additionally, when liberated lens has inquired with the commons wg about liberated lens sponsoring an outside groups event, the commons wg required us to have an equal part in organizing & facilitating the event in order for our sponsorship to be considered legitimate & not just supplanting the commons wg.
if spaz events are allowed to continue with little to no sudoroom participation, then i must conclude that liberated lens can invited outside groups to put on events as long as they give some of the proceeds to liberated lens
to my knowledge, member collectives have the privilege of using common space for events but not the "privilege of bypassing many rules and oversight of
Omni's commons working group." Whether it's an outside group or member collective, the commons working group has the responsibility of oversight of commons space.
To all concerned,
Spaz has been throwing a lot of parties at Omni Commons, and Sudoroom
has been sponsoring them. As a member collective, our sponsorship
gives them the privilege of bypassing many rules and oversight of
Omni's commons working group.
But at last night's Sudoroom meeting there were many concerns about
continuing to sponsor these parties, especially the most recent party
on Saturday night 8/31:
* Loud noise after hours (11pm on friday/saturday) should be confined
to the basement, but there was amplified music in the entrance hall
all night. It undoubtedly disturbed our neighbors, which puts the
whole building at risk. In the future someone will need to do outside
sound checks with a proper sound meter througout the evening, keep
logs, and be ready to share them
* The relationship between SPAZ and SKAST was not clear - at first we
thought SKAST was just curating an art show at a SPAZ party, but now
it looks like SKAST was actually throwing the whole party, which meant
the people running the party didn't have a sense of ownership or even
know what the rules were. This is a bad idea and also an abuse of our
sponsorship.
* There was nobody clearly responsible or able to keep control of the
crowd - Joe was a point person who was trying to tell people to turn
down the music but everybody ignored him
* There was alcohol flowing freely, but they did not have an ABC
license or insurance for this. Even when the party is BYOB we are
still legally responsible for the presence of alcohol.
* There were probably too many people. You need to limit attendance by
counting in and out guests
* The party leaked into the rest of the building, and many people were
going into non-party areas such as the ballroom, sudo/ccl & upstairs.
This creates more risk and more mess for everybody to clean up.
* People left a huge mess - even after several Omni volunteers working
*ALL NIGHT* it was still not clean enough for an event the next day.
The activists who got up early Sunday for a nonviolent direct action
training, preparing for next week's climate strike, did not have the
best experience at Omni and they should not need to deal with the
consequences of someone else's drunken benders.
* Communication with others at Omni has been poor. If spaz people
can't make it to the Commons WG meeting, then you all need to figure
out a better time to talk to each other (e.g. not 5 pm when people are
just getting off work).
* Omni recently forced out a member collective, in part because of
similar concerns about unpermitted boozy events. If we don't hold
every group to the same standards, then we are hypocrites.
We love spaz, but we cannot keep sponsoring these events until
everybody has met in person and resolved these issues.
Thanks,
Yar on behalf of Sudoroom
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