DNC minutes - May 25, 2011

DNC minutes

May 25, 2011

Earl, Harold, Fraser, Ann, Wendy, Paul, Dave M, Ivan

Agenda

1)     Honorarium evaluation – In addition to the survey, Ann wanted to have an analysis of the data, whether attendance is less or more etc.  Ivan presented the survey.  We had a discussion about putting “who I am” on the survey.  Harold suggests taking out “vote” and “ID.” Explain why you need stats says Fraser.  Ann said we want to make sure we’re accessing opinions of those who usually don’t participate.  Ivan read out the suggested edits and will bring final to the next board meeting.  Paul:  motion to accept changes to survey as presented by Ivan.  Wendy:  Second.  Tami:  Abstained.  Carried.

2)     Eileen’s report – not here

3)     Newsletter – purpose is to get regularized communications to the hotels.  The Downtown East.  Needs to be representative so there is a racial justice, indigenous representative on the board, women on the board – fully fleshed out editorial policy.  Call a meeting to plan the launch of it.  Who on editorial board and other foundational aspects, how it’s distributed and printed.  Ivan:  motion to put a meeting together to plan the launching of the newsletter.  Harold:  Second.  Discussion:  Harold:  happy with this but not rush into it without knowing what we’re doing.  Do it in the overall fundraising plan.  No rush.  Will help our work over time.  Fraser:  overtired not to rush it.  Paul:  Good idea.  Help us be more representative of and reaching out to residents. 

We want to organize you building by building – more practical to help you deal with unique residential issues – organize a tenants union through this.  Who owns your building etc.  Dave:  get info out about bedbugs.  Carried.  Next Wednesday at 5 pm.  Carnegie 3^rd floor.  Ivan will send out invite. 

4)     Ginseng – chairs cleared out.  No negotiation about money.  Email Janice and get keys now so we can clean up and paint now.  Use it for free on 4^th, 5^th and 9^th for DNC meetings.  Negotiate in the second week.  We’ll propose $100 a week.  Walls need whitewashing.  Need linoleum.  Carpet ripped out.  Not too bad but couple of days work.  Put together a work-party.  Fraser can help with kitchen.   

5)     General Meeting –

Paul’s Motion:  Theme is the Pantages and the other 8 sites.  Ivan will make poster.  We could do a policing one in future said Ann. 

6)     Chinatown Update

a.     Party happening - Sunday June 5^th 6 pm.  Open to volunteers to organizing.  Wendy agreed to do outreach.  Ask Diane Wood to do the programming for music, poetry etc.  Ask Suzanne B, Letizia and Gena to help with the party.  Britta working on food. Supplemented potluck.   Fraser can work on food.  Chinatown committee could meet before this party?  Need a decorating crew:  Teresa Vandertuin.  Friday at 3 pm meeting.

7)     Committee updates

a.     Board seats – Ann can send individual email:  Nikki, Gladys, Eileen, Robert.  Wendy will call Ping.  Just Vanessa has resigned so far.  

b.     Board communications – Paul gets the master sheet of roles that. 

c.      Action committee – Ivan:  mostly attracting outside activist types.  Not a good place to get feedback from people in the area.  We could do our strategy meetings in the board and make them more public, people could speak and not vote.  We should be organizing in hotels and social housing – get valuable feedback would be time better spent.  Get info about key things like “what is social housing, all the gaps and systemic barriers etc.”  Hold meetings in targeted ways rather than.  Harold:  problem with how committee is functioning.  It shouldn’t be meeting every week.  Tami:  could have an organizational map.  Fraser and Ann:  could ask people what they want to work on. 

d.     Membership – Ivan:  met with Sarah B at Catholic Worker housing and offered to do our member list.  Gave her member forms.  Cross reference the emails on the member forms to the povnet email list. 

e.     Street market – Police incident at the street market.  Ivan:  Upset that we never got an email about it.   Wendy:  We’re having a management committee meeting Thursday at 1 pm.  Incident with the police has been deferred for 2 weeks until Doug Bain is back.  Social planning is aware of it.  Suggestion for Lyn to write an activity report and a report on every street market and forward it onto the board. 

f.       Lapp update – tabled until next meeting

g.      Finance – tabled until next meeting

8)     Work with others

a.     Vanact letter – tabled until next meeting

b.     Renters roundtable -

c.      Rhizome

Wendy

CCAP/604-839-0379

DNC board minutes - May 11, 2011

DNC board minutes - May 11, 2011

1.   Ali – arts and culture group

2.   Elections / Roles

3.   Pantages

4.   Inactive board seats

5.   Chinatown organizing follow ups

6.   Stipends evaluation

7.   Ginseng space for Lap

8.   Vandu ticket campaign

9.   Shelters email arrest

10.                   Zones of exclusion

Attending:  Sid, Wendy, Ann, Paul, Anne Marie, Harold, Harold – quorum. 

 Sid chaired.  Wendy took minutes.  Ann made tea.  Tami did acknowledgement.  Paul read constitution. 

 1.   Update on arts and culture committee:  Ali talked about the role of the committee would be to provide support for local arts and community members who are affected by DTES arts and culture like gentrification and exploitation.   Help get more members into DNC.  Work in coalition to understand who each other is, support each other for funding and space etc.  Develop CCAP’s vision for DTES arts and culture and Ali expanded on this in terms of all the things this group would like to do.  i.e. referendum on Goldcorp funding.    No decisions have been made yet by this group.  i.e. could do DNC radio as well as arts and culture.  I.e. arts could help with the painting Pantages.  There have been 2 meetings so far but it was broad based and some people don’t want to be part of the DNC.  Harold said we could have a separate DNC committee.  Ivan said there were 37 people at the first meeting.  Interesting mix and majority were from LIC.  Ivan said there is need for resident based group separate from the larger coalition.  Paul:  does the group just want our support or to be part of DNC?  Ali: hasn’t been resolved.  That’s why we’re here.  Should start a DNC committee and be part of the larger coalition.  Wendy:  to start a DNC committee, pass a motion at board and then recommend to general members.  Ann:  they need to agree with constitution.  Declare a chair until the group gets organized to elect a chair.  Ivan:  they are worried that arts stuff will be too controlled by the board.  Leave it open to the group to decide what to do.  Sid:  what do they want from DNC?  Ali:  Would like to be involved with DNC and can’t duplicate the work that I’m doing.  Tami:  thanks for your hard work and recognize the importance of people who are working in the creative capacity.  Artists can work against oppression.  Harold:  positive development and reflects the success of DNC and that artists want to develop a relationship with us.  Hold off on holding a committee.  Can’t automatic assume that they will want to be part of it.

Motion:  Support Harold, Tami and Ali to continue investigating an arts and culture committee and support them to initiate it.  Passed.

 2.   Elections and Roles:  We’re choosing a President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer.  

 Motion:  Ivan - to elect all 14 positions and check in with other board members to ensure there aren’t serious oppositions to our decisions today.  We will ratify this at the next General meeting.  unanimous.

 Discussion:  Paul and Ann said we can’t wait for everyone to show up for voting.  Ann said we could elect a few key ones today. 

 Cure to meritocracy is to buddy up.  

Roles and responsibilities:

Co-presidents (Tami Starlight and Paul Martin)

GM Coordinator (Wendy Pedersen)

BM coordinator (Ivan Drury)

Legal Secretary (Suzanne Baustaud?)

Membership secretary (Sarah B)

Media secretary (Tami Starlight)

Communications secretary (Ivan Drury)

Lapp committee (Wendy Pedersen)

Action committee (Ivan Drury)

Site Coordinator (Ivan Drury)

Treasurer (Ann Livingston)  - Ann is able to get information from the bank about account balance but will not be a signer.

Motion to approve this list minus the President and Vice President.  Ivan moved.  Tami second.  Unanimous. 

Ann:  Nominate Paul and Dave Hamm as President and Vice president. 

Wendy:  Nominating Tami as VP.

Ann’s Motion:  DNC will have co-presidents and not president and vice president.  Harold second.  Passed unanimously.

Ivan’s Motion:  to recommend Tami and Paul as co-presidents until the next AGM to the general members.  Anne Marie seconds.  Passed unanimously. 

Harold’s Motion:  Cel phones included minutes should be provided to co-presidents and sort out details later.  Anne Marie second. Approved.

Discussion:  sometimes will need more minutes for phone.  Ann marie has unlimited for $29/mo with mobicity. 

3.   Pantages – Ivan gives update on painting action tomorrow.  Michael Clague and others complaining about DNC because we slammed the owner of the property.  Tami and Paul co-presidents to speak.  Dave D and Stan are renting a grill.  Paint, pancakes.  Artists may come.  Festive and community celebration space.  

4.   Inactive board seats –

Harold’s Motion:  Ann will send the letters to Nicole, Eileen, Robert R and Gladys and Wendy will call Ping.  Paul seconds.  Carried

Harold’s Motions:  If vacancies come up before the next General Meeting, the board should suggest some replacements.  Paul seconds.  Carried. 

Think about housing types.  Wait to see what the block of people look like. 

Our next election is in November. 

5.   Chinatown Organizing

Moving Chinatown party to 6 pm on Sunday June 5^th.

6.   Stipends evaluation

Wendy will send out request for people to join.

7.   Lapp

a)   Wendy motion:  To recommend to the GM that we allow the LAP process to operate out of the DNC Ginseng space if the city provides appropriate incentives and empower the lap committee to negotiate details.  Anne Marie seconds. 

Carried. 

b)   Put off Lap report until next week.

7) Ivan’s motion:  Vandu ticketing – Reps of the street market committee will check in with Aiyanas and talk about how to support their action.  Paul seconds.  Carried.

8) Legal fees:  Not a DNC to get arrested there. Lawyer sent a letter to Harsha saying that activist stuff was getting subsidized by refugee funds and asked to have it covered. 

Wendy’s motion:  Offer $50 from DNC food money, if they can’t cover the cost of the legal fees. 

Second:  Paul.  Carried.

We could have a fund set aside for legal expenses. 

9)  Project Zoe:  UBC students made decisions to have a press conference, call politicians and start a new campaign.  They put out press releases without checking with people, misrepresented groups including DNC.  Vanact is not careful organizers.  It doesn’t happen with us because we are careful organizers.  Loose structure and unaccountability led to that.  Dave Diewert is initiating a new round of Project Zoe.  Includes Sarah, Lena, Stan, Guillome and no LIC members.  Ivan wants him to ensure they work more with us or they do it as a separate thing all together.  Affiliated with DNC but not within the way we’re organizing.  Ann:  We could write a letter and say this is how it’s done.   Tami and harold:  need more input from LIC.  Good project and best solution is to try to get our concerns met.  Not want to get into slagging match.  Not in anyone’s interests.  Not everyone acts unaccountably.  I don’t want to tarnish everyone in Vanact.  Sid:  Ad hoc coalition is everyone can do whatever they want at any time.  There is a role for ad hoc coalitions so you can blame others for the trouble.  Work in respect and can we trust them.  Tami:  disturbed by Ann:  some are off putting.  Not a good approach. 

Paul’s Motion:  Ivan can draft a letter to Vanact about the incident.  Tami:  seconding. 

Wendy against.

Ivan, Ann and Harold abstaining. 

Carried.

We have a good working relation; we have a couple of concerns and don’t let this affect our relation and it took up a lot of time in our board meeting.

    

Voted to close.