The following is a proposal to amend the Spokes Council and General Assembly format. Web-team does not usually post proposals, but as this proposal has already been passed through GA and SC (in part) we are announcing the proposals with the new schedule.

Tomorrow (Friday the 16th of December 2011) at the Spokes Council we will be discussing a couple of amendments to the proposal of a new meeting structure. If the proposed amendments do not pass, this new structure will still be implemented on Monday and we can continue to refine the proposal, modifying the mix of meeting types and styles to fit the needs of our movement. The two amendments previously discussed are:

1. Switching Saturday and Sunday’s planned meetings (i.e. General Assembly on Sunday, Feather Circle on Saturday)
2. Giving the General Assembly on Saturday the ability to call for an extra GA on Wednesday if needed to complete all the proposals on the table. And similarly, giving the Spokes Council on Thursday the ability to call for an extra SC on Monday (to happen before/after the Agenda Setting meeting) if needed to complete all the proposals on the table

The Facilitation Team would like to add the following:

Having a break from Friday 12/23 – Sunday 12/25 during which there would be no facilitated meetings. Many people will be absent for some of the holidays and there are both questions of whether there will be enough participants or facilitators to be present during this time.

Schedule:

• MON – Agenda Setting, Proposal Announcement and Discussion (proposals and agendas will then be posted online for the Thur and Sat meetings)
• TUE – Movement Building / Open Forum
• WED – Open
• THU – Spokes Council
• FRI – Cultural Events (Planned by TUPAC and B-Media)
• SAT – General Assembly
• SUN – Feather Circle (Facilitated by Rumorz)

Additions to the proposal:

1. Emergency GA meetings could replace any nights activities (emergency being defined as something that requires action within 48 hours). OPDX email list would be the place where this would be discussed, with facilitation team assisting and would be posted on the website
2. This revised schedule would be re-evaluated at the Spokes Council 4 weeks after it starts.

Rationale for the Proposal:

Making sure that our meeting structures and styles are truly meeting the needs of our new and growing movement is important and will require ongoing evolution. Many factors including: decreased participation, less dynamic discussions, facilitator capacity, weather and the holiday season leads us to believe that this is an appropriate time for some changes. Other occupations nationwide are having similar problems and are working to make changes that will facilitate more space for open discussion, connection and affinity building, instead of process heavy, decision making meetings that sometimes stifle new ideas that need a more open space to foster. In light of this the Process and Structure Committee proposes to change the mix of different meeting types and styles. This will not change the time and frequency of meetings. What will change is what happens during the meetings.

Please keep in mind that this will be an ongoing process. The Process and Structure Committee was recently formed and is open to all. It will continue to look at the big picture questions about how to meet the needs of our movement through process. This proposal is designed to meet the immediate needs that have come up, in a timely fashion, with more to come as both our process and our movement evolves.

This proposal was announced at the General Assembly on 12/5 and the Spokes Council on 12/4. It was brought for a decision to the Spokes Council on 12/6 and tabled for further discussion. All were invited to the 12/11 Process and Structure Committee meeting where the proposal was further evolved. The proposal was passed by the Spokes Council on 12/13 and by the General Assembly on 12/14.

Here’s a start: Friday, Nov. 25 and Sunday, Nov 27. (Full notes can be found here.)

Friday Spokes Council (11/25)
Attendance ~100

Major Decision – Decision was made to move ahead with renting a space for $ 800/month at St. Francis Church to serve as a work space, place for meetings, etc.  It is not available for any sleeping.  One group in disagreement (Tribes), the rest (13 or 14) in agreement (exact details to come in full notes).  Amendments were to have a special donate button on the website for rent, re-assess how this is working for the movement after two weeks and to ask if we can get lower rent.

Sunday Spokes Council (11/27)
Attendance ~50

Major Decisions – None

Major Discussions – The primary discussion of the evening was about creating intentional space within specific Spokes Council meetings for discussions.  The synthesis of ideas and discussions was to have the Sunday Spokes Council reserved every week for the following (1) Decompression/Debriefing (what happened over the last week, what worked, what didn’t, what can be done better – i.e. coordination, tactics, etc.), (2) Looking Ahead (what actions/events are coming up, how can different committees – i.e. outreach, PR, media, help spread the word – how can we think about coordinated messaging for our movement, how does this connect to the larger vision of our movement).  This will be revisited on Tuesday and their was some discussion about how parts of this (i.e. visioning) might occur every other week or at other intervals.  We would also seek to set the agenda for the Tuesday and Friday Spokes Council during this meeting.

Agenda for Tuesday (11/29) Spokes Council – (1) Discussion/proposal on coordinated decentralization of Occupy Portland in different quadrants of the city and (2) Sunday Spokes Council Proposal (see above).