Meeting Notes 2024-02-14

Attendees

• jake
• alex
• trevor
• paige
• arin (remote)
• jenny
• carl
• sarah

Agenda

CAST meeting recap

• alex: had a meeting at 1230 with CEO of CAST. Ken. several delegates present. me, natalie, patrik, toan. also [non-delegates] yar and silver. Ken explained how CAST works, was pretty high level, did say some things would need to change if we went forward with CAST. needs to be a single person to make decisions on behalf of omni without going back to the delegates. not clear which decisions that would be, need to figure those out. talking about something like an ED role that we would need to empower, we dont have an exact list of what to empower with.

• jake - did you get any sense of what things this person would have to be able to do?
• alex: i didnt get a straight answer, but gave example. one solution would be LLC where they have 10%, we have 90%. nothing written in stone. his example, if that would happen, could only have one name on LLC. unmanageable to work with 8 different parties. said that was nonnegotiable. the things that cast would provide is substantial: hook us up with building management (recommends outsourcing that), be able to give us a loan (think they would hook us up with someone to give a loan), pointed out that someone sleeping in building, saw that last time, those sorts of things cant continue.

He said that there were lots of messes that needed to be cleaned up, lots of maintenance that would cost money. He talked about, is this 20k? 22K square foot building, he said $1/sqft is something to strive for and we're not meeting that, for revenue from rent. For example the rent from sudoroom is included in this, that should be something we should strive for, as a goal.

• paige - that's low
• alex: yes low, but we currently arent bringing that. not saying we should charge people that in rent, but saying building underutilized.
• alex: asked about how much autonomy we would have right now. right now not a tenancy, we do a lot of emergency fixes. ken said that kind of work would be off limits. we wouldnt, i.e. be servicing the electrical. my point is it would be a very different relationship to the building. i pointed out SR is very open, dont have to be a member, anybody can use, and he seemed to think that would still be possible.
• alex: toan asked about would FNB food handlers need to be certified, and he thought yes. it sounds to me there would be a lot of changes to consider, none of this is detailed yet. will be another meeting to get more details.
• paige - did he say anything about the ballroom, like events management
• alex: patrik asked about that, it seemed like they would leave that up to us, to find someone we would be willing to have. but i think they would be able to help us find someone. relationship they would have to building is not clear. not lender, help you find building, and wouldnt own building. they want to own 1%, deed restrict so that it can't be resold as commercial. they are interested in creating permanent spaces for art organizations
• paige: so that LLC would be like 10% or something?
• alex: that was part i didnt really get, but that was not set in stone. non-negotiable part was the 1 person to negotiate, and 1% of ownership for goals to be met in terms of the deed.
• alex: omni would still get to choose new member collectives, but they may get some control, maybe to vet. he talked about David, said David is firewalled from these conversations. not sure what that meant.
• jake - a firewall is
• alex - does this mean we cant talk to david or david cant help with anything? oh he said he was familiar with sudoroom because he had heard about sudo mesh. interested in infrastructure and things like that. anyways that's what i got. biggest stumbling block is finding a person to fit ED that we all can trust. right now pallavi is interested in the role.
• paige: lots of applicants for bookkeeper
  • alex: silver said 15 hours per week but that seems like a lot, Sarah said 5, what if we didn't have that much work
  • paige: my point is we should do a call out for ED
  • alex - it would help a lot if that person was familiar with omni in all its stages
  • paige - jason put us in contact with Donna who is
  • alex: i was thinking about asking ken for recommendations
• alex - anyway how do people feel about that kind of change? in terms of sudoroom, i think a lot would change. The access control would go out of our hands. Cleanliness would have to be enforced?
  • jake: in SudoRoom?
  • alex: yes. especially in terms of fire safety
  • trevor: i saw a giant ass rat
• alex: do we have insurance? in terms of using tools
  • paige: yes, but do not know how much that covers. i was asked to provide additional insurance when i applied for woodshop tenant
• alex: so for SR, what are things that are really non-negotiable? and in omni in general? other thing he said is this would be a first for them. they havent collaborated with a space like omni. usually art spaces come to them needing help finding a space. we are in a different boat.
  • paige: probably easier and harder, we have a building but also all our history
• alex: i think he was briefed that we have problems making decisions, im not sure thats our problem. we make decisions, but managing the day-to-day seems more a problem.
  • paige: yea but still frustration here over "who" is making the decisions
  • alex: there's just not, i feel like we don't have enough people showing up to do things. It's a dying organization from that point of view. So we have to do something like this.
• jake: i totally think everything youve said sounds fine. but i dont see a practical way for us to choose a single person to represent all of the collectives, especially if we dont know boundaries to which we are empowering them
  • alex: need to come up with a list. i.e. day-to-day spending.
  • jake: that brings me to my main concern. if this org is taking over building, and has a different way of doing maintenance, they could significantly raise our daily costs. i.e. pay huge money to upgrade building.
  • alex: theyre not interested in goldplating things, but getting things fire code safety. which you know can be costly. if people want to volunteer to do cleaning, thats totally cool. none of this has been negotiated yet. no hard and fast decision on how they will run the building. there were certain things he was very concerned about, like electrical
  • jake: im okay with that, but for example, what if their idea of spending money was so different from ours, that we couldnt afford to keep up, is there any expectation of how much we are going to need to pay monthly?
  • alex: i think thats good thing to think about, i dont think it will be forced onto us. the only thing they would force on us is they reserve the right to walk away. they arent going to own building and kick us out
  • jake: wouldnt we expect them to have some leverage for us to not?__
• alex: 1%
  • jake - what it comes down to, will SR able to continue operating in same space with same expenditure monthly. i say that looking around thinking this is more than 2000 sq ft. if they expect us to bring in $1/foot
  • alex: yea maybe $3k in rent?
  • jake: maybe we could hit that, and if that was only thing we had to hit. if they want to buy something to replace door card, i dont care.
  • alex: theyre going to tell us to hire building management
  • jake: yea i dont care, but what that translates to is higher costs. $3000 is 50% more but maybe we can hit it, and if that gives us security, and people not driven away by acrimony, then that is something that can be manageable. financial burden but can make it happen
  • alex: we didnt talk about rents
  • jake: to me thats main thing. consequence of what you are talking about. if the consequence is we have to pay 2x to pay some contractors, becomes unmanageable
  • alex: ken was talking about how we arent taking all free money.
  • jake: because we dont have people power
  • alex: but also people walking in, should see space they feel good donating to. i dont have experience with this stuff either but ill bring it up. what you are saying, infrastructure costs would take up a lot, that could be hard to pay off. there are a lot of CAST operated buildings in the area, if you have contacts Jake of people who work there, could ask them what relationship was. Do you know AV club? That takes place in one of CAST's maintained space, can ask Natalie.
• alex: im sure what they want, access control to building is managed in a way that is rational that they can participate in. if we can come up with something like that, should be ok, but would be a negotiation
  • jake: reason i bring that up is because it all comes down to money. in past ive clashed with people eager to spend money when we didnt have any to spare.
  • alex: i think 2k is low for rent, lower than it should be
  • jake: if our monthly went up, say $3k
  • alex: how many paying members do we have?
  • jake: a lot of people who participate who dont pay, because they forgot or changed cards. system doesnt notify people.
  • alex: upgrading things would also make people more likely to come
  • jake: i dont see that as a big effect
  • alex: for most people, seeing a rat that is game over. not for me.. but they dont want to come back, dont want to pay money. same as when they come on a rainy day
  • jake: we also chose bad people to fix it... we spent 9k
  • alex: im saying if those fixed more people come back
  • jake: i agree with you, but this also seems to be our only option right now.
  • alex: do have an update on LLC?
  • jake: no but ill put that high on my list
• alex: will be a follow up meeting with shreya that will be more about nuts and bolts
• paige: im glad hes not scared away
  • alex: i think a lot of people have put a lot of work into this. and he also seems very reasonable.
• jake: does he consider sudo room an art space
  • alex: we asked it, considered not a problem
• alex: also said we can email about questions
  • jake: yes we should know what that one person should be empowered with
• alex: need to come up with a list of things required to do
• sarah: they have network of affluent people who want to loan money for good causes. what community vision does. community vision used to be "loan fund", loans to projects that are worthwhile but might not get fundraising from a bank, because not a sure bet. CAST would have people willing to lend the money, they act as a broker in a sense, guaranteeing the loan to this lender. a part of that is they want to make sure is in a position operationally to repay it. they have acquired spaces, seems like they are managers, they out-source work. probably get some property management company to do that. where i think they would be really useful is brokering some sort of nonprofit arts organization to manage the ballroom.
  • alex: i think thats all negotiable, if they bring in or we find someone
  • sarah: the reticence would be politics of omni. they would want to do events and produce work but not piss people off, get involved with all politics directed at omni. maybe if cast could be a buffer, to reassure these orgs interested in ballroom.
  • sarah: recommend asking them about other orgs, to give ballpark on how much expenses will be, how much to budget. my feeling, if ballroom managed and operated with nonprofit, that could subsidize. $8000 a month would be cheap
  • alex: would we rent it, or lease it, or give it to CAST to manage? 150k for the roof, they said. then ongoing expenditures like building management, and access control, new doors.
  • sarah: kitchen
  • alex: said doable, FNB need to get food handling certification
  • sarah: sprinklers
  • alex: they broker a loan on beneficial terms, and advise you on paying it. we are jumping on the train and they are taking somewhere
  • sarah: integrated alarm system, sprinkler. somewhat to discretion of inspector. alarm 5% of sprinkler. 100k would be like sprinkler or partial sprinklers. 10k tops for alarm, cover almost all building. 2500 was budgeted in past, would cover ballroom and most vulnerable areas.
  • jenny: really?
  • sarah: system that david got oakland fire dept to approve
  • paige: i see cast website say 6mill investment in counterpulse
  • alex: is that a loan? or investment
  • sarah: loans can be investments. you "invest" in stock market. trying to remember, i think counterpulse invested to get building, then had a buy back
• paige: looking at investments. before we were saying 1M
• alex: up for negotiation. could have 1 or 2 fulltime people to manage ballroom
• jenny: janitorial, and communications who can work with
• paige: do we want WG to continue?
• jenny: havent been that great
• alex: i dont know enough about them to say
• paige: 1 or 2 people
• jenny: a lot of churn, little incentive to engage. internship to work in events management, empowering with mentors. maybe something CAST could provide, assist in bringing people in fold to coordinate, while not putting entirely in organizations fold. sustainable booking model. i spent a lot of time on IT level of booking, really complicated, finding expert in booking managing systems. dont think we should throw baby out with the bathwater. gaining skills and event management, really good opportunity on nonprofit level.
• paige: right now just silver and philip bell i believe
• jenny: struggle with IT. been periods where very organized and not organized.
• alex: what if were one person who coordinated volunteers? working model
• jenny: yea. i think everyone taking on coordinating event get paid. a lot of fucking work, thats the dream
• paige: for me ok to give to right org
• alex: how do we get money then
• paige: for a price
• alex: right like a long term lease?
• paige: yes or renting
• alex: silver said they are holding sewing lessons bringing quite a bit of cash, and new people in building. also sounds like something SR should be doing. they basically bring in someone wanting to teach a lesson, teacher gets 30/hr
  • jenny: love it, think SR would work, not ballroom. does foster business model to show lenders or donors, and we could do similar business model for SR. i could whip that up in a day or two, already partly there. no one in SR ever asks for donations because we do stuff for free, which cool but at least can ask, try to make viable in eyes of lenders.
  • alex: we discussed having an arduino lesson
  • jenny: model of peter's fixit clinic. when you have active events where you are doing outreach to communities that can use that, poor, POC, women, LGBT, in tandem with actually running the events and documenting them, makes things a lot more viable to funders. i know im preaching to the choir but how do we expand this.
  • paige: comes back to lacking people power
  • jenny: how friendly do we make these meetings. delegates meetings, sudo room meetings more friendly
  • alex: recent ones have been really bad.

Deb Gives collective application

• jake: we dont have quorum
  • alex: yes, i think i will abstain. i have reservations but not enough to block. i think its a small group, and a bad time. thats about it. if theyre happy with just renting space for a while thats fine
  • jake: then lets do it
  • alex: i dont think thats enough to block. unless you think i should
• jake: i think normally when proposal is made, collective should be notified and it is discussed
  • alex: been 2weeks since proposal
• alex: they do cool work with vulnerable populations, been doing this work for a while. group is small, 2 people, 3 if you count pallavi.
  • paige: i think 4, including pallavi
• alex: and i think its bad time, because adding more confusion to delegates right now, i could see that going wrong. even if it were just me, i would abstain. i dont feel strong enough
• paige: we do currently have 2 collectives with only 2 people
  • alex: they did both start with more people.
• paige: i think i would abstain. our governance will change one way or the other in the future
• jake: i think in a past meetings, talking about pp, saying we would not accept member collective until
  • paige: PP having the special aspect of also being potential co-owners
• jake: SR said no new collectives..
  • paige: except tanc
  • jake: we approved TANC in july
  • alex: and ML
  • jake: sr agreed that sr agreed that no new collectives until building fate decided.
  • paige: i remember carl saying that but dont remember anyone verbally agreeing too
  • alex: and i remember carl admitting it wasnt entirely consistent to say that. that said, i wish there were more people here to tell me what to do
  • paige: valentines day and raining
• jenny: what are other collectives thinking?
  • alex: i think most are on board. mostly about omnis...membership process is you go straight from to "we dont know who you are" to coming as collective
  • jake: straight to blocking board
  • jenny: this has been an ongoing debate since we started. our member collective process is pretty arduous and tedious and debilitating for new groups trying to start up. but there are other ways to be involved, i.e. through wg's or subprojects or renters, built up trust and solidarity for a while, 3-6months before being approved to be a member collective. and we've always been fairly suspicious of a collective, especially when they have 1-3 members, not really member collective, and if they dont have open governance. thats always been the blocker, do you have a collective process. not a blocking measure, but how are you going to engage with consensus decision making process of omni. rather than single one president who weighs in, wheres their allegiance and accountability.
  • alex: theres no rule for that. we were talking about this earlier. two current collectives have only 2 members. SM and LL, which historically had more members. how do we justify saying no to a new collective.
  • jake: how many members does SM have?
  • jenny: id say current communications are 5-10?
  • alex: so at last meeting?
  • jenny: havent had meetings. membership changes and covid altered landscape of work. currently probably multiple signal conversations, of which you and jake are maybe tertiarily involved. there are ongoing convos, not necessarily about omni. i think LL in a similar state. to be honest
• carl: i agree with a lot of things you are saying jenny. i brought up some of these things last week. my general feeling is if it is a small group, shouldnt have a delegate. can be de-listed off the delegates
  • jenny: dont do that
  • carl: as much as i love SM, not fair. just means you need to get membership. maybe just temporary.
  • jenny: new membership collective. two offices in omni. brand new coming in, no governance to speak of, only 3 members, and one actively vying for power in omni. reason i would block membership, not renting. no historical relationship in omni to speak of
  • paige: as you said jenny other ways to be part of omni. i think if we deny them we have to reconsider SM and LL and sketchboard, dont live up to those standards
  • carl: what is time frame.
  • jenny: SM and LL have years
  • carl: especially at this time of deciding on existence of building, i personally think we should put pause on new collectives unless already in pipeline
  • jenny: no i think we need more voices. matter is that this isnt really a collective. and no pre-existing connection to omni. when we are talking about representation, we need to talk about fundamentals. is there pre-existing relationship, governance structure that ensures they are actually representing their collective
  • alex: no rule that a collective cant be like that. i suspect ML is like that. i dont know their structure, i think most decisions made
  • paige: i think that might be a bad example
  • alex: leadership structure and decision making hasnt been really a deciding factor in the past
  • jenny: i didnt mean to emphasize that, i mean most important is lack of relationship, such a small group, and a member is actively vying for power in omni. how a group makes decisions doesnt matter as much as how aligned they are and if actively involved. CCL doesnt have consensus, they empower patrik
  • jake: they have board meetings
  • jenny: they do discuss omni proposals but ultimately governance process isnt consensus. just a favoring towards democratic
  • alex: how did SB come to be
  • paige: ran events first, idk that natalie talks about omni to SB
  • jenny: they did have relationship before
  • alex: im trying to get, what are we comfortable with and not
  • jenny; relationship
  • alex: how long were they involved before delegate?
  • paige: dont remember
• alex: we are reeling from boycott, worried about giving power to an unknown. despite CLP, I saw from notes, endorsed by many groups. FNB, and LL, people said they had worked with them. im saying, they did have a relationship.
  • jenny: idk about everybody
  • alex: im saying half the room
  • jenny: i wasnt there during the shitstorm
• alex: i dont think i can do anything but abstain at this point. i think we can sit this out. unless anyone feels very strongly
  • jenny: i will bring up conflict of interest
  • alex: do you want me to stir that pot
  • jake: i think you should say SR hasnt had ability to consense on this
  • jenny: i think someone having huge sway in two member collectives and officers role. i dont know pallavi and they may be an awesome person but that shows as a huge red flag. officer has no voting power, doesnt ultimately matter. just raises a lot of red flags.
  • carl: if youre in a second collective
• paige: was willing to step down.
• carl: maybe good intentions
• alex: i think the most useful thing we can do right now, is come up with list of things for ED role, and find candidates that everyone can trust to carry out what omni needs to be. that is much more important than arguing about whether pallavi is grabbing power. i think she is very interested in role. we are free to come to decision, but in order to do that we need to find more applicants.
• paige: also pallavi proposed temporary ED. would help to have someone on ground
• alex: to me problem is tenure, the hard part is first step. need someone everyone can say yes to with no reservations.
• jenny: pallavi offering to do deep work with no assurance of reward is huge
• alex: she would apply for a grant. she is also in charge of grantwriting.
• jenny: thats a lot, she would need helpers. just writing one grant is practically a full time job. we have been relying on volunteers for this, and yea our bad, but where we are at. i spend way too much of my work hour time on grant writing when its not my main work. 20-30 hr of my time a month. ambiguous in between role is difficult.
• alex: anyways, we should try to write down what sorts of powers an ED should have.
• paige: operations coordinator " "carry out the decisions of the working groups and the board. No other power. Make it clear that they don't have decision making authority."
  • jenny: thats old and outdated. should write something from scratch
  • paige: 2021
  • paige: here are the items that Patrik wrote for draft ED contract:
    • Fundraising, in collaboration with the Company’s existing fundraising staff and volunteers.
    • Manage collections from tenants that owe rent and event clients; serving as mediator if there is a dispute between event clients and the Events working group about deposits and refunds
    • Managing permits and compliance, tenants, and building functionality. Making sure people have leases that are accurate, hiring contractors/repair people, dealing with inspections and the City, renewing/renegotiating insurance
    • Managing payables - making sure bills get paid, making sure people get paid, making sure there is money to pay them. The Interim Executive Director can authorize payments up to $500 without prior approval with the Company’s board, but must coordinate with the Company’s bookkeeper, treasurer, and finance working group to make sure there are enough funds available.
    • Conflict mediation - Identify conflicts when they happen; initiate investigation when necessary; de-escalate when possible; start and track conflict mediation process; recommend people for banning from the building by the Company’s board if conflicts cannot be resolved.

• discussion about conflict of interest with multiple people in different collectives. notes not taken well.
• carl: would suit her to pick one
• alex: thats already true for other people. marc is a member of a collective with 2 people
• carl: right if SM is inactive, then
• jake: not inactive do have some people
• carl: if not a delegate for both
• paige: its a flaw in our system. like has been a problem before with clp controlling two groups with only 2 members
• alex: like maybe people arent members of collectives, theyre members of omni.

silver request to do laser meetup

• March 13th 7pm - 7:30pm. problem is it conflicts with meeting time
• alex: i see no problem with that, and also we could move the meeting,
  • jake: that could be a very important meeting
  • alex: wouldnt that be a good space?
  • jake: i guess if people in here we could tell them
  • alex: why do you think its important
  • jake: times ticking by, could be something like cast meeting us