Berkeley United Scientists (BUS) meeting minutes 1/29/17

Items to add to agenda:

- Protests occuring on weekend of Feb 4,5 (Gabriella)

Treasurer: Amy Eisenberg

Recap
- 3-4 fundraising events over last month
- Dinner party 1/14 $661 to Berkeley Free Clinic
- Bxxr hour 1/20 $1,755
- ~$500 from post Follies party to Association of Women in Science and 314
Action
Ideas for additional fundraising activities?
- dinner with a scientist, $ per plate
- reach out to non-grad students who have more $ to donate
- Berkeley-wide talk series for general public
- Amy will raise these ideas with the fundraising group
- Event with candidate Mike Eisen
How should we handle our money?
- Temporary situation now is Venmo acct linked to BUS Google phone #
- register as a non-profit
- create a bank account
- could create a registered student group and
- Indivisible Berkeley is already in process of registering as UCB group
- Pros and cons of being independent from UCB?
o Con: bureaucracy annoying to navigate
o Pro: get GA $, security for events with invited speakers

Communication: Rory McCallion

Online presence
- We have www.berkeleyunitedscientists.org through Confluence CHECK IT!
- Can email admin@berkeleyunitedscientists.org
- Confluence has Wiki style intuitive heirarchical layout
o Anyone can create a page and publish it to the group
o Can comment and provide feedback
o Simple to dupicate existing working group space to make new one
o It is possible to make private space for self or small group on site
o There is a Catch: we must get 401c3 nonprofit or student group status
to continue to use Confluence platform for free
o Alternatively we could just continue to use Slack and Google docs but
try to be good about organization
- Why dont we have a Facebook group
o Could be effective way for timely awareness of protests/calls to make
Fake news discussion with Chris Holdgraf

- problem: degradation of trust in instutions that produce and disseminate

info
- has a group that meets weekly to discuss this problem (name?)
o grad students and post-docs
o interested in applying technology solutions to the fake news problem
o many groups around Bay Area also working on this issue
- some of the public-facing solutions they are working on
o Fiskkit: providing embedded context to info on news sites
similar to RapGenius platform
incentivises university scientists to vet and provide context to
trending news topics
o GoodlyLabs UpSmart: identifies logical fallacies within online content
Will it actually target those who could benefit most from it?
Difficult to make people change their minds, but perhaps make
it more difficult for them share misleading news
Perhaps collect data on user preferences and sharing behaviors
to provide to editors at news aggregation sites
- Chris is happy to have people from BUS attend these weekly meetings
- Chris wants to know if there is a master list of Twitter accounts of
congresspeople and senators
- What about: https://www.countable.us/

Communication and outreach: Dennis Sun

- problem: we are in a liberal bubble and do not know or talk to Trump

supporters
- characterization of Trump supporters is problematic
- how do we find common ground and engage with the other side?
- Mashup Americans: NPR program with model on how to reach out to those
that do not agree with your politics
o The three Rs: Receive, repeat, respond
Receive patiently and openly
Repeat back to them so that you are clearly understanding
what their opinion is
Respond: this is where you get to talk about your stance
- Game: controversial opinion discussion in pairs

From Thornton:

- California sanctuary state legislation in the works and needs callers

o California immigration policy center sponsored
- Bay Area resistance network action alerts
o http://bayresistance.org/?source=direct_link&
Gabriella: protests

- 4pm Feb 4th No Wall No Immigration protest at UN Plaza in SF

- look for announcement email from Gabriella to BUS listserv
- Invisible Berkeley group is a great way to announce protests and RSVP
o Also provides a bit of peer accountability since it is visible
- Gabriella enjoys having people join her on protests and plug in to movements
- https://www.govtrack.us/ is a good way to keep abreast of everything being
voted on in DC but may be best for policy wonks
- https://5calls.org/ also aggregates five good ways to influence your
representatives on important current issues