Liverpool Social Forum Meeting 7.30 in Next To Nowhere 09/10/2007

LSF Minutes – 09/10/2007

Angry Women of Liverpool (AWOL)

Coming out of the North West Feminist's meeting held on Saturday 6th October a new group with two forthcoming events has been formed.

October 22nd 7.30 – The first meeting of AWOL, which is women only.

November 30th – Response to an international call out for action against sexual aggression. There will be a meeting in the day followed by a Reclaim the Night action. This action will be mixed gender, but men should meet separately before hand to discuss their involvement and privilege before joining the march.

Scientists for Global Responsibility

An academic in JMU, a member of Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) and who is particularly interested in combined heat and power systems, has proposed a consultation with community and activist groups across the UK about what the 30 billion being spent on Trident could more usefully be spent on.

We might be interested in facilitating this process in Liverpool, a consultation with a wide variety of groups.

We would have to host a number of meetings, probably manage invitations and finding groups who would be interested in being involved.

If we say yes, the JMU chap will contact SGR and then we may have access to costings and the knowledge base of this global organisation of pretty well informed people.

On a smaller scale, we could perhaps even ask the question 'what could Liverpool have spent the culture money on that would have been more useful?'

Decided to invite the chap to a meeting after he's had chance to consult with SGR council.

Behind the Mask with Keith Mann – October13th.

Open meeting with Keith Mann, a prominent animal rights activist.

31st October – Outsiders Film Festival

They want a vegan buffet and the kitchen group is looking for guidance on charging. No real decision reached, although the principle of basing charges on how much groups can afford was upheld.

Kitchen group to reach their own decision.

Oaxaca Benefit Night

20th October – Benefit night for Oaxaca run my Liverpool Chiapas Solidarity.

E-lists
The LSF list has become very busy of late and shows no sign of slackening off. This has caused problems for people who can't access their email very often and is causing people to miss important information because it's buried in a flood of messages. On top of this we have had people unsubscribing from the list in a fairly steady stream lately.

It was proposed that the list be split into three.

A moderated announcements and proposals list which would replace the main list at the moment. No discussion would be allowed on this list, with messages straying in this direction being moved to a second discussion list.

An unmoderated discussion list which will thrash out proposals and engage in detailed discussion. Summaries of important discussions on this list will be posted to the announcements list and and proposals generated to be put forward to the meetings will also be posted to the announcements list.

A newsletter sent out fortnightly or monthly which will keep people who do not want to be involved in organising things informed of what's going on in the social centre.

Concerns

The announcements list could end up not containing important information that people need to see, leaving people with the problem of wading through a lot of emails to get at what they need. This should be answered by the practice of summarising discussions and posting proposals.

We need a lot of moderators for the main list, otherwise the workload will be too high for those that take it on.

Should we keep archives or not?

The proposal was agreed and will be implemented over the next couple of weeks by Matt M and Maria N. If it doesn't work out it was agreed that we can go back and have another look at it.

Social Centre Ground Rules and Conflict Resolution

This was raised, but time ran out on the discussion and no decision was possible. This issue will be returned to, but objections to the proposal were raised – particularly the use of the words 'dogmatic' and 'disruptive'. It was pointed out in response to these objections that there are problems within the group which are not being recognised and acknowledged and which need to be brought out into the open.