss but its bittersweet
  • @Robert_H : surprised thought something would have made a difference, looks a lot worse than he anticipated but we must move on, look forward, and do what we can
  • @HipGnosis : disappointed, signs prior to election indicated Trump would win, left forgot history of fascism and their loss and to change that we have to know the history and tactics, if we want to be popular with working class we must rethink our tactics, focus on not just economic but women’s, trans, gay, civil, minority rights too
  • @chima : this was a damnation of the Democrats more that people moving towards the right; structural problem with how the party fundraisers, picks candidates, consultants, and donors are all older rich white people who live in a bubble, take minority voted for granted, you can’t vote out fascism, Trump isn’t a unique threat and issues don’t go away when a Democrat comes into office, must be honest about the threat of both parties

New Business

State of the Organization

No Votes for Genocide Campaign Recap

  • @ChristinaCherif : putting our events on the Sacramento Regional Coalition for Palestine page
  • @chima move to approve allowing the Sacramento Regional Coalition for Palestine to post any future WCU events on Palestine
  • Vote: 11 yea, 1 didn’t vote, Motion Approved(D)
Discussion Summary

Positives

  • @chima : held 21 events, over 550 unique signatures on petition, phone banked in beginning was successful, outreach during rallies, pressured Representatives as exemplified by McNerney
  • @Bozzii : most people we interacted with during phone banks and canvassing cared about what was happening in Palestine
  • @SeanHun : we did our best to enact change, happy to be a part of it
  • @Tanner : results will be useful in the future

Critiques

  • @chima : called rather than text/email, alternative ways of communication (short frequent bursts) including videos, strategy discussions, low member participation, integrating community members into organizing (i.e., phone banking, canvassing, etc.) got zero response, broken down what it means to join an event so people have a better grasp of expectations, asked community members what events they wanted
  • @Bozzii : done a better job at checking in with everyone for how their feeling, capacity, events they want to see, keeping the people who signed onto the pledge in the loop consistently, take a break to reassess strategy and tactics, outreach outside of social media, discussion about why we choose Harder, create spaces for people who care about the genocide in Gaza to organize, plan events ahead of time, recruit people and getting contacts during events, community building
  • @HipGnosis : would like to see turning focus away from protests/rallies to material change, different tactics like fundraisers
  • @NoraG : everyone is at capacity so ramp up recruitment efforts
  • @PeterKraljev : No one knows who we are, people need to know who we are before they care about what we have to say so do more kind gestures (park clean ups/food drives/etc.), build good will off community to gain trust and help with recruitment, charity stuff while talking about politics
  • @Tanner : bigger goals like presidential campaigns feel too big for us
  • @Adri_Martinez : established place to meet at, figure out common spaces people go to during free time and how do we take these people and bring them to our space as well
  • @chime: suggested a recruitment post on WCU social media

WCU Tenant Union Campaign

  • no events coming up - HOA meeting happening on the 20th, but better to wait until next month

Upcoming Events

Voting Record

Notes:

  • (*) means they did not vote; were at the meeting but did not yea, no, or abstain during the vote
  • (-) means they were not there for vote (i.e., arrived after voting)
(A)New Vangaurd (B)Bylaw Introduction (C)Additional time (D)Sacramento Regional Coalition for Palestine
@chima no yea yea yea
@HipGnosis no yea yea yea
@bozzii no yea yea yea
@Englishpete08 no yea yea yea
@ChristinaCherif abstain yea yea yea
@Joanna no * * yea
@PeterKraljev yea yea * yea
@Tanner no yea yea yea
@NoraG yea yea yea yea
@Seanhun no yea yea yea
@Robert_H no * * *
@Adri_Martinez - - yea yea
1 Like