Oct 25th 1pm GA Minutes

[LauraRobinson]

Tues, Oct 25th – 1pm GA
-Mic check to be used only during large GAs, not necessary for small turnouts. Hand signals will be used at all times, including in small committee meetings to ensure order and fairness are maintained.
- Food committee needs organizers for mornings, mainly people who are camping or are here in the mornings for clean-up, water collection, general morning set up, etc.
-Food committee also needs assistance with completing inventory lists, and with proper food storage.
- An info booth needs to be set up near camp to talk with passer-by. Suggestion to set up speaker’s corner, a guest book with comments, suggestions, email addresses for newsletters.
-Media tent (right beside northwest main entrance) will be used as a drop off location for all donations. We need a sign posted outside the tent to make this known.
- No negativity towards the homeless; we will offer warm drinks and a place to sit and chat, etc but something needs to be done about the food – people are wandering in and eating large amounts of our food. Possibly a system to identify occupiers – “O” patches?
-Multi-committee meeting needs to be scheduled so that all pressing issues/jobs can be identified and it can be decided which committees are best suited to handle which responsibilities.
-Food tent needs a board to keep track of expected donations; i.e. when someone says they will be dropping something of at a particular time, it will be recorded so we know what to expect and when.
-A reminder that all foods are asked to be NUT FREE, and to please label the ingredients, as well as denote items to be vegan, vegetarian, gluten free, etc.
-Excess food is being donated to soup kitchen and food bank.
-We may be getting porta-potties from unions
-Logistics committee needs to make a “shift board” to list jobs (such as night shift, collecting water, cooking, etc.) for people to sign up for to make the distribution of work more equal.
-In future, GAs held at times of inclement weather (rain, bad winds, snow, etc) will be held in small groups in tents for shelter. These nodes will report back to each other.
-Magazines are not to be taken from the library. Books may be signed out (and brought back!) Idea to contact City Light for materials
-The library has archives of newspaper articles mentioning Occupy London. Someone would like to collect articles from the Fanshawe and Western newspapers as well.
-On Nov 2nd the London Police are having a community input meeting; details in Metro?
-All events created by a committee are to be taken to the events committee to be formally scheduled
-Free free market to be held this weekend. Outreach committee to advertise. Andrew can make flyers.
-There is word that free wifi may be donated in the near future
-Charging stations for cell phones may become available in the media tent
-We had a hostile interview this morning on AM1290.
-Possible counter-protest has been mentioned. Also a debate with Zak Young might take place this weekend.
-Dishes should be washed in soapy water, then dipped in a bleach bath, then in clean water to rinse.
-Sanitation committee needs people to pick up compost
-Mike spoke to a parks & rec worker for the city; we will need to move the tents in a week or so to make room to hang holiday lights on the pine trees. At this point, re-organizing of the tents will take place (to make room for walking around them and better surveillance at night).
-We need to collect online donations. Perhaps a media issue?
-More volunteers are needed for night watch, and a schedule needs to be made. More female night watchers are needed.