GA working group planning meeting 12 19 11

Intro Hand signals Proposal to have political discussions on a weekly basis. Move the talks from the internet to in person. Decided Next GA will be at New Labor at 103 Bayard Street on Jan 6 2011, 2nd floor 7pm Discussed meeting with DAC as soon as possible to discuss strategies.

More details (from Jeanette) There was some discussion of the Internet debates and agreement that these are valuable discussions that should be held in person with more substantive discussion. Decided to come up with a regular meeting place -- strong support for the Public LIbrary -- to hold weekly discussions with a calendar of topics agreed in advance. We will be asking for people to propose these discussion topics at the next General Assembly. For example some of the topics that came up were, "The Prison Industrial Complex," "The Role of the State," "What Role Does Charity Play in the Movement." Those were just some preliminary thoughts. We will be sending two representatives to the next New Labor meeting - agreed upon Roger and Jasmine. Decided to keep the Low Income Working Group but possibly change it's name since there is such a negative stigma against low income. The rent project and the social services project are directly organizing through this Working Group. We hope that the Direct Action Working Group will also be having meetings. There will be a proposal at the next General Assembly for a Rent Action the day after the GA Saturday, January 7th. The date of the Educational on Jobs was shifted to the Saturday after MLK day (January 20) so as not to conflict with the police brutality march. There was some discussion about our strategy around Police Brutality work and a decision to call a Working Group meeting on that as quickly as possible. One of the key points to discuss is the upcoming Grand Jury investigation and how ONB wants to respond to that. I hope this covered everything...I had to leave a few minutes early.