[Consensus] GA Process and Purpose

Dennis Fox denfox at gmail.com
Wed Feb 29 12:40:47 EST 2012


I'll be out of town for the next 11 days, and hope to make time to add some notes to the scratchpad agenda before Friday's meeting. My main hope is that we get away from seeing GA as only concerned with processing proposals and think more broadly about its potential role as a central meeting place for all of Occupy Boston, not just for passing proposals and hearing announcements but also for many of the kinds of things brought up last Tuesday evening - discussion, education, performance, addressing issues that hinder OB's work, getting to know each other better, potlucks - there are a lot of possibilities that would make it more likely that more people would actually want to come to GA.

In New York this past weekend I went to a weekly OWS orientation for new participants (a good idea we should do here in some way, too). I learned that GA in OWS attracts about 40 or 50 people, probably for some of the same reasons we have low numbers. I think the time is right for re-thinking things from the beginning - not just looking at our process to see what we can tinker with, but imagining things as if we had no process yet at all, no "typical GA" to use as a starting point. Let's brainstorm.

Dennis



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On Feb 29, 2012, at 12:18 PM, Gregory Murphy wrote:

> Hi Charlie, et. al.,
> 
> I have edited the scratchpad, pretty dramatically, and assigned time allotments. I think this group has a tremendous opportunity to have a profound and important impact on OB's GA process, as well as an opportunity, right from the beginning of its inception, to model best WG practices.
> 
> I am advising we set aside time to agree on our Mission, our Values and how we want to conduct business, for ourselves. I do not suggest that we can finish this process in this first session, but think it important that we start the process, and allot time at each WG meeting, until we have reached agreement.
> 
> I see that the wiki has this language, "This working group has the specific intention of taking a critical look at the processes and purposes of the General Assembly, and generating proposals for how to improve the process in anticipation of growth in the spring.,"  and though I am in general agreement with its sentiment, I assume that is one person's vision and suggest that as a WG, we will be well served, in the long run, by taking the time to be clear about our purpose and understand the values we feel are necessary to do our agreed upon work.
> 
> I look forward to meeting, though I may only be present for the first hour, due to competing demands.
> 
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 11:11 AM, Charlie DeTar <c at tirl.org> wrote:
> Great, sounds like we'll have a good number of folks for a first meeting.
> 
> Here's a scratchpad I started for an agenda/topics of discussion:
> 
> http://notes.occupy.net/p/4QL1LwLLwa
> 
> Please add anything you'd like to talk about.  And if you can't be
> there, please feel free to jot down ideas, concerns, or thoughts you'd
> like others to discuss or keep in mind.
> 
> cheers,
> Charlie
> 

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