SPOKES are all currently operating Occupy Portland committees, teams, working groups, caucuses and affinity groups. Spokes are recognized by the collective spokes council of Occupy Portland.
If any information is incorrect or needs to be updated, please contact
The United Performing Arts Collective (TUPAC)
The Media Coalition
Outreach
The Livestream Team
The Women’s Caucus
The Radical Caucus
The Finance Committee
The Spending Committee
The Engineering Committee
The Electrical Committee
The Food Team
The Library aka Our School
Safety and Peacekeeping
The Action Committee
The Operations Committee
The Information Committee
The Medical Team
The Sanitation Team
The Earth Guardians
Public Relations
Social Media
The Web Team
The Portland Occupier News Team
The Facilitation Team
T.E.S.T.N. Team (Training, Education, Strategy and Tactics for Nonviolence)
THE UNITED PERFORMING ARTS COLLECTIVE (TUPAC)
(TUPAC) is an expanding group of persona who use visual, literary, performance art, and music to spread messages, hopes, dreams and goals of Occupy Portland to the greater 99%. Join us in Dance, Expression, Inspiration, and Solidarity.
TUPAC is also currently recruiting graphic designers to be on call.
Contact:
Request to join the listserv:
Twitter: @PDXTUPAC
THE OCCUPY PORTLAND MEDIA COALITION
Occupy Portland Media Coalition is a group of Activist film makers who have set their collective talents towards the goal of kicking the 1% square in the, well, you know where! We plan to continue our commitment to producing video content that will inspire others among the 99% to join our non-violent creative revolution. We have collectively produced 102+ videos and counting.
Email:
Get involved by visiting here: (LINK TO CALLING ALL ARTISTS)
Occupy Portland Outreach is an evolving collective of individuals working to help build communication, organizing, and interdependence in our local neighborhoods and in the whole 99% as well as network resources from local organizations in order to transform the community’s needs, concerns, hopes and resilience into local solutions based action.
How One Can Get Involved:
Our Committee Meetings are open to the public. We meet twice a week:
Every Sunday at 1pm – 3pm at Psu Smith Building” Cafeteria (venue may change)
Every Thursday at 11am – 1pm at The Lucky Labrador (915 SE Hawthorne)
1pm-2:30pm Outreach Organizer Training
Projects:
We have two major projects. The first is the gathering of volunteers who are interested in being trained to go into neighborhoods of Portland to inform and educate the residences about 99% issues as well as gather feedback and suggestions on how we should move forward as a movement as well as encourage participation at every level..
We are also organizing Occupy Neighborhood Assemblies where the actions and momentum of Occupy Portland will be brought to local communities to cultivate and promote a variety of direct actions.
Outreach and Education have a joint project which is building a team of trained and well organized panelists that will Occupy the minds of Universities, High Schools, Middle schools, Elementary Schools, Corporate Centers, ministries, etc.
Contact: Please visit our Outreach website , or
Email:
or contact Liam - or Shiva -
Our goal is to offer the public an alternative media source with an objective, unfiltered, and real-time view of Occupy Portland.
We host open meeting once a month and meeting that are closed (for current members) once a month totaling two meeting a month. Our next open meeting is scheduled for Dec 4th location TBD. @ 4Pm This meeting is open for all people who are interested in joining Livestream and for folks who chat on Livestream and who would like to meet in person.
To get involved, make donations, or for more information -
Email:
(Also going to seeing the work and chatting especially with moderators is a good first step.)
Occupy Portland Women’s Caucus is committed to making women’s voices central in the Occupy movement, both here in Portland and beyond. We address the social and economic injustices that most impact those who are female-identified. We promote nonviolence, respect and equality and invite others in our movement to do the same.
We encourage men and male identified folks in our community to create an ally group to partner with us in this goal.
Occupy Portland Women’s caucus meets Thursdays @5pm and Sundays @12:30. We have rotating meeting locations which are updated on the FB page:
We are currently looking for a meeting location.
Email:
POC: Eleyna Fugman
THE RADICAL CAUCUS
Mission Statement: The Radical Caucus is composed of people who are opposed to capitalism, and therefore look forward to alternative forms of post-capitalist economics and social relations.
CONTACT:
Crash — <>
Däv — <>
Google group – <>
GROUP PROCESS:
Meetings are open to the public. We are open to people from any ideological background so long as they agree to the mission statement above. Provocateurs and trolls will be disinvited and expelled whenever the whole Caucus agrees to do so.
Decisions are based on a 2/3 majority vote. A facilitator is chosen at the beginning of each meeting. Minutes are kept by a note taker. Further group regulations and alterations must be democratically developed to cooperate with the Occupy Movement guidelines for transparency, equality, and participation.
CAUCUS HISTORY TO DATE
The Radical Caucus began meeting soon after October 6, formed by a loose coalition of anti-capitalists who were also concerned about police influence on the occupation. We submitted three proposals to the GA.
1. One easy practical issue was readily solved informally after the initial announcement: to make the GA notes easier to find from the Occupy Portland website. We asked for “within one mouse-click” because the notes used to be hard to locate. This was solved by communicating directly with the web team.
2. We proposed and obtained overwhelming consensus to manifest our solidarity with the “Right 2 Dream Too” camp near the Chinatown gate on Burnside. The implementation was both an open letter to the mayor and a march from our occupation site to Right 2 Dream Too. Both of these actions were successfully completed and resulted in widespread local media coverage, bringing attention to the economic injustice of the city’s criminalizing homeless street people. Ultimately the Mayor’s reply was disappointing, and the city refused to stop criminalizing the unhoused, refused to lift the camping ban, and continues to legally threaten “Right 2 Dream Too.”
3. We proposed to make the occupation encampment a “Police-free Zone”. This proposal was unpopular and was rejected by the GA. The issues motivating this proposal are now more relevant after the events of November 12 and 17, in which police brutality hurt many occupiers and wiped the encampment off the map.
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CAUCUS FUTURE
The future is impossible to predict, and this is why we continue to hold out hope for a non-capitalist society. We promote building a new society within the decayed shell of the old. The process of Occupy is very much a prefiguration of that new society: mutual aid, alternative economies, cooperation, DIY, open participation, direct democracy, communal living, autonomous collectives, and a push for economic justice across a dazzling variety of projects for state banks, credit unions, ending corporate personhood, preventing the concentration of wealth to the 1%, addressing unemployment and foreclosures, exposing corrupt banks, promoting worker owned co-ops, community councils, etc. The means are also the end.
Mission Statement: The Finance Committee consists of one person from each committee if they so choose as well as members of the movement. The mission of the Finance Committee is to oversee all activities pertaining to fund raising and the procurement of funds associated with the Occupy Portland movement and to insure that all funds are managed transparently and safe from improper use. The Finance Committee also insures that all fund raising activities associated with the movement reflect well upon the movement itself. The finance committee is responsible for distributing funds to specific purposes as approved by the General Assembly (i.e. Parks Restoration) and weekly Spending Committee budgets as decided through the Spokescouncil. Full transparency is a must at all times for the Finance, Spending and all other financial matters pertaining to Occupy Portland. All meetings will be open for public observance, minutes will be kept and made public. All donations and grants coming in and all expenditures going out will be made public and accountable.
Meetings are posted on the Occupy Portland Calendar
POC is Kip Silverman
Our Mission Statement: to ensure that the occupation is financially supported with available funds, and to consider proposals and allocate funds for operations in a fair, efficient, and transparent manner.
We encourage proposers to be self-sufficient. If procurement without money is possible for a request, we encourage that route and will help the proposer network to get needs met. As a group we decided that basic needs of the occupation and occupiers would have priority, then infrastructure, then other items like long term goals or strategy. This was at a time when we had a physical camp, and it could change depending on our new situation and/or new members.
Our group’s decision-making process is mandated by the General Assembly of Occupy Portland to be a consensus of 90% for all decisions. We are also mandated to keep notes for every meeting as well as make a weekly budget, and post this information online. Our total weekly budget is determined by the Finance Committee. Right now we are comprised of ten individuals from ten different committees. We also have an observer who is not on a committee, but has been to every meeting we have had, and wants to be a (non-voting) liaison between the Finance and Spending Committee, which was also mandated by the G.A. This makeup may change after we present our proposal to change the language of our membership to include Spokes (and/or caucuses/tribes).
We meet every Tuesday at 6pm. Right now, we are meeting in the Broadway Building of PSU at 621 SW Jackson St., on the second floor in front of the computer lab, until a more suitable space is found. Our meeting times and place can be found at:
Spending Committee P.O.C.: Carrie Medina
Providing for the infrastructure needs of Occupy Portland.
To get involved, make donations, or for more information -
Contact: Sam
ELECTRICAL
The mission of the electrical department is to provide the most innovative and highest quality of electrical services in the most cost-effective manner and to facilitate the achievement of goals and objectives of each of the committees, departments and general occupiers needs.
Departments Goals:
1. Provide effective electrical needs to support computer system and web-based applications lighting and electrical needs for all committees that need such resource.
2. Promote and facilitate the infrastructure to effectively meet the overall miss of the the occupation using collaborative efforts through planning and consulting with all committees and departments.
3. Develop and maintain highly effective reliable secure and innovative systems to support each departments committees and occupiers needs.
4. Promote and enhance the needs of the occupation departments with using as much renewable energy resources to lesson the carbon footprint.
5. Never to break any National Electrical Code standers including local codes. Keep the encampment the safest possible for all.
We strive to build and support a local and sustainable food system, free from corporate control, whose primary goal is the health and and well-being of our community, our farm lands, and our water systems. We recognize the inalienable right to food.
To donate or get involved, email
Preamble to our Constitution: We the people, in order to fully embrace our human condition, establish social justice, free speech, free expression and free education, do establish this Constitution for Our School. By establishing a safe and intellectually stimulating environment, we nurture individual needs while emphasizing critical thinking, direct application, and community action. By embracing a non-hierarchical forum for all learning styles, we develop a new educational paradigm for lifelong learning. To further these goals, we hold space for book, material and intellectual contributions; we also hold space for the public to facilitate workshops, braintrusts, networking and other educational opportunities.
Our School Resources
Library
Archiving all Occupy documents and providing reading material for the ongoing educational needs of the occupation. We will bring a mobile library to your Occupy event!
Panel
A group of trained panelists who can be requested to speak at any event, formal and informal, about the movement. To join, schedule or share wisdom email . This group meets once a week, meeting times vary. Check the OP Committees calendar regularly.
Workshops/Braintrusts
A series of educational and project- or concept-based collaborative groups. Find the workshops calendar at occupyportland.org.
Current ongoing workshops:
Non-violent Communication
Tuesdays 1-3pm
Peace House on NE 18th and Tillamook 97212
This group will be closed after Dec. 6th to maintain a safe learning space. Please stay posted for future offerings.
Economics Braintrust
A braintrust intended to unite all of our genius economists
Goal: Design curriculum and material about the economy to offer the movement and the people
When: Next week, please suggest meeting time.
Where: 815 SW 2nd Ave. Ste. 510
Our School Braintrust
What: A weekly meeting of all those interested in collaborative community education for the Occupy movement
When: Every Friday, 1-4pm
Where: 815 SW 2nd Ave. Ste. 510
POCs Mark
Leah
google group
Working to ensure that the Occupation is a safe space for all political action. To get involved, make donations, or for more information, contact
THE OPERATIONS COMMITTEE
THE PURPOSE AND MISSION OF THE OPERATIONS COMMITTEE
Operations is established to empower and support the General Assembly in a broad capacity. Operations is in essence the manifest will of the General Assembly – in action. In general, Operations is the direct arm of the General Assembly, empowering the General Assembly to engage in immediate, emergency or other direct activities without delay. Further, Operations is the last line of defense and first line of action where the General Assembly ratifies ANY action but no immediate human or other resources outside Operations are available to fulfill the ratification in question.
Specifically, the Operations Committee:
In the role of servant, supports, coordinates and facilitates the implementation of all ratified actions expressed by the General Assembly.
In supporting and coordinating the implementation of all ratified actions, Operations supports and accepts the varied needs of all committees or otherwise acts directly on behalf of the expressed intention of the General Assembly.
If there are no volunteers for a committee or the requirements for a committee or ratification by the General Assembly are not met, Operations will work to fulfill the requirements until they are resolved.
While accepting the duty of supporting all General Assembly ratifications, Operations consults with the Logistics and/or Process & Procedures Analysis Committees as advisors for the purpose of making general and specific recommendations to the General Assembly for immediate ratification and implementation.
Operations will make recommendations to the General Assembly for ratification. The purpose of such recommendations is to empower the General Assembly, while providing servant transparency. To form these recommendations, Operations may consult with a range of resources for knowledge and wisdom for the purpose of making informed recommendations to the General Assembly.
To empower the General Assembly, Operations will make recommendations to the General Assembly regarding the order of importance of all its ratifications. By thus empowering the General Assembly to set a ratified agenda, the assembly becomes able to focus its attention and that of its committees.
As a function, when agenda is ratified by the General Assembly, committee attention is to be focused upon the intention(s) represented by this ratified agenda. By placing foremost on the agenda of all committees and even each individual General Assembly member this ratified action list, the General Assembly is further empowered to function with clarity. In addition, issues of autonomy, unilateral committee or individual action, congruence with the expressed ratifications of the General Assembly, integrity of conduct, and accountability can be addressed by clear criteria to be established.
Operations will provide a range of reports and make specific recommendations for ratification to the General Assembly for the purpose of empowering and informing the General Assembly. In addition, Operations will provide forecasting, metrics and recommend best practices as well as provide advanced warning of perceived dangers.
Operations will make recommendations to the General Assembly regarding strategies available for the effective pursuit of ratified agenda items.
Operations may accept reports from committees regarding their progress, current activities or agenda and any associated issues if necessary or expedient for committees. This makes possible the construction of reports from Operations to the General Assembly regarding the overall state of the Occupy.
Operations will in general promote and foster cohesion while developing countermeasures for resolving anti-cohesive issues at every level.
Operations will facilitate transparency at every level through implementing recommendations for process and procedure criteria to be ratified by the General Assembly and may make such transparency recommendations to the General Assembly for individual committees. Such criteria may represent specific guidelines for the activities of any or all committees as the wisdom of the General Assembly may become manifest.
Operations will implement and promote methods, best practices and procedures for effecting accountability, integrity, and congruence with the expressed ratifications of the General Assembly. To this end Operations will recommend criteria for ratification which specifically details roles within committees and actions triggered where established criteria are not met.
Operations facilitates the needs of all committees by:
Providing material support
Providing access to consultation and advisory resources
Providing access to information
Providing process analysis and engineering support
Facilitating communication between committees
Facilitating communication from committees to and from all General Assembly members
Operations will establish sub-committees as needed which are subject to the letter of this document.
For the purpose of transparency and to empower the General Assembly with information and knowledge, Operations will produce and maintain archives of all General Assembly business. To empower the General Assembly, Operations will make archives available to all General Assembly members by as broad a collection of means and methods as possible. Meaning both physical and electronic means of access to all archives is to be available to all.
Specifically, individuals or committees are to be provided access to physical documentation or physical technology whereby electronic documentation can be accessed in addition to any Internet based resources or server repository.
Operations will produce and maintain inventory and provide oversight to the General Assembly of all resources available to the General Assembly including but not limited to:
Physical material of any kind
Contact information in general
Committee member contact information
Committee rosters
List of all committees
List of all ratifications
Capital resources
Accounting
OPERATIONS ROLE DEFINITIONS
The Operations Committee role definitions are subject to change through the expressed ratification of its committee members where a minimum of 90% of members are present and where consensus of 90% is reached.
Current role definitions are as follows:
Coordinator
Operations is meant to have a decentralized team of persons who are dedicated to serving all needs of constituent committee members, the General Assembly ad hoc, and all General Assembly ratified committees. To affect this service and support, the Operations Committee requires a minimum of three Coordinators. A larger number is recommended, in odd numbers such as five, seven or nine.
Operations coordinators decentralize by mutually sharing all available information, methods of access to any and all resources established by the General Assembly or others, knowledge of critical services and emergency protocols, and knowledge or information about any and all other key aspects of concern to the sustainability of the General Assembly.
Coordinators may directly facilitate as needed.
Facilitator
Operations Facilitators administratively support Coordinators. This includes producing documentation and maintaining archives.
Facilitators carry out the directives of Coordinators for empowering the General Assembly and its constituent committees. Such directives are represented in the agenda ratified by the General Assembly and come about as a result of implementation.
Specifically, facilitators access available resources as directed by Coordinators to provide these resources to those whom the General Assembly intends through ratification.
Member
Operations committee members are the General Assembly body of Operations. Making a determination of the methods of implementation of General Assembly ratifications is the work of Operations Committee Members.
To this end, Operations Coordinators will facilitate providing members with information, consultation, and resource of any kind to insure proper illumination of the path ahead.
Further, once Operations Committee Members arrive at a determined implementation, Operations Coordinators and facilitators will carry out the actions of the implementation.
While the Operations Committee is established to serve the General Assembly and ratified committees, any individual General Assembly member or committee may directly access the General Assembly for facilitation. However, for the purpose of efficiency and ease of access to resource and information, the mission of the Operations Committee is to serve.
POC: Tad
We are a group of independent organizers who meet to discuss and plan upcoming actions. We can provide assistance in planning by networking within Occupy Portland, and offering resources to help motivated individuals who are interested in organizing their own actions be successful. We provide information about actions happening in the community via the , the , and the facebook group: .
Anyone can join. Meetings are held Mondays at the PSU Smith Memorial Student Union – . We gather starting at 5:30, and the meeting starts promptly at 6:00. We meet downstairs in the SW corner of the cafeteria. If you enter from the Park Blocks: take the stairs down, go through the door to your right, and walk across the cafeteria to the back wall.
Please see the Occupy Portland Forum for notes on previous meetings, and discussions regarding actions.
To contact the action committee, please email . For information on how to plan your own event please see: http://occupyportland.org/organise-and-discuss/share-event/
The beating heart of the Occupation, where information is dropped off, picked up, and shared both inside and outside of camp.
To get involved, make donations, or for more information email
Meeting the medical needs and providing first aid to campers and participants in political actions. To get involved, make donations, or for more information, email:
Googlegroup:
Making sure that the Occupation is a sanitary space for all campers while practicing environmental stewardship. This committee currently has no POC. Care to start? email to update this.
Working to maintain the integrity of the land while maintaing the integrity of the movement.
For more information or to get involved, join the mailing list:
.
Coordinating and communicating with Mainstream Media and Independent Media inquiries email:
To get involved, contribute writing, or publicize information, email:
(Chase and others)
(Collin)
(Angella)
(various admins)
(various admins)
(various admins)
(alternatively, )
The Occupy Portland Web Team maintains the address of occupyportland.org as well as all content. We acknowledge that occupyportland.org is the online face of Occupy Portland and the place where people go to receive factual, trusted information about Occupy Portland. We strive to post only that content which represents the sentiments of all of Occupy Portland as reflected through of the wishes General Assembly.
This is the Webteam’s Posting Policy: This applies to all posts except GA notes or quotes from GA notes.
- Committees/groups cannot claim to represent or speak on behalf of Occupy Portland, the General Assembly, the encampment, the collective, or use “us” or “we” pronouns that imply or suggest representation on behalf of Occupy Portland, the General Assembly or the occupation/encampment.
- Only the General Assembly can make, decide and/or declare decisions, statements, press releases, and announcements on behalf of Occupy Portland, the General Assembly, the occupation/encampment, the collective and through the use of pronouns that use “us” or “we” pronouns that imply or suggest representation on behalf of Occupy Portland, the General Assembly or the occupation/encampment.
- I will identify the committee or group for which I am speaking at the beginning of my post.
- I will tell the truth.
- I will write deliberately and with accuracy.
- I will acknowledge and correct mistakes promptly.
- I will preserve the original post, using notations to show where I have made changes so as to maintain the integrity of my publishing.*
- I will never delete a post.*
- I will not delete comments unless they are spam or off-topic.
- I will reply to emails and comments when appropriate, and do so promptly.
* – in combination with the violation policy below, there are exceptions to this rule
Violation Policy: If your post is seen as violating this code of conduct, it will be temporarily hidden until the issue can be discussed.
email:
The Portland Occupier was dreamed up by the Media Committee and the Occupation PR group as a way of putting out so many of the stories we’d like to tell about what is happening at Occupy Portland. We’ll be on the official occupation website, but we’re not official. Echoing the Media Coalition’s role, we produce content for the occupation, but we do not speak for the occupation. We’re simply Occupiers: we are the people on the ground, living, working, thinking, and talking about a making a better world. Much of what we publish is opinion, and is always from the point of view of the person producing it. We can’t cop to much more than that.
We need content! We’ve prepared a number of things for you, but we want more! We all want more, as we meet and get to know the important people throughout all levels of our movement. If you would like to write, produce video, audio, photographs, or artwork for us, please email us with your interest or submissions at . We are looking for anything that is a good story. We want good information, presented in a way that will make people interested in absorbing it.
We also have an open editorial process. If you’d like to be involved, please consider submitting something—as all of our editorial duties are completed by our writers. Together, we hope to make something amazing. So join us!
The current Point of Contact for The Portland Occupier is Adam Rothstein. Please contact the POC at .
Roles and Responsibilities:
The primary purpose of the Facilitation Team is to provide for constructive interactions in meetings through an open process of collective decision making using the appropriate agreed upon processes. The Facilitation Team insures that the General Assembly and Spokes Council have facilitators each night. It also insures that there is a suitable location for these meetings.
Additionally, it provides for any other facilitation needs within Occupy Portland through the availability of members and/or through training. Lastly, the Facilitation Team has been the initiator of discussions on structure and process. However, these discussions have resulted in working groups open to all (in the case of both the Open Consensus Philosophy and the Spokes Council Model) and the Facilitation Team is not the only place where such discussion should or does occur.
ga-facilitation-occupyportlandATlists.riseup.net
POCs
Kari
David
T.E.S.T.N. TEAM (Training, Education, Strategy and Tactics for Nonviolence)
We build teams and community based in honest, open and transparent dialog and connection to provide training, education and support around personal nonviolence, tactical nonviolence, and strategic nonviolence in order to encourage nonviolent strategic thinking, communication and direct action.
To get in contact email: opdx-TESTN(AT)googlegroups.com
Or come to our weekly meetings on Tuesdays from 10-12 in the Peace House on 18th and Tillamook.
All are welcome and encouraged!
