Meeting Notes 2015-09-02
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SUDO ROOM
,.-'`'-.,.-'`'-.,.-'`'-.,.-'`'-. Sudoroom Meeting September 2, 2015 last week: https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Meeting_Notes_2015-08-26
who's here?
icebreaker q: How do you feel about raising elephants?
- an assortment of strange-looking humans stare each-other down silently across the vast ocean of hacker dust
- actually i think they are all staring down the internets
- staring down the unblinking void of the infinite tubes
- actually i think they are all staring down the internets
- marc: very boring
- benji: very good job. i think elephant are really majestic, emotional and very humanlike in their capacity for emotion and interaction with other creatures.
- tiery: i don't answer
- morgan: will stick to hamsters
- jenny/tunabananas: thinks it would be a very noble pursuit. an elephant is killed every less than 15 minutes
- signal: raising elephans would be an excellent source of potential energy
- daniel: humans shouldn't be raising elephants. elephants should be raising elephants
- brendan: it takes too much food and earth does it better. but they need to be protected.
- matt: elephants are strange. i don't really have any interest in disrupting what they're doing.
- peter: curious, work on robotics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key <-- origin of question ALL HAIL DISCORD
announcements
- I'm drinking a beer
- I have a salad if anyone wants it
- The colors are shared and thus picking the perfect color is more interesting.
- Things in life are sharp, sometimes we are the ones that see them out of focus. 8-)
- Daniel: Last Saturday we ran the cable to 48th, need to fix the rack (pushing the back columns forward a few inches)
- Neither Daniel nor Charlie are Terminators. The cable still must be terminated. Do we have a terminator in our midst? Dani2el:Well, we were very tired at that point. We may do it this coming Saturday, if noone else do it first.
- Brendan: Radio scanner project update: Antenna is up and running, scanning spectrum and working with software to record OPD radio transmissions, having some issues with the C++ sofware atm
- Matt: Found our old modem! Free $$!
- Jenny: If anyone wants to exercise their drywalling skillz or learn how to drywall, the ballroom wall needs another layer soon! Or you can play with an acoustic caulk gun
- Morgan: We now have a new sudomesh node!
- Matt: Status of laptops? We have computer-hungry teenagers in our community
- Daniel: The non-netbooks can go, would be good to have a set here for classes and such
- Brendan: Can I propose we use one for the radio scanner project?
- General consenso
- Brendan: Can I propose we use one for the radio scanner project?
- Daniel: The non-netbooks can go, would be good to have a set here for classes and such
finances
- Amount in bank after September rent: $274.71
- Oh no wait! + $1K after a generous Sept. 2nd donation!!
- !! actually there's $2,030.85 in the PayPal we still need to transfer
- Amount owed to Omni for August shared utilities: $367.37
- Can we pay in poems?
- Yup. It works sometimes.
- Can we pay in poems?
- Stripe donations for August: $2,335 (including the single $1K donation, so $1335 recurring)
- PayPal / Gratipay for August:
new members
"There are no wrong answers." "Only wrong people." - huh?
Benji
- Benji - from NYC, moved to the bay a year ago to pursue music & audio engineering. Recently broadening interests to study audio components and hardware, signal processing (digital & analog), wants to keep pursuing it and be around talented people. Lots of interests, Omni is the perfect place. Came in for hardware hack night, walked into a gender studies seminar, put up some drywall, attended the hardware meetup.
- How did you discover sudo? Was interning at Free Radio Berkeley, someone told me to come here. Came to an event, discovered sudoers hacking, wanted to spend more time.
- Why member? Everything I said. Lots of interest, like being in a place where I can work, with lots of stuff going on. Felt like I was back in college, got my brain working. Space and tools to pursue what I'm interested in.
- What hack? Would like to get more familiar with some programming languages, reading 'Invitation to CS' sort of a 101. Would like to become more knowledgeable of programming, also interested in hardware, building audio equipment. Leslie speaker & Hammond organ in the ballroom are amazing pieces of equipment, want to fix them, need peoples help, but would spearhead the project.
- What share? Audio knowledge, sound tech support for Omni events. Do my best to make this place as awesome.
- Plans to abolish white supremacy, sexual violence etc; - Education is the core of it.
- Plan to end anthropocene extension, global warming etc; - Science! Redistribution via statistical analysis. Interplanetary colonies. last three words: "thats all I"
- Plan to ensure freedom and privacy of communication for all? - Destroy all government. Ban the FCC.
- Sudo's values: [Marc reads the values] I like that.
- Sudo's history: Not much, started in 2011, 1st space in 2012
- Statement of Solidarity: Nothing [Read it]
- Safer Space Policy: Nothing [Read it]
- Banned?: Nope
- Cop, undercover cop, undercover cat? Yes, all of the above. Not actually. Well, I am a cat.
- What makes you happy? Community, good people, investing myself in work. And dancing. And music. And eating.
Initial Pondering
Omni Proposals
Give land beneath Omni to Bay Area Community Land Trust
This proposal is from the Fundraising working group, aka the "Buy the Building" wg, aka "Buy the Land", aka "Until the Revolution". Our meetings are Mondays at 6:30pm and open to everybody! Notes are posted here: https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Calendar After buying the building, and the land beneath it, we propose giving the land to the Bay Area Community Land Trust. Omni would then lease the land back for next to nothing ($1/century perhaps). We'd still own the building, but the land lease would have specific terms designed to ensure the use of the building into the future. Those are TBD, will be part of a future proposal (not this one). They can also be renegotiated at any point. BACLT has many community ties with us. They held their annual meeting at Omni last fall. Their mission is to steward properties and take them off the speculative market. We feel this path best represents or values, and is also a great opportunity for our work to dovetail with regional affordable housing activism. From their website: "The Bay Area Community Land Trust is the only non-profit organization in the East Bay committed to developing the higher density model of cooperative homeownership for low and moderate income communities. Cooperatively owned, limited equity, multi-family housing, on urban land that is permanently owned by a community land trust (CLT), allows low and moderate income families to enjoy the benefits of home ownership in a setting of maximum energy efficiency. We contribute to sustainable living by facilitating the sharing of resources - reducing the carbon footprint by sharing appliances, common spaces and transportation. We also promote green building, retrofitting and weatherizing, conversion to solar energy, and urban agriculture. And the co-op model itself promotes personal and group responsibility for the environment and provides institutions through which urban dwellers can promote environmental consciousness in their surroundings through example, advocacy, and participation in community projects." http://bayareaclt.net/BACLT/Home.html
Discussion
- Marc: Very important it's not a century
- Matt: Needs to be 99 years
- Jenny: Motivation is to form a contractual relationship with another nonprofit that would hold us to our mission / values. This is something the lender requested.
- Matt: Met these guys if anyone wants to talk about it. No other group that does this other than Oakland Community Land Trust and SF CLT. They're very small, only 3 properties with 3-6 more on the way
- Marc: Only 3? That's a little scary.
- Matt: Opportunity is to form a partnership, build strong ties with this group and funnel good folks to work with them as the next generation of BACLT. Interested in expanding beyond residential properties.
- Marc: Only 3? That's a little scary.
- Jenny: We could use more folks researching similar scenarios - land trust partnerships with community spaces (most are residential or agricultural properties)
- Matt: We can also change the agreement in the future. Could use input on clever ways to bake in our mission / values into the contract agreement in the case of future Omni transgressions.
- Sigma: Any other hackerspaces that have gone through this?
- Matt: One in Belgium I think. Actually
Consensus?
- Rough temp check: 7 in support, 2 abstain, 0 block (6 members present)
Notes from Discussion with Cheryl of Liberation Ministries
- Haven't started sunday service yet
- Started working with teenage kids, kids in juvenile hall, group sessions, things like that.
- Hoping to be part of Omni, to hold Sunday service from 9am - 11am-ish.
- Mixed culturally, ethnically, age-wise, background, and ... I get in trouble when I go preach at traditoinal churches. I've been in ministry over 30_ years. I believe in challenging the status quo. I believe in telling the truth. I'm not a biblical literalist. I believe in the allegories. I talk about the violence in the bible, the violence against women, I get in trouble when I go preach somewhere.
- The core of my ministry is transforming lives and giving people hope -- it's Love. That's the premise of who we are and what we do. It's not judgment. That's what makes us different from traditional churches.
- I understand there is a lot of trepidation about having "Church" in the omni. If we didn't share your common values, we wouldn't want to be here. Ministry for me, is social justice work. That's who we are, that's what we do, that's what we're about. Period.
- It's a place where EVERYBODY (capitalize every letter in that word) is welcome. I detest that you might say someone is not welcome for whatever a, b, c reason.
- Our focus is to help these kids, to help this next generation. I hope that's a good explanation.
- We have an option to use a school auditorium on occasion. However, it's hard to grow when you move (you may lose people).
- On an average Sunday, 40-50 people. Of course, I'd want to grow from that to a couple of hundred.
- What kind of instruments -- we brought a hammond organ, drums, guitar. (It's pretty loud)
- But I'm getting old--so it wouldn't be too loud.
- We're definitely a Christian-based organization, but I want to really, definitely make the point of: not in the traditional sense. There's no proestletizing. We're not biblical literists.
- I think the core of what we believe is the acceptance of all people.
- facebook page detailing cheryl's background (2009): https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10153572024877646&id=23499757645&substory_index=0
Discussion
- Marc: Kind of a deadlock. If she doesn't want to do a trial, there are several people who don't want to accept the proposal til they've seen what she does.
- Ed: How much are they going to pay?
- Marc: $300-350 for about 8 hrs/wk
- Daniel: Not at all comfortable with religion in the space; history of control and manipulation of the people.
- Matt: Frustrated with the whole situation, wouldn't be happy if proposal was rejected, nor accepted. Lots of trauma, bad personal experiences
- Marc: I'm upset that people keep chalking resistance to this proposal to personal trauma. I personally don't have any.
- Daniel: Not personal trauma. Explored many religions, none could answer real questions beyond 'just trust in god'. Barrier to expanding minds, the quest for real knowledge and answers through for instance science.
- Morgan: Our mission is education / science / tech, religion is not that.
- Sigma: Concerned that incorporating as a member a specifically *Christian* black social justice group would close us to, say, an Islamic black social justice group?
- Matt: Don't think that's a huge risk. The Omni organizers behind this proposal are possibly going to walk away if we reject this proposal, high stakes decision. Massive controversy that could tear this community apart.
- Daniel: Could support the social work, but not necessarily them as a member of Omni.
- Brendan: Let's have a period of getting to know each other... to outright say it's about religion, people have very different ideas about religion... some people may come to this space to come to church, others to learn technology... who do we want in this space?
- Ed: Am a-religious but wouldn't a priori exclude a group that's religious. But, let's get some holy rollers
- Matt: What do people think of working with this group but not as a member collective? Eg renting the space at a discount, some other collaboration
- Marc: Comes down to if they're flexible on their long-term commitment until people can see what they do.
- Matt: The space issue is also relevant. Would prohibit groups from having full-weekend events
- Concurrence from Marc, Brendan, others
- Sigma: Interested in detailed list of parts of their bible that are agreed with or disagreed with, in an ideal world a actual revised book wherein some of the terrible parts have been crossed out.
- Matt: They're interested in using a collective model to make decisions. I asked if they had documentation of their structure / values but they didn't have that, which is kinda worrisome.
Takeaways:
- Flexibility in location (able to relocate to another room in the building if we have a weekend-long event booking)
- Need some sort of initial, trial-period experience to get to know you before we make a long term commitment.
- Open to collaborating on social work projects that overlap with existing activities / collective work.
- Explicit list of relevant faith-based topics, curriculum, or other documentation on general religious activities.
- Ensure that Liberation Ministries uses collective decision-making, or equivalent horizontalist practices.
Fund-raising Idea for Omni
Proposal in works by Matt & Francisco ;)
- Rummage Sale & Dinner & Festivities
- Francisco: Focus on gathering the community, invigorating the community spirit, fresh breath of air
- Marc suggests we ask folks to bring their crap from home to sell
- Jenny suggests we also auction off cute humans for dates
- Ed suggests a ballroom auction for high-value items
- We should procure stickers for pricing items
- We should sell tickets for food & exchanging for stuff
Name ideas:
- Another Person's Treasure, Show Us Your Junk, Amazing Junk, Beautiful Junk, Property is Theft
Action Items
- New member packet [Jenny, you?]
- Pay August utilities [Jenny]
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