Mass effect

The concept of the solidarity economy is supporting and only buying from flat economies. A collective is based on any participation without hierarchies, a cooperative is member participation without hierarchies. Since the means to exist (land, water, etc.) should be equal to all, collectives are usually spaces without hierarchy. Meanwhile, the forming of products, as a means to survive are usually cooperative decisions by those producing the product, or workers. The solidarity economy expands from the currencies of capitalism when the collectives and cooperatives buy only from flat economy, but sell to the capitalistic economy.

The concept of a mass effect is comparable to a mass line, except a mass line is the formation of organizations in protest, or opposition, to another organization (business, state, etc.), while a mass effect are collectives and cooperatives coming together to share or exchange their resources in their own associations. A collective event for cooperatives and collectives to form these associations.

Associations

These are proposed or existing ideas between cooperatives and collectives with their own articles of association (by-laws). These are non-binding associations, but a means to establish interest in these ideas.

Collective of Colllectives

The intention to buy the space referred to as The Omni.

Other Spaces

The idea of forming a collective of collectives regardless of the space. There are a number of spaces that have been considered.

Exchanges

Other than sharing a space together, the collectives are making exchanges without any money.

Events

We will be having quarterly events, updating and highlighting ideas and effects in the community.

January 10th

Ricardo Nunez from Sustainable Economies Law Center

Minutes and Images (6pm to 7:45 pm)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/700853143281064

Twitter: #masseffect

Address: 2141 Broadway Blvd, Oakland

• Introduction by Jeremy

Jenny Ryan talks about People's Open Network

• Ricardo Nunez from Sustainable Economies Law Center
• Marina Kukso from Oakland Wiki
• Jenny Ryan from People's Open Network
• Chris Roncal from Rock Paper Scissor
• Matt Senate from Community Democracy Project
• Raines Cohen from East Bay Cohousing
• Angelica Tavella from Oakland Drops Beats

About fifty people attended and created a collaborative poster showing all the collectives and cooperatives in the area. We used post-its on an an idea board and formed an exchange of requests and services available.

Bay Area Cooperatives & Collectives

The following list compromises of collectives and cooperatives or groups that promote non-hierarchical economies.

Art

• SALTA (omni compact) - "In addition to putting together a monthly dance series, SALTA works on various projects to promote dance and performance in the east bay with generous support from the Yellow House Fund."
• Rock Paper Scissors - An art collective with a gallery and zine library. They have meetings on Monday nights at 7PM and they have a lot happening during First Friday. They have zine reading nights, workshops, and they're actively involved in the community. And they're only a block away from us!
• Needles and Pens - "An emporium of zines, books, handmade goods, and an art gallery. Located in San Francisco's Mission District since 2003, the space aims to provide an affordable place where like minded people from the community can display and sell their own home-made goods, home-published zines, and artwork."
• 924 Gilman (Berkeley) - "Volunteer Run, Not-For-Profit, Music & Art Community Space Since 1986." They have a lot of musical performances, anything from Hip Hop to Punk.
• Free Montgomery - "Free Montgomery connects with the homeless, artists and people who live with HIV/AIDS to realize dreams and hopes through creative expression."

Economy

• Bay Area Community Exchange (BACE) (omni compact, unconfirmed) - Local timebank, friends of Sudo.
• Business Alliance for Local Living Economies - Building local economies - Co-hosting a conference in Oakland in June with
• Oakland Grown - Supportive network of local Oakland businesses.
• Sustainable Business Alliance - "a business association committed to building a vibrant community of locally-owned, sustainably-minded businesses in the East Bay."
• Oakland Workers' Collective - "a worker-led nonprofit committed to improving your life and the life of our members. We pride ourselves on having hard-working, reliable workers."

Education

• Bay Area Public School (BAPS) (omni compact) - Radical pedagogy, open classes on topics ranging from Foucault to languages to poetry!
• Oakland Wiki - A website about Oakland that anyone can edit <3
• The Long Haul - "a combination of a lending library, computer room, zine making space, activist reading room, and a social gathering space." They have an anarchist study group that meets weekly on Tuesdays. The Berkeley Liberation Radio meets every other Thursday. Also they publish Slingshot!.
• Bay Area DanceSafe - Drug education and testing at parties / festivals / events.

Energy

• Sfun Cube: Solar for Universal Need - Incubator/accelerator for solar energy startups, based in Oakland. Supports all of the organizations below.
• Sun Synchrony - Talk to Rock! "Sun Synchrony develops innovative concentrating photovoltaic solar panels to provide clean, safe, and reliable energy using a fraction of the space of conventional silicon products, while lowering materials and energy inputs to manufacturing."
• Energy Solidarity Cooperative - "ESC is committed to building a movement of energy resilience and economic justice. We democratize financing and ownership of renewable energy through partnerships in traditionally disenfranchised communities. We do so through a localized approach in cooperative governance and community empowerment that combines member equity, community investment and knowledge transfer services to spread community-led clean power projects."

Food/Health

• Local Flavor (omni compact) - "We are a 10 year sole proprietorship business that is stable and currently renting kitchen space in Hunter Point shipyard in SF. We are converting into a worker cooperative with SELC and planning to relocate our kitchen to the EB. We are currently finalizing our legal entity and bringing on new members. We would be interested in managing kitchen space in the EB and offering support to worker cooperatives and other grassroots food ventures. Especially in undeserved communities of color. We are still brainstorming ways to make this part of the DNA of our structure. As an example we have discussed making ourselves a community owned organization who's goals and mission would include the needs and environment of all stakeholders." Contact: contact@localflavor.info
• Vegan Coop (omni compact) - a vegan cooperative that self sustains and provides food on a sliding scale. Talk to Jeremy
• People's Community Medics - a collective that provides medical training and first aid kits for free
• RAD Brains - a mental health collective
• Sustaining Ourselves Locally (SOL) - Food justice coop located in the same building as Liberating Ourselves Locally.
• Food Not Bombs (East Bay) - Rescuing food and bringing it to the people <3 Meetings every First Wednesday @ The Long Haul
• People's Kitchen - "The People's Kitchen is a sliding-scale, local, organic, community restaurant project that engages, builds and nourishes community through shared-food events and sexy, social and cultural programming." - They work with a different grassroots political project / social justice organization each month and put on a dinner, the proceeds of which support the org!
• Arizmendi - a worker owned pizza store
• The Cheese Board Collective - a worker-owned cheese and pizza store
• Mandela Food Cooperative
• Phat Beets
• Planting Justice

Government/Activism

• Community Democracy Project (CDP) (omni compact, unconfirmed) - Participatory budgeting in Oakland, often meeting at Sudo Room. Soon running a crowdfunding campaign - potential to rent a small space. Talk to Matt, Troy, Alexa or Shawn.
• Cop Watch (Berkeley) - Sudo Room has hosted a documentary screening of a film produced by Jacob Crawford of http://wecopwatch.org: The Battle for Oscar Grant Plaza.
• Corp Watch (omni compact) - Accountability for large corporations, looking for a space in the range of ~$100/month. Talk to Marc, Matt or Jenny.
• Occupy Oakland - Meets every week on Sundays at Sudo Room.
• Open Oakland - Open government initiative that meets weekly (Tuesdays) at City Hall to hack on civic technology projects.
• Oakland Privacy - Meets weekly at Sudo Room.
• Restore the Fourth SF Bay Area
• Bay Area Strike Debt - A movement to stop paying back debt

Hacker/Makerspaces

• Sudo Room (omni compact) - you are HERE
• Noisebridge - Hackerspace in San Francisco!
• Liberating Ourselves Locally (LOL) - A makerspace in East Oakland for and led by people of color.
• The Crucible - Located near the West Oakland BART, The Crucible hosts industrial art classes and workshops.
• Ace Monster Toys - Hackerspace in Oakland with some very nice tools!
• HackerMoms - Hackerspace in Berkeley with on-site childcare!
• Hacker Dojo - Hackerspace in the South Bay of San Francisco.
• Double Union (forming) - Hackerspace in San Francisco for women.
• East Bay Maker Labs (forming) - Makerspace forming in San Leandro!
• Hay Hackers (forming) - Family-oriented hackerspace in Hayward.

Housing

• East Bay Cohousing
• Land Action - "assists environmental and social justice organizers establishing and defending occupations used for housing and advancing projects. Land Action reclaims otherwise wasted resources and expands the capacity of the environmental and social justice movements."
• CoopNetwork

Law

• Sustainable Economies Law Center
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

Biology/Environment

• Counter Culture Labs (omni compact, unconfirmed) - "We are a community of citizen scientists furthering innovation through hands-on projects and education in the East Bay."
• Nerds for Nature (omni compact, unconfirmed) - "Nerds for Nature is bringing together environmental professionals with technologists and designers, first in dialogue and then to collaboratively create awesome new tools to help people discover, protect, and understand the world around them."
• Kijani Grows - an aquaponics project based in West Oakland!
• Back to the Roots - Home aquaponics systems and mushroom grow kits - based in West Oakland.
• BioCurious - "a complete working laboratory and technical library for entrepreneurs to cheaply access equipment, materials, and co-working space"

Media

• AK Press
• Black Cat Press
• Book Zoo
• Little Black Cart
• Oakland Nights Live (omni compact) - Monthly live late-night talk show that's been hosted by Sudo Room / BAPS for quite awhile now.
• Timeless, Infinite Light (omni compact) - Small press based in Oakland - Letterpress equipment, workshops, exhibitions, performances, and readings of textual, audial, visual and interactive works!
• Poor Magazine - Poor people-led/indigenous people-led media, education and art (based in SF)
• Quilted - a worker-owned, cooperatively-managed company compromising of designers and engineers
• Youth Radio - Local org that supports diverse youth through training in media / technology.

Networks/Collectives

• Timelist Group (omni compact) - Post-incarceration support, mentorship, and youth prevention - currently meeting monthly at Sudo and looking for a space.
• Bay Area Consortium of Hackerspaces (BACH) - We could host hacker conferences at Omni!
• Network of Bay Area Worker Cooperatives (NoBAWC) - Awesome folks who host their quarterly meetings at Sudo Room.
• The Holdout - Anarchist collective replete with anarchist bookshop, bike shop, and events venue.
• Aorta Collective - Anti-Oppression Resource and Training Alliance - "AORTA is a collective of educators devoted to strengthening movements for social justice and a solidarity economy. We work as consultants and facilitators to expand the capacity of cooperative, collective, and community based projects through education, training and planning. We base our work on an inter-sectional approach to liberation because we believe that true change requires uprooting all systems of oppression."

Transportation

• Wobbly Wheels (omni compact) - Pedicab union! Talk to Matt or Elliot.
• Spokeland - a non-profit bicycle cooperative that has all the tools and parts to fix bikes. They're open Sunday (12-6pm) and Tuesdays (6-9pm). The collective is operated by volunteers and they may trade their hours for used bikes and parts.
• Cupid Courier Collective - A San Francisco messenger service
• Box Dog Bikes - a cooperative that sells and repairs bikes.
• Bike Kitchen - San Francisco - diy bike repair: "affordable ways to acquire and maintain a bike"
• Missing Link Bicycle Cooperative - Worker-owned collective in Berkeley for bikes, parts, clothing, repair, classes, and public workspace

Tech

• Design Action Collective - a worker-owned and managed cooperative that creates web and brand design.
• Electric Embers - a worker owned web hosting service that offers a sliding scale.
• Hacker Spa (omni compact) - Hackers + hot tubs + Coworking + massage! Contact Andrew.
• Sudo Mesh (omni compact) - a collective that meets on Thursdays at Sudo Room to create People's Open Network, a free and open wireless network in the East Bay.
• Radical Designs - a web design cooperative thats focused on the needs of non-profit and grassroots social change organizations

Resources

• Use our Articles of Association for ideas of how to create membership and resolve conflicts
• Watch a series on how to fund worker cooperatives