# Spokescouncil Planning Meeting 10-28-2024

## present

- briar, she/her
- theodora, she/her
- violet, she/her
- ella, anything
- LP, he/him
- andrew, he/him
- paul, anything
- frankie, they/them
- ash, they/she

## spokecouncil def

- spokecouncils are made up of representatives from each group 
    - maybe 2 reps, one to speak the other to take notes
    - spokes are rotated in, either randomly or by voting
- fishbowl: like spokecouncils, only everyone is present and sits behind their spoke
- LP: should have documentation on how spokecouncils work and telemeeting hardware present to improve access
- frankie: woodbine is monolingual and we should be mindful about the decision making process being bilingual
- ella: childcare could also improve access
- ash: what should the spokes be? 
    - mycology
    - soccor
    - research group
    - screening
    - locations
    - finance
    - communications
- andrew: we can nest the spokes inside eachother, such as rats in maintenance; people should understand that if they don't participate, they won't have a say
- ella: spokes could help disorganized groups to become more organized, such as yoga
- frankie: what are the consequences of defining the spokes poorly?
- theodora: not enough groups showing up would be worse
- ella: how large do we want a meeting to be? too large could get unmanagable
- andrew: in the beginning we shouldn't assume the authority to deciding who can/can't be a spoke, though it would be reasonable to suggest merging with another spoke
- Briar: consensus model? Unanimous consent can be difficult in larger council

## history/why are we doing this right now?

- LP: notes show there have been other times where people seemed to want organizational change. To create structures that are less closed, and more defined by roles than by people.
- ash: more participation at woodbine, seems like right time to start pushing for it. when there are only a couple of people responsible for decision making, they become a bottleneck and things get messed up.
- LP: was depressed because he was seeing conflict and harm happening to people and concerns about this were getting ignored
- ella: feel like maybe many people in ops feel weird about their own participation

## spain and other models

- ella: visited a couple of squats in spain over the summer. one was a squatted nunary. they have a seperate committee that handles most the day-to-day decision making, and then twice a year they have a large assembly to make decisions together. another hold biweekly assemblies to coordinate multiple squatted bank-owned buildings. they run eviction defense and a pantry. offer transition services and child support. each collective has their own room.
- LP: different decision making processes: full consensus, u-1, u-2. heavy proposal basis, proposals were crafted beforehand with multiple flavors to
- Briar: involved in [omni commons](https://omnicommons.org/) and rhyzome collective
    
    
    - Omni: Makerspace, Food not Bombs, video collective, others + ballroom space
    - Discrete organizations with discrete spaces, less based on activities as woodbine is.
    - Spokes consisted of group reps + fixed members such as locations, finance, permanent reps to address issue of racial reprsentation.
    - Fully consensus, spokes rotated frequently

Reach out to Noisebridge/Mitch Altman

- ash: wants to know how mayday are run

## general discussion

- LP: people may not have the capacity to participate in their projects as well as the spokescouncil
- frankie: sometimes the space isn't in great shape, people will need to step up

## action items

- write out fears and hopes
- reach out to people in other spokecouncils 
    - identify list of other groups in nyc
- link map of all working groups
- put together a timeline 
    - have another meeting first
- language access infrastructure
- proposals we need: 
    - how are decisions made
    - what is a spoke
    - an initial proposal to try to make together
- collaborative space for fears/hopes
- date poll (ash)