Notes on Women Occupy conference call 7/27/12
3pmPST, 6pmEST
3:06 Nancy open up call with introduction, call is to continue on with the organizing that began n at the National Gathering and extend the work on the Declaration. Also, we’ll address how to bring feminist voice to RNC and DNC.
Some orientation to how to interact on the call.
It’s a small call, so introduce yourself, where you’re calling from and why you’re on the call.
Freedom: she is all about hearing women’s voices in the Occupy movement, interested to participate and get the word out about women’s voices in the Occupy movement. I’m in Los Angeles.
Elizabeth: I’m from Las Vegas, NV my reason to call is to help spread the word in any way I can and to get involved.
Becks: I am calling from Nova Scotia Canada. I’m a women and gender studies student. I am interested in women’s experiences in Occupy. There’s a small Occupy patriarchy in Nova Scotia, connect with other people with similar goals.
Gina: from Alabama, an online Occupier, I work with InterOccupy and work as a curator on InterOccupy. I think that if change is going to come it’s going to come through women.
Lorena: OWS and WOWS in NYC. I help organize the Feminist General Assemblies in NYC and looking to create safe spaces for women in the Occupy movement and how to leave a feminist mark in the Occupy movement.
Because it’s an intimate call, Nancy opened everyone’s mics. If in a noisy area press mute on your cell phone.
In the agenda, we’ll talk about organizing around the RNC and DNC. So I’ll introduce Rae Abileah who’s organizing the CodePink presence at both conventions. questions or comments from her she’ll be able to hear you.
Rae: wonderful to be on the call with you all, is anyone planning to go to the RNC in Tampa or the DNC in Charlotte?
Lorena: I plan to go to the RNC and the DNC.
Nancy’s planning to be at the RNC and Rae will be at both of them.
Invitation to Women Occupy to join in.
At the RNC, Tampa, FL Aug. 27-30. The hottest issue for women that we can bring, with conversation with Eve Ensler and Women Occupy calls, reproductive rights, and health care, we have a theme of “End War on Women” and we’re asking women to “Bring your vagina to the RNC” put protecting reproductive rights for women in the foreground. We’ll have a roving vagina brigade with vagina costumes. We want to expose the ridicule
codepink.org/rnc Call to RNC is posted there, with training camp, protest corporate parties and the convention itself, a coalition march on the RNC, we’ll have an ariel photo of a vagina as part of the coalition march. We’ll caravan to Charlotte.
Call to March on Wall St. South. Charlotte is major headquarters for Bank of America and other banks. Protest against BoA shareholders meeting. sat. sept. 1 all day liberation festival. March on Sept. 2. Worker’s conference on Sept. 3. We’ll protest at democrat parties, events, and Bust up Big Banks message, we’ll bring this to charlotte and how democrats and republicans are both complicit in the economic disaster in our country. codepink.org/dnc
Creative visuals for both conventions: Sign up to join the contingent.
Questions on theme, messaging, logistics. We’ll take stack and then we’ll call on folks.
Lorena: Have you seen the action to about the 42nd year for the strike for equality that women did 42 years ago. Would you be interested to do that action in Tampa on Aug. 26? Yes, that would be great. It’s the day before the RNC and the 42nd year for the anniversary for the strike for equality. It would be important to have that presence before the RNC starts.
Lorena and Rae will be in touch offline and will be in touch with Women Unite Tampa and other women’s organizations in Tampa. Rae@codepink.org and l.ambrosio01@gmail.com is Lorena’s info.
Nancy: We’ll give the mic back to Rae, but some new people have joined the call, pleas introduce yourself and what drew you to the call. We’re having
Lorie: It’s Lorie Dodson, Maine, I did lady justice at Nat Gat, I have been trying to follow you on the list and keep up with CodePink activities and will try to get on the list.
Michael: mic muted?
Starlene: Sacramento, CA, heard through interoccupy emails, I’m part of the national dream party women’s caucus and the lavender caucus to see how I can be involved and help out.
Liz: mic muted?
I’m going to hand the mic to Rae to speak about the organizing at the RNC and DNC
Lorena: do you know about the anti-immigration action at the DNC?
Rae: I’ve heard of immigration protests but not about the anti-immigration protests by Republicans.
In general the occupy community seems plugged in to Occupy Tampa is still standing, and the poor people’s campaign for human rights has started a second encampment in the zone and they have a lot of pink tents. Occupy groups in NC are very involved with the Occupy Wall St. South messaging.
For travel or housing issues, taking a temperature check – how important is it to be present at the conventions? is there organizing in your communities?
Lorie: hundreds of feminist slogans and ideas and captions of pictures, people were saying “my body my choice” especially when I see some of these bodies, it’s so personal. People need to be aware the election is important that way, for Republicans to know that women’s bodies are on the line.
Rae: Our theme is bringing your vagina to the RNC with a focus on Pro-Choice issues.
Lorie: there’s more people in favor of same sex marriage, more people support it than are against it, so it’s really time to capitalize on changes.
Rae: is anyone going to the conventions?
remember to go to the websites: codepink.org/rnc and codepink.org/dnc
see you soon in Tampa, Lorena and we’ll be in touch offline.
Elizabeth: A few questions: when senators were voting about transvaginal exams before abortion is signed by the doctor. I can’t go to Tampa but these congress men and women they aren’t aware of how invasive these tests are. they don’t know medically what they’re talking about they just go in and decide for us and learn about it later. they really have no idea what they’re doing.
Rae: if you see things in the news or have other messages, send them our way.
Lorie/Elizabeth(?): the invasiveness idea should be brought home to people, somehow show people what it entails by some device or demonstration.
Nancy: Rae – what are some of the solidarity actions that we can do from home, away from the conventions?
Rae: we are trying to get more people to tweet and have a large social media team so that we can get out the word about what’s happening on the ground. culture jam RNC hashtags. there’s work to be done on Facebook and we need to do outreach about our plans. spread the world on those websites. if anyone can make phone calls to invite people to get into the streets, we need help with phone calling, email: rae@codepink.org
these candidates are on the road, we need to be outside or inside those events, and Ben Cohen and a coalition are organizing a protest to get money out of politics. hold up a sign that says “money out of politics” there were great protests by Nancy and the Bay Area against Romney and Obama this past week.
Caroline: Alaska, there’s no group in my town. so I’m just following things on the web. I have one comment about this transvaginal test and wondered if there could be some comparison made b/w that and what’s needed to get a Viagra prescription you need an anal penetration test, something to bring it to light to these men what its like.
Nancy: anyone want to respond to Caroline.
Starlene: I was thinking for those who can’t be there, set up a livestream channel, showing some of the live stream coming from media livestreamers and those of us can meet and talk in the chat room at the same time. And a host to go in between what we’re seeing in the stream and what people are seeing in the chat room. Perhaps interviews with people skyping in.
Nancy: OccupyCafe was great at the National Gathering and people could participate using the Maestro conference system. and there were great occupy livestreamers at the Occupy National Gathering. my suggestion is we had on the women occupy site, we had freedom occupy LA as one of the women occupiers to do live streaming. if codepink could recognize other livestreamers to follow if people can’t join in.
a new caller: Shantel: Cleveland, Oh, I saw your message and I was interested, this is the first time I’m calling.
Heather: report back on the FemGA. For 1-1.5 hours, approximately 200 people attended. Everyone addressed what they thought about feminism and what the future of feminism in Occupy should be. There were a number of diverse responses including stopping rape culture, enjoying and owning our bodies, to emphasizing how banks and the economic situation especially impact women’s lives. The Fem GA turned into a couple of working groups including a Direct Action group and a Women’s Declaration group. The direct action group created some beautiful trouble by Occupying the 4th of July. And there were some developments with the Declaration and other people are open to talk about their experiences and share other thoughts about the Fem GA please do so now.
Nancy: people yelling out their shared values, democracy, equality, etc. Please give a critique or a report back.
Freedom: I was there and live streaming. For those who didn’t see it, you can find it on the women’s occupy link. I also did a 10 min. highlight Ivanca reading the women’s declaration. as it stood at the end of the gathering you can see what it ended up as at the end of the http://www.ustream.tv/occupyFreedomLA
Nancy: great! anyone else who would like to share their experiences?
Lorie: It was incredibly validating to be a part of women’s occupy in general, there was so much of a presence and interest in it. I was blindfolded as “lady liberty” one thing said was there was a man saying he wanted women to step forward and that his frustration was that he and he knew other men that said they wanted women to have more of a presence but then he felt women didn’t step up to the role of sharing power. sometimes I feel intimidated to take a position to do something out there, and I thought it was kind of an interesting observation by a man that women do have powers that women have to embrace powers when they take them. so many people responded so beautifully to a women’s event, it had a different flavor, it was energetic and validating, the fem ga was pretty awesome!
Lorena: I was also at the National Gathering and there for the feminist GA and helped write the questions for the small breakout groups. People getting together to talk feminism is an important thing. I saw people hanging out and not giving it that much importance. Everyone in the movement doesn’t realize how important it is. Having lady justice there was important. And I worked on the declaration with Ivanca. I did have some input and read it at the end of the national gathering felt very empowering the Fem GA was really beautiful!!
Nancy: At WOWS and OWS, you are just finishing up another fem ga, ca you give a report?
Lorena: we did the fem GA at the atrium at 60 Wall St. It was the first speakout open space format. not questions or breakout groups. it was a different design. it was beautiful and we loved it. it all flowed together . People stated their happy times, sad times, frustrations to feminism, we practiced progressive stack and people called on others to participate. People would go up front and write a topic that they wanted to present and then we made into small groups. We then did a report back.
Our Aug. Fem GA will be in Harlem, we’re designing what to do, we might do an open space format again, we’re still deciding what to do.
Progressive stack is a way and form of getting more people to participate for those who aren’t called on right away, such as women and people of color.
From the Group: How’s it work?
If someone gets called on stack and you see it’s a person who keeps talking or it’s w/in Occupy, a woman will be the last one to be called on, we’re mindful of making that happen, so that women speak earlier and are called on more frequently.
Gina: Where can I see the women’s declaration?
Nancy: there is a copy at Womenoccupy.org you can access a copy of the declaration that was developed at Nat Gat Philly, It’s a living document that can be worked on over and over again. Also there is the livestream from freedom of the reading of the women’s declaration.
Lorena: I think it’s important, for everyone who’s on this call, it’s important for everyone to provide their input, please add anything, please go ahead and provide your suggestions.
Nancy: A little homework: please go to the womenoccupy.org website and read the declaration and watch the live stream, come back to the call next Friday and give some feedback here about the declaration. We will be here. Any announcements?
Michael: from San Diego. I want to throw out deep appreciation to Freedom LA for helping me to participate in National Gathering via her Livestream.
Gina: when you were taking comments about the national gathering, can I give some feedback?
Nat Gat was positive, a good gathering, positive energies, everyone moved past police conflict. I think it’s unfortunate we moved to Franklin b/c we were invisible to people. we should have sought a permit for the original space at 5th and Market. I think we have gotten off track. I was surprised there was a visioning process going on because at the beginning of Occupy, the purpose to gather was to make people aware and to decide how to get our money back that banks stole from us. that particular question was not addressed. then we came up with 700 items for a vision statement which to me is not a vision statement. the movement needs to get back on track. there’s a lot of attrition b/c we’ve lost the focus of the original movement and what we need to do. women occupy can play a critical role to bring back that focus.
Nancy: I was in an organizing call about the S17 1year anniversary in NYC led by Tammy at Interoccupy. could someone from interoccupy or someone from the organizing team give us an update. maybe this is the time to refocus and get our money back from the banks. can someone give a report back.
Lorena: I haven’t been to a S17 meeting yet, but on S18 there will be a Fem GA. I’m organizing that Women Occupying Wall Street (WOWS) contact: wowsnyc@gmail.com
Nancy: we have things to look forward to in the future, the RNC, the DNC, Sept. 17 in New York for the 1 year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. Lots of exciting stuff going on. We still have the working document of the women’s declaration and the live stream on the site. There’s a lot of work to do, I encourage everyone to join the call next Fri. and tell your friends, brothers and sisters, to join the call. There’s an importance of women
Lorie: there’s something with interoccupy. A hub through interoccupy they’re organizing, you can create. It’s good for women occupy to create a hub site.
Nancy: we did set it up already, go to interoccupy/womenoccupy you can find our hub, it connects to our facebook and twitter account and there’s also discussion groups.
Rae and Elizabeth will discuss an action in Las Vegas.
Everyone said Goodbye!

_________________________________________________
Women Occupy Weekly Call
________________________________________________
Thursday, 6/28/12, 4:00pmPT / 7:00pmEST

Call Host: Occupy Philly and Women Occupy
Call Facilitators: Nancy, Magda, Tricia
Maestro Board Manager(s): Iwanka
Note Taker: Nancy

CALL OBJECTIVES:
Building a women/women-identified presence at the Occupy National Gathering
Support the Feminist General Assembly (FemGA)
(see Call Participation Guidelines at bottom).

Communication using phone keypad (review numbers 1-5):
1) Get on Stack
2) Agreement, applause & approval for current speaker or idea (twinkles)
3) Disagreement with current speaker’s comments
4) Direct response to current speaker
5) Point of process or request for tech assistance

A. Introduction and background about the Occupy National Gathering in Philadelphia for the FemGA/Women’s presence in Philadelphia for new callers- 5 minutes
on the ground planning for FemGA, beginning tomorrow; People already arriving into Philly today;
info@occupynationalgathering.com with FemGA in the title to include you in the planning
Everything managed is through the website; we need volunteers virtual or on site
www.

B. Report backs
–Legal working with ACLU-PA, Know Your Rights pamphlets, NLG number, packet will have the info; Tricia will get the number out to use; Legal collective phone; write on your arm: (484) 758-0488
–Media (Press release, FemGA, WO occupy Iwanka has two volunteers; they are willing to do some writing for the FemGA. use the FemGA press release, Press release should go out tomorrow should be one person; emails gathered for press team
–Social Media (livestream @occupyfreedomla) NatGat tweet team will be tweeting the FemGA, use #FemGA, use #natgatfemga, we never had people to raise hands at the end of the call, reach out to twitter team for natgat already; Iwanka can introduce
–Action We are waiting for the FemGA put it together; there’s a FOX News Station and on certain days they have live programming; I haven’t heard about another direct action; we could also do a casserole for education; bangning pots and pans; there’s open space to put things together;
–Outreach (local and national), Locally Philadelphia is conservative; it’s a tough crowd, keep the FemGA focus and interesting; local groups are aware of it; a lot of orgs to outreach we can reach out face to face
–Facilitation email info@occupynationalgathering.com with FemGA in the title to be included in the planning of the FemGA.
–Video Still shooting a video there; Lisa has a video camera; not sure how soon I can get it up on YouTube; by the end of the week I should have it

Tricia: FemGA agenda; we are using the agenda that was used in New York WOW group; we are going to try to add the declaration to add as a goal; We are not getting a permit; the 1st amendment is our permit

Melanie; Tweet out the live stream right away; #NatgatFemGA should have their own tweet team; Melanie will be in Philly on Sunday….Excited!!!! Yippeee!!

Iwanka: OccupyCafe host virtually support, visioning that you can join; Kelly is working with OccupyCafe phone conversation about beyond Patriarchy conf call go to OccupyCafe website;

To become an Occupy Cafe Host register here:

http://myaccount.maestroconference.com/conference/register/1U0HI7A2DC6UL705

Christina; legal observer in PA; send yogadelphia@gmail.com info

C. Women’s Declaration (5 minutes) — send a
Post declaration on FemGA NatGat Facebook events page; Tweet out the FemGA; put them all in Googledoc for any comments, questions or concerns
Rachelle and Tricia can work offline

Tweet team for FemGA gathered emails
Press team for FemGA gathered email

D. Closing Comments/Housekeeping – 3 minutes
See you in Philly!

Feedback for making this call better? Send to codepink.nancy@gmail.com with subject “General Call Feedback.” Feel free to invite others to join.

Thanks for being on the call!

Call Participation Guidelines
Be Curious and Open to Learning: Listen to and be open to hearing all points of view. Maintain a attitude of exploration and learning.
Balance Advocacy and Inquiry: Seek to learn and understand as much as you might want to persuade. Conversations are as much about listening as it is about talking.
Show Respect and Suspend Judgment: Setting judgments aside will enable you to learn from others and contribute to others experiencing being respected and appreciated.
Seek Alignment rather than Agreement: Alignment is shared intention, whereas agreement is having a shared belief or opinion.
Be Purposeful and to the Point: Notice if what you are conveying is or is not “on purpose” to the question at hand. Notice if you are making the same point more than once. Do your best to make your point quickly with honesty and depth.
Own and Guide the Conversation or Process: Take responsibility for the quality of your participation and the quality of the work conversations by noticing what’s happening and actively support getting yourself and others back “on purpose” when needed.
Be Excellent to Each other: Share what’s important to you. Speak authentically; from your personal and heartfelt experience. Be considerate to others who are doing the same.

Wednesday, 3/28/12 5:30 PM PT/8:30 PM ET

Call Host: Women Occupy
Call Facilitator: Nancy Mancias
Maestro Board Manager(s): Iwanka Kultschyckyj
Note Taker(s): Janet Weil
Maestro Call Registration Link for This Call: http://interoccupy.org/womencall/
Link to these notes: http://bit.ly/zfvl0i
Link to share your contact info and introduce yourself to the group: http://bit.ly/zcmCSI

CALL OBJECTIVES:
Connect women and feminists across the occupy movement
Develop next steps for Women Occupy to build for a solidarity feminist GA for May 17th

Welcome
Nancy introduced facilitation team, welcome, and reviewed WO’s previous focus on Intl Women’s Day actions, current call objectives and call guidelines (see Call Participation Guidelines at bottom).

Communication using phone keypad (review numbers 1-5):
1) Get on Stack
2) Agreement, applause & approval for current speaker or idea (twinkles)
3) Disagreement with current speaker’s comments
4) Direct response to current speaker
5) Point of process or request for tech assistance

If this is your first time on the call and you’d like to introduce yourself raise your hand and tell us what inspired you to join the call? What Occupy are you calling from?

Caroline, from Alaska, not currently in an occupy, interested in joining WO because she’s furious about underrepresentation of women in media coverage of occupy movement, and verbal sexism within the movement.

Pat from OccupyChicago and Chicago area Code Pink [guest speaker].

Alice, OWS, antiwar and environmental solidarity working groups there [guest speaker].

NATO protests and organizing
Diiscussion & Q &A with Pat Hunt, Chicago-based co-organizer for the People’s Summit, anti-NATO march and actions.
Pat: We’ve been organizing since June 2011. We found out at the beginning of March that the G8 is moving to Camp David, MD. NATO is meeting May 20-21. A lot of actions involving many gruops. Pat’s working with CANg8 on the People’s Summit, May 19 -20; on Sunday, May 20 we’re organzing a rally at Daley Plaza and march to McCormick Place. Yesterday we went to the administration law hearing to appeal denial of march permit; if our appeal is denied, we will have to go back to the coalition. Network for NATO-free Future is holding a counter-summit, May 18 – 19. The idea of both counter-summits is to put forth better futures and alternatives to NATO and G8. What would a world without war and the G8 look like? There will be panels and workshops at both counter-summits – creative, intellectual and interactive.

Eliz: Good to be here! We had 2 wonderful young women from Chicago at Occupy Nashville and they got us all excited about what’s going on. They brought materials about the NATO protests and were very impressive. I think we’ll have some people come up from Nashville.

Pat: Occupy Chicago is hosting the People’s Summit and are putting a lot of energy into actions that week – they’ve been invaluable. Every Monday we meet at the Occupy Chicago headquarters. Occupy Chicago folks are engaged and energetic, it’s a pleasure to work with them.

Eliz: A rider from Ride to the End, just back from connecting with Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers in Afghanistan, will be headed your way (on his bicycle).

Nancy: If people are coming in from out of town, what is the housing situation and what should people bring? What’’s the legal and medic setup?

Pat: We’re working on the housing board on www.cang8.org – should be up on Monday April 1. There are some churches, inexpensive hotels and a few other places. If you’re not staying in a hotel, bring a sleeping bag, rain gear, container for water. Chicago is not camper-friendly; there are places outside of the city and then take public tranist in. One of my associates created a guide to getting around the area. We have not been told what the security perimters will be; but we know they can’t completely shut down the city for Sunday and Monday. Public transit is by far your best bet. If you come in a bus, we can give you a couple of places for them to park. Before and after the march, we’ll have staging areas for buses. Chicago Action Medical is taking on responsibility of medical needs of people, as well as many field medics. National Lawyers Guild is spearheading legal observers; also people coming from the EU as international observers. We are anticipating a legal, permitted, family-friendly march with peace guides whose purpose is to direct folks on the route, diffuse tensions nonviolently. War Resisters League and Veterans for Peace are taking the lead on being the peace guides.

Discussion about the importance of protesting NATO and Q&A with Alice Slater of the OWS anti-militarism working group and Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

Alice: Happy to be here with all of you. Why do we want to protest? NATO is very 20th century. It was originally Western Europe confronting the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and Communist expansion. The US promised Gorbachev when Germany was reunited in 1989 and entered NATO as a single country that if the USSR didn’t object, NATO would not be expanded (a grossly broken promise). It’s become a military juggernaut; has bombed Serbia and Kosovo, and Libya; has violated UN laws against military aggression. The US is using NATO to protect resources and markets. Now, they’re expanding this military alliance and pivot to the East. Russia is now surrounded by missiles and there’s an expansion into the Pacfic, US troops to Australia.

It’s a terrible alliance, creating difficulties around nuclear disarmament. NATO is like the 20th century and it’s not in keeping with the world we want. It shouldn’t be up to some Western neo-colonialist nations to decide how the world is run. The US provides the bulk of the money and troops. NATO spends 70% of the world’s military spending. US and NATO have military bases around the world.

It’s been a victory for our people that they moved the G8 to Camp David. They know we’re coming en masse, Pat.

Nancy: How do we bring in our feminine voice as women, Pat and Alice? What do we do with our messaging?

Alice: “Take the toys away from the boys!” The world is out of balance; controlled by a worldview that’s hierarchical, patriarchal. [Alice’s story: She asked a woman from the Chumash nation if she had heard that the US constitution is based on Iriquois law. The Chumash woman said, Yes, and did you know that a council of wise elder women in the Iriquois nation made the decision whether to go to war or not? Alice urged us to take our power back in the same way.]

Pat: May 13 is Mother’s Day, an antiwar holiday. That’s really important, because wars and militarism affect women and children on tremendous levels, connects to the global poverty issue. NATO kills people right away; poverty kills slowly. In many parts of the world, they don’t have a way to have a voice like we do here. It’s not only our voices, but the voices of women all over the world. Take the money that NATO gets, that the G8 dangles before other govts, and put it where it’s needed – housing, food, etc. On May 20, no matter how tired I am, I come to a safe home. Women in Afghanistan don’t come home to safety.

Eliz: We just had Kathy Kelly of Voices for Creative Nonviolence at our Peace Roundtable talking about wars and youth; she’s just come back from Afghanistan. Kathy Kelly reported: These young men and women ask, “How can we make America like us better? What have we done?”

It moves me so, and it’s so important to be very there with our feminism and murturing and intelligence and sanity. Our voices are needed. We’re having a Right to Exist event on Sunday at Occupy Nashville with Food Not Bombs and teach-ins, and spending the night (no tents) on Freedom Plaza. I’ve been putting out feminist signs, with clenched fist, with flowers; we’re going to start flying kites. We’re going to show color and beautiful things.

Discussion to build for a solidarity feminist GA on May 17th with OWS Women Occupying Wall St (WOW) in NYC

Nancy: This was discussed on last week’s call and now we’re open to ideas for this. How does this sound? Pat, is this something we can try to implement in Chicago on May 17?

Pat: I think that would be a great idea. Maybe we could do a Skype GA with other occupies to coordinate. Sometimes our (women’s) voices can get drowned out. I would love to see solidarity in other cities as well.

Alice: Have you connected with Melanie at OWS?

Nancy: Yes, Melanie was on our call last week and told us about the WOW plan. Hopefully we’ll bring Melanie back for more info on how to organize a feminist GA in local communities.

Eliz: We have turned over our livestreaming to a woman to have it more feminist-oriented. We could also do streaming-solidarity, for folks who don’t have Skype. I think a national feminist GA is just super! Upsparkle!

Nancy: That’s a great idea.

Alice: Will send an article.

Pat: Thanks for the opportunity. If you can’t come to Chicago, do something in solidarity and take a look at the Code Pink website — lots of resources there.

Nancy gave a brief explanation of WomenOccupy online directory, connecting women in the OWS movement across the U.S. and beyond: http://bit.ly/GUBRyM

Nancy: Please add your information. There is not one hub of women-centric or gender-focus so far. [Lots of upsparkles for this tool.)

Closing Comments/Housekeeping
Next Call: From here forward calls will be on Wednesdays at 5:30PT/8:30ET in the evening. You don’t need to re-register for next week’s call – you can use the same number you used for this call. Upcoming presenters include Joanna Macy and social media goddess Suzanne Turner, in response to requests for social media training.

Show of hands for those who are not yet on the google group: invitations to be sent out.
Feedback for making this call better? Send to codepink.nancy@gmail.com with subject “General Call Feedback.” Feel free to invite others to join.
Please add your events to the Women Occupy calendar: www.womenoccupy.org.

GROUP GOOD-BYES!

Call Participation Guidelines
Be Curious and Open to Learning: Listen to and be open to hearing all points of view. Maintain a attitude of exploration and learning.
Balance Advocacy and Inquiry: Seek to learn and understand as much as you might want to persuade. Conversations are as much about listening as it is about talking.
Show Respect and Suspend Judgment: Setting judgments aside will enable you to learn from others and contribute to others experiencing being respected and appreciated.
Seek Alignment rather than Agreement: Alignment is shared intention, whereas agreement is having a shared belief or opinion.
Be Purposeful and to the Point: Notice if what you are conveying is or is not “on purpose” to the question at hand. Notice if you are making the same point more than once. Do your best to make your point quickly with honesty and depth.
Own and Guide the Conversation or Process: Take responsibility for the quality of your participation and the quality of the work conversations by noticing what’s happening and actively support getting yourself and others back “on purpose” when needed.
Be Excellent to Each other: Share what’s important to you. Speak authentically; from your personal and heart felt experience. Be considerate to others who are doing the same.

Women Occupy Weekly Call
________________________________________________
Thursday, 6/21/12, 4:00pmPT / 7:00pmEST

Call Host: Occupy National Gathering and Women Occupy
Call Facilitators: Nancy, Magda and Tricia
Maestro Board Manager(s): Iwanka
Note Taker(s): Assata
Maestro Call Registration Link for This Call: http://myaccount.maestroconference.com/conference/register/29D1NR22P2VHPL0D
Link to these notes: http://bit.ly/zfvl0i
Link to share your contact info and introduce yourself to the group: http://bit.ly/zcmCSI

CALL OBJECTIVES:
Building a women/women-identified presence at the Occupy National Gathering
Support the Feminist General Assembly (FemGA)
(see Call Participation Guidelines at bottom).

Communication using phone keypad (review numbers 1-5):
1) Get on Stack
2) Agreement, applause & approval for current speaker or idea (twinkles)
3) Disagreement with current speaker’s comments
4) Direct response to current speaker
5) Point of process or request for tech assistance

A. Introduction and background about the Occupy National Gathering in Philadelphia for the FemGA/Women’s presence in Philadelphia – 5 minutes facebook page up,piggy banking on whats going on and brining in a femisnist voice in these gatherings BALANCE is key.goal 61% women..transceding from on the “phone” to on the ground
Setting the stage.

B. Report backs (Check ins)
–Email invite Magda- made a flier, not sure whose sending out the flier,flier is ready to go! sending out to the local womens orginazation, pushing it out to social networks, need to get list together, need a list!!! maxiumzing time
check in with eve ensler, they have a organaztion tool online where you can create an account and send out offical invites and manage the databases
madga wants to know who were mailing it to.
Who is the audience??????
live stream possibly? , friends? WHO IS THE WHO
nancy-want to make it availble on the womens occupy webstie, womens occupy lister, active people on the conference call, gather email dresses so madga can send the email.
keep building on what people have already built
Caroline dixon -raised her hand confessed where to get the connect with the conference partipants
nancy-adding her to the email list
elizbeth -creating a web, wants to add people to the networking list, she worked and started peace alliance, wants to see how we can all connect, by connecting all the list together.cohesieve!

–Historical research research from philly womens movements
tricia-philly hall was on 6th and race, the great ablosints and suffurage movements worked on that building before it was burned down working with nick finemen work on a philly peoples history tour
edward-he wants femga to be a direct flushout to empower women in the occupy movement and beyond
people want this to be on the agenda, how are we going to come out with a stragety,

–Outreach (local and national) — Nancy on national outreach codepink has been busting out in action and is getting ready to occupy philly,exicted to see allys women headed to philly nancy will have numbers connected on the weekedn through codepink
women can register online to see how many women are actually coming
tricia- femga hatchtag is a great hatchtag is great alot of attentnion had a good convestation with womens action and freedom very intrested in occupy women, there intrested in the femga
had a interview wai, pacifia radio intreview coming up,
NEED FLIERS to reach old school people without access to comp
–Video — Lisa not on the call
need creative videogrpahys to raise spirits and put together a good start to the event
–Facebook event page
nancy saw the page and it was awesome
madga- asks that everyone rsvp for the event and share it every other day on peoples personal pages, hopes everyone indiviudal partipates,
nancy sending facebook page link out , with the email as well
madga- you can search the fem adgenda search on fb if your not on it
–Facilitators outreach
nancy-some people in codepink volenteered to faciliate, are people in philly going to help?
? theres and occupy facilators in jersey and a man in philly , lets bring young women, make it a co thing
iwanka- we have visioning process, iwaknka has a meeting with them on sat, we can train people, all we need is women who are intrested, can train on the spot,
`nancy and jody stepping up?
nancy- is there a day or a time, where we can meet for a facilating meeting
iwanka-getting the final schedule tongiht, waiting before she sends out
rochele-has quesitons, is the femga voting on issues is there a way women can connect togther at once, wants a an action with the media, wants that to be an aciton, should be a high priortiy for women because of the history with the media , wants to know the status of her action proposal,
wants to know whose really making the descions about the future actions
tricia no plan to have a declariton so far
edward-wants people to ask one quesiton at a time, so we can get information
nancy-wants to take questions at the end go through the adgenda
–Flier — Magda-
–Blow out women’s dance party (evening and time?)
nancy- didnt set a date or time, do we still feel like these momentum behind it
tempeture check on direct action and media
and tempeture on dance party and blow out
tricia-monday night july 3rd? full moon
nancy-well go ahead and pencil that in on july 3rd
nancy – we go 35% hands up, we will go ahead and put that in the notes
margret-not sure if she can go to philly but she still wants to support and say thank you

–Housing
tricia-looking for housing avaible and open
apple housing philly 38 dollars a night
chanamondy 20-23 a night good if your driving
a lot of hotels and deals shes looking more contacts
theres availbity in the hostels,doesnt want to broadcoast it ladies here first
lisa the videography is staying chanmy
yogadilpha@gmail.com ?
nancy-if your going and need houses book now, toursit might get there first MAKE is a PRIORITy
elzibeth-wants an action with the media if her computer working
Hostelling International – Chamounix Mansion
West Fairmount Park
3250 Chamounix Drive, Philadelphia, PA 19131-3710
Telephone: 215-878-3676 or 1-800-379-0017
Fax: 215-871-4313
E-mail: chamounix@philahostel.org

http://www.philahostel.org/

They’ve got space. Its 20-23$ per night per person
It’s out of the way so if you have a car it shouldn’t be a problem getting back and forth from the gathering

“Apple Hostels of Philadelphia” Apple Hostels of Philadelphia | 32 S. Bank St | Philadelphia, PA |
19106
phone +1-215-922-0222 | skype (USA) 8772751971 | www.applehostels.com
Only teachers and students are permitted to stay at our hostel, we don’t have special rates
for them. If they are residents of the United States they must have ID
showing that they are students or teachers to be able to check in.

Our regular rates for dorm beds from the 7th of June through the 16th of
September are $34.95 per night Sunday through Thursday, and $35.88 per night
on Fridays and Saturdays. If you make your reservation through our website,
www.applehostels.com, the rates are $0.93 less per night. There are also
special packages only available on our website that offer even greater
discounts on dorm beds.

We also have a Private Room and what we call a “Semi-Private Room”. The
Private Room has one set of bunk beds, the bottom bed has a double size
mattress and the top bed has a twin size mattress. The rate per night per
room is $84.95 Sunday through Thursday and $87.04 on Fridays and Saturdays.
A third person can share the room for an extra $20.36 per night. The
Semi-Private Room is accessed through a dorm room on the 4th floor. It is
very small and just has one set of bunk beds, and is meant for people who
don’t mind being in a dorm room but would like extra privacy and security
(with the locked door). The rate per night per room is $74.99 Sunday through
Thursday and $79.63 on Fridays and Saturdays.

These rates do not include an 8% sales tax, but they do include free
wireless internet, free Nintendo wii games, a free foosball table, free pub
crawls on Thursdays, a free spaghetti dinner on Wednesdays, free bed linens
and towels and free day-storage of luggage after check out. There is an
extra $2.78 per person per night charge if you aren’t a member of Hostelling
International.

Our hostel is perfectly situated in the Old City district of downtown
Philadelphia, surrounded by most of the city’s most popular pubs, nightclubs
and restaurants. We’re just around the corner from Independence National
Park, a couple of blocks from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, a
12-minute walk to South Street, a 20-minute walk to the Italian Market, and
a 12-minute walk to the Convention Center. We’re also just a 2-minute walk
from the 2nd Street Subway Station, a 6-minute walk from the Megabus stop,
and a 12-minute walk from the Chinatown and Greyhound buses. In 2008, we had
the highest rating (88.2%) of any other Hostelling International Hostel in
North America, and 2nd amongst all hostels in the US after Seattle Hostel in
Seattle, Washington. In 2009, we again had the highest rating (89.7%) of any
other HI hostel in North America, were 3rd amongst ALL hostels in the US. In
2010 we had the 2nd highest rating in America after City Hostel in Seattle.
This is based on reviews on Hostelworld.com. Right now, our rating for the
year to date is above 90%

The majority of our guests tell me that of all the cities they have visited
on the East Coast of the United States, Philadelphia was their favorite
stop. The more popular things in Philadelphia are the Art Museum (which has
the steps from the movie “Rocky”, and is free on Sundays), the Eastern State
Penitentiary (the world’s first penitentiary which now offers self-guided
tours), Macy’s department store (a beautiful building that has the world’s
largest organ), South Street (most popular street in Philadelphia and a good
place to get a cheesesteak sandwich), the Italian Market, Reading Terminal
Market (where the Amish sell their goods), Elfreths Alley (the oldest
inhabited street in the US), Independence Hall (where they signed the
Declaration of Independence), and of course, the Liberty Bell.

As well as everything the city has to offer, Apple Hostels of Philadelphia
also has a free Wine and Cheese movie night every Tuesday, where we have
free wine and cheese and play the latest DVD release in our lounge.
Wednesday evenings we have a free pasta dinner served up in our kitchen. On
Thursdays we have a free Pub Crawl, with 45 minutes of free drinks in our
lounge before we head out. Our Ghost Walking Tour is very popular on Friday
and Monday nights and is only $2. The other nights of week have free movie
nights along with free beer.

If you would like to make a booking, you may go to our website
www.applehostels.com and make a booking online. Or you can call our hostel
directly on +1-215-922-0222 or free from any phone in North America
including payphones by picking up the receiver and dialing 1-877-275-1971 or
free on Skype by going to Dial Phones, selecting USA, then entering
8772751971. (Regular rates apply when making a reservation by phone or
through Skype).

We require a credit card details to hold the reservation but no charges will
be posted to your credit card unless you don’t show up for your reservation.
Please keep in mind that you have to cancel your reservation by 6:00 pm
(18:00 hr) Philadelphia time, the day before your arrival date to avoid a
charge to your credit card (equal to the first night’s stay per person).

We are chartered as a resource for students and foreign travelers. Due to
our limited amount of space, we require that upon check-in each guest must
provide one of the following: a valid foreign passport; a Hostelling
International membership; student or faculty ID. If you are using an HI
membership, student or faculty ID, it must be accompanied by
government-issued ID showing that you live outside a 100-mile radius of the
hostel.

C. Action (Discussion)
–Messaging – Equality for All, stickers
nancy – wants to do popcorn of actions doing something around the womens movement directly in california
marela-thinks its imporatant we have an action in philly, it should focus on womens isssues
womens issues being everyones issue wants it to be primary focus equality, job, pay, women being an active part in govt, theyve yet to have a women major or govt in philly, wants womens right to be approcaitely respected
nancy-thank you for sharing, any other ideas
rae- curious if theres a place where there is media will be at the action, double wambie at an action that already has attention
michelle-mayor is giving out joyas
fox news is around the corner,… juicy target?!!
any ideas
nancy- fox news sleep in great way to focus on the media
carolyn-thinks its very important to stick to womens issues, ditto to michelle, no taxation without represanation , start a movement where women dont get taxed on there income until women are 52% in congress
nancy-a lot of energy for fox news
rochelle-she wants declarations, no men of color no women no native americans present, she wants women to take control of declartion, general assembly with be nothing but a party,us is ranked 71 as represtatnion in the world wants to stronlgy encourage a womens declartion!!!
an entire declariton of the entire occupy movement, enocurage women to fight for the declariton
tricai- none planned, agrees the suggestion is very cool, whose going to get the ball rolling, everything happening so fast, were all so new at this , if we can really do this, lets do it
nancy- thank you so much tricia for everything your doing with iwanka
rae-got goosebumps thinking about decalrtion on the fourth of july! thinks its a great idea big parade
the money thats going into our taxes isnt going toward the people, new phrase for taxation new slogan?
nancy- thank you so much rae for wrapping it together,we need to wrap it up take the suggestions, ppl who arent on the list we want tor bring you onto the gmail list
nancy-thanks everyone
madga-another place for people to connect is the womens occupy facebook page
nancy-one final call next thursday, final call before the big weekend at the occupy national gathering

–Props
–Costumes
–location — Women’s Suffrage/Abolitionist Movements/Declaration for Interdependence??

F. Closing Comments/Housekeeping – 3 minutes
Next call set day and time

Feedback for making this call better? Send to codepink.nancy@gmail.com with subject “General Call Feedback.” Feel free to invite others to join.

Thanks for being on the call!

Call Participation Guidelines
Be Curious and Open to Learning: Listen to and be open to hearing all points of view. Maintain a attitude of exploration and learning.
Balance Advocacy and Inquiry: Seek to learn and understand as much as you might want to persuade. Conversations are as much about listening as it is about talking.
Show Respect and Suspend Judgment: Setting judgments aside will enable you to learn from others and contribute to others experiencing being respected and appreciated.
Seek Alignment rather than Agreement: Alignment is shared intention, whereas agreement is having a shared belief or opinion.
Be Purposeful and to the Point: Notice if what you are conveying is or is not “on purpose” to the question at hand. Notice if you are making the same point more than once. Do your best to make your point quickly with honesty and depth.
Own and Guide the Conversation or Process: Take responsibility for the quality of your participation and the quality of the work conversations by noticing what’s happening and actively support getting yourself and others back “on purpose” when needed.
Be Excellent to Each other: Share what’s important to you. Speak authentically; from your personal and heartfelt experience. Be considerate to others who are doing the same.

Thursday, 6/14/12, 4:00pmPT / 7:00pmEST

Call Host: Occupy Philly and Women Occupy
Call Facilitators: Nancy, Jodie and Tricia
Maestro Board Manager(s): Iwanka
AUDIO RECORDING: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1IwbSvG4YK7QV9qeEtnNDg4VVk/edit?pli=1

CALL OBJECTIVES:
Building a women/women-identified presence at the Occupy National Gathering
Support the Feminist General Assembly (FemGA)
(see Call Participation Guidelines at bottom).

Communication using phone keypad (review numbers 1-5):
1) Get on Stack
2) Agreement, applause & approval for current speaker or idea (twinkles)
3) Disagreement with current speaker’s comments
4) Direct response to current speaker
5) Point of process or request for tech assistance

A. Introduction and background about the Occupy National Gathering in Philadelphia for the FemGA/Women’s presence in Philadelphia for new callers/questions about FemGA in NYC – 5 minutes

B. Guest Speaker: Mel with WOWNYC who cocreated the OWS FemGA.

C. Report backs
–Logistics (time, date, place of FemGA) — Tricia/Iwanka
–Outreach (local and national) — Nancy on national outreach
–Video — Lisa
–Facebook event page — ??
–Media (blogging, tweeting, press)

D. Outreach
–Email invite send to 40 women/women-identified, organizations
–Housing
–FemGA facilitation team
–catering
–poets, artists, musicians, dancers
–tent/canopy

E. Action (TABLE FOR NEXT CALL)
–Ideas
–Banners, signs
–Mr. 1%…Mitt Romney rally on July 4th??
–Props
–Costumes

F. Closing Comments/Housekeeping – 3 minutes
Next call set day and time

Feedback for making this call better? Send to codepink.nancy@gmail.com with subject “General Call Feedback.” Feel free to invite others to join.

Thanks for being on the call!

Call Participation Guidelines
Be Curious and Open to Learning: Listen to and be open to hearing all points of view. Maintain a attitude of exploration and learning.
Balance Advocacy and Inquiry: Seek to learn and understand as much as you might want to persuade. Conversations are as much about listening as it is about talking.
Show Respect and Suspend Judgment: Setting judgments aside will enable you to learn from others and contribute to others experiencing being respected and appreciated.
Seek Alignment rather than Agreement: Alignment is shared intention, whereas agreement is having a shared belief or opinion.
Be Purposeful and to the Point: Notice if what you are conveying is or is not “on purpose” to the question at hand. Notice if you are making the same point more than once. Do your best to make your point quickly with honesty and depth.
Own and Guide the Conversation or Process: Take responsibility for the quality of your participation and the quality of the work conversations by noticing what’s happening and actively support getting yourself and others back “on purpose” when needed.
Be Excellent to Each other: Share what’s important to you. Speak authentically; from your personal and heartfelt experience. Be considerate to others who are doing the same.
Thursday, 6/7/12, 1:00pmPT / 3:00amCST / 4:00pmEST
Call Host: Occupy Philly and Women Occupy
Call Facilitators: Nancy Mancias, Jodie Evans and Tricia Stone
Maestro Board Manager(s): Iwanka Kultschyckyj
Note Taker(s): Magda
Maestro Call Registration Link for This Call: http://interoccupy.org/womencall/
Link to these notes: http://bit.ly/zfvl0i
Link to share your contact info and introduce yourself to the group: http://bit.ly/zcmCSI

CALL OBJECTIVES:
Connect women and feminists across the Occupy movement
Building a women/women-identified presence at the Occupy National Gathering
Support the Feminist General Assembly (FemGA)
(see Call Participation Guidelines at bottom).

Communication using phone keypad (review numbers 1-5):
1) Get on Stack
2) Agreement, applause & approval for current speaker or idea (twinkles)
3) Disagreement with current speaker’s comments
4) Direct response to current speaker
5) Point of process or request for tech assistance

A. If this is your first time on the call and you’d like to introduce yourself, raise your hand and tell us what inspired you to join the call? What Occupy are you calling from? – 5 minutes

B. Report back on last Women Occupy conference call (Virtual FemGA with Women Occupying Wall St in New York leading to FemGA in Philly) – 2-5 minutes
Nancy-We held a great virtual FemGA Women Occupy call last week.

C. Introduction and background about the Occupy National Gathering in Philadelphia and needs for the FemGA/Women’s presence in Philadelphia – 5 minutes
Tricia:Great to be on with so much women power. There is a concern with gender balance.

I’ll tweet the pic from the Philly Inquirer from our press conference.

There will be big numbers of us, that’s my goal. Philly has a great history to share. Glad everyone showed up to participate. You can reach me at yogadelphia@gmail.com

wanka-challenge is that feminist voice is not coming clear, a woman standing up for all people. It’s time for women to … (gather the cattle and horses?-couldn’t hear) We have a different way of living our lives. We need to create a cooperative, inclusive….

Leadership in visioning process. Request:be positioned so the whole NatGat that follows FemGA will be influenced by it.

Jodie-media has been a problem forever , 3% of media is from women. We need to deliver a message that shocks, surprises, inspires. What can we say, do, be that captures the attention we’re missing?

Name? Rachel?-Media is key. Not hearing enough from women. Women’s representation in US has fallen to 78th in the world. We need to focus on this.

Pots & Pans, we need prominent women involved, too man women are complicit We have less representation in the US thank in ___?____ and Iraq. Media is the fourth branch of government, and it’s failed women and decent men. We need to get Occupy to focus on this.

Tricia-NatGat is aware and our communication is all from 1 man, 1 woman. At our press confernce most of the reporters who showed up were women. Let’s bring casseroles with food, feed people, then bang the casseroles, people need food and support. We need to be careful of our messaging. Our image is the red balloon.

We’re working with organizer Ann Gimmel sp? She always gets press. We want to create a safe space for voices. I appreciate the passion here.

Janet- Please no balloon release, bad for animals

Tricia. Yes, noted. We are thinking about having the balloons on sticks like in the old days

D. Stay in the big room

1. Media/New Media (Facebook event page, promotional video, twitter promotion #FemGA, media list local and national)

Nancy: Who can bottom line?

Iwanka-NatGat organizing group will set up FB page (today?)

Rache:Please make sure it’s interactive so we can cocreate the event

Nancy-who can do promo video?

Lisa:I am an amateur videographer and I will do it

Tricia?-Let’s get the thought leaders involved, People with followings, livestreamers etc.

Naomi Wolf retweeted us

Janet: I’ll tweet in advance and live tweet the event. I wrote a post about how to tweet leading up to an event. I’ll share it.

Nancy-collecting email-will follow up

Jodie: Once details are in place, I’ll get Eve Ensler to tweet it

Jane-I’m happy to promote this in advance, on a/my Pacifica radio show KFCX?

Tricia-anyone with media contacts please forward to me,, national or any other outlets

Rachel-I don’t use facebook or Twitter, a lot of people don’t. Can we use an email list? We need to occupy w gender balance. I’m gathering women in the movement who have websites. I have a media list. I want to work on drafting a press release and help distribute it. We need to recruit women are stakeholders.

Iwanka-I’ll work on getting a page up in the next week (Didn’t catch where- On NatGat site? ) (Please make an interactive section)

Leslie- Is there a central place to send info?

Tricia-yes email me at yogadelphia@gmail.com

Leslie- Will there be a stage , speakers , music ?

Tricia- yes we have a push to do this

Iwanka- I’ll set up a youtube account today

Jodie: Women Occupy already has all the tools. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

Nancy-Women Occupy is a wordpress blog with forum for discussion, people can contribute ideas, provide links to different women occupies, gender equality working group. Also tools and list serve

Tricia- We’re looking for graphics: logo, art, images

2. Merchandise/Store (Swag/gift bags, glow sticks, t-shirts/hats/parasols, water bottles, folders)

3. Graphics/Design (Petitions, handouts, graphic logo)

4. Action/Props (messaging, banners, signs, costumes)

Nancy?-Action: casseroles, banging pots, costumes, What’s our message ? Banner?

Tricia- the fact that we’re having a FemGA is a direct action. His is not my forte. I’d like for Codepink to deploy something that’s worked before.

Melanie- Sorry I’m late. I just read an email from Janet about a delegation?

Tricia- It’s going to be confusing for people. We’re having concurrent events. We’re going to keep it peaceful and share the space.

Janet- Everyone post to list serve

Kasha- There’s a struggle with the F word. Perhaps we message “Feminism means equality for women” Every time women say “guys” it’s a generic insult. We have to take back who we are.

5. Outreach (Women’s org, housing, FemGA facilitation team, catering, poets, artists, musicians, dancers, tent/canopy)

G. Closing Comments/Housekeeping – 5 minutes
Iwanka- Planning next call. A lot of people who want to be involved work. Let’s make the next call after work hours?
Discussion ensued… :result: next call Thursday 7pm EST/4PST

Feedback for making this call better? Send to codepink.nancy@gmail.com with subject “General Call Feedback.” Feel free to invite others to join.

Ran out of time did not cover all agenda items will table for next call!

Thanks for being on the call!

Call Participation Guidelines
Be Curious and Open to Learning: Listen to and be open to hearing all points of view. Maintain a attitude of exploration and learning.
Balance Advocacy and Inquiry: Seek to learn and understand as much as you might want to persuade. Conversations are as much about listening as it is about talking.
Show Respect and Suspend Judgment: Setting judgments aside will enable you to learn from others and contribute to others experiencing being respected and appreciated.
Seek Alignment rather than Agreement: Alignment is shared intention, whereas agreement is having a shared belief or opinion.
Be Purposeful and to the Point: Notice if what you are conveying is or is not “on purpose” to the question at hand. Notice if you are making the same point more than once. Do your best to make your point quickly with honesty and depth.
Own and Guide the Conversation or Process: Take responsibility for the quality of your participation and the quality of the work conversations by noticing what’s happening and actively support getting yourself and others back “on purpose” when needed.
Be Excellent to Each other: Share what’s important to you. Speak authentically; from your personal and heartfelt experience. Be considerate to others who are doing the same.

Thursday, 5/30/12, 1:00pmPT / 3:00amCST / 4:00pmEST

Call Host: Women Occupy
Call Facilitators: Nancy Mancias
Maestro Board Manager(s): Iwanka
Note Taker(s): Rae Abileah
Maestro Call Registration Link for This Call: http://interoccupy.org/womencall/
Link to these notes: http://bit.ly/zfvl0i
Link to share your contact info and introduce yourself to the group: http://bit.ly/zcmCSI

CALL OBJECTIVES:
Connect women and feminists across the Occupy movement
(see Call Participation Guidelines at bottom).

Communication using phone keypad (review numbers 1-5):
1) Get on Stack
2) Agreement, applause & approval for current speaker or idea (twinkles)
3) Disagreement with current speaker’s comments
4) Direct response to current speaker
5) Point of process or request for tech assistance

1. If this is your first time on the call and you’d like to introduce yourself, raise your hand and tell us what inspired you to join the call? What Occupy are you calling from? – 5 minutes

Lexcellent – bringing issues of elder women and intimate violence

2. Introduce FemGA (history of women in your Occupy) – 5 minutes
We are having a virtual General Assembly this afternoon. May 17 OWS Feminist Direct Action held a first Feminist GA, others around the country. Our agenda for today’s call is modeled after the OWS Fem GA

Melanie G – so excited to talk about Fem GA and have this convo nationwide, calling in from OWS, idea for FemGA came with purpose to refocus on the idea that bringing world peace is actually a feminist notion, and the tenets of occupy is a very feminist way of working – horizontalism, inclusivity, etc. Wouldn’t it be great if all our GAs were feminist?

Dior – Involved in the OWS Fem GA, thankful for huge turn-out, featured in The Nation, many articles, glad that people felt that this was a timely thing to do, next one is June 18, try to do one on the 18th of every month

3. Shared values: (shared values to find commonality and a values framework for action) – 10 minutes
How does this process work at OWS? Important to establish common ground
What are the feminist values, and the values in general that have brought us together?
Popcorn style – shout out – at OWS to create a long list of shared values, plan to continue at next Fem GA to delve deeper into what the values mean to us (i.e. horizontalism, transparency, how do these principles get expressed?)

Peggy, Vermont – eco-feminist values, anti-domination, understanding of working with nature instead of against/conquering

Rae, SF – assuming good intent, step up/step up – wanting to hear from as many voices as possible

Kasha – being genuine, listening for commonality, active listening

Janet, SF – valuing women living and past as theorists and big picture thinkers
(did this come up at ows? may have, gratitude for those that have come before us was expressed)

Isabelle, Chicago – here to listen

Lisa, Maine – cooperation, sharing of resources

Darlene, Nashville – in opposition to a trend of sincere resistance to critical voices in feminism and Occupy: being open to critique, taking time to actively listen

Lorena, NJ – part of the OWS Fem GA

Lexcellent – glad to see this happening and want to see this happening more, everyone is very brave organizing this in NYC and all over

Pat – acknowledging the value of world peace

Eliz, Nashville – at local Fem GA saw the need to get together as women to discuss differences and similarities and to organize to meet the opposition from patriarchy, would like to set up regional meetings for peace and equality and econ justice

4. Story telling/consciousness raising: find 2-3 people you don’t know…suggested questions: – 5 minutes

a. What personal experiences have drawn you to, or alienated you from, feminism?
b. How does being a feminist make your life easier or harder?

Tricia Shore, Philadelphia – helping to plan the national gathering of Occupy in Philly June 30-July 4, excited about planning the feminist gathering, one of 5 daughters who grew up in the ‘70s, had no idea that patriarchy existed until grew up… welcome everyone to come and have a feminist voice in Philly, great feminist history in Philly of women activism, have an opportunity to gather together and make sure our voices are heard. Occupy is an aggressive movement and within that we have brought domestic, fun, family-friendly, abundance energy.

Dior – When it comes to feminism it can be harder for women of color to embrace it, a lot of latino families very conservative, hard to embrace it, but with the struggle it makes you more passionate. It’s not a white women’s issue, it’s everyone’s issue. Important to focus on our similarities

Darlene – the word feminism can be alienating, can be very hard, had a hard time at Fem GA locally, lack of support in TN, not space to have conversations

5. Break Out Group Discussion – suggested questions: – 10 minutes
> What do you think are the three main goals for feminism today?
Lisa – access collective wisdom of women worldwide, keep biosphere from crashing so that it can no longer support life, to reclaim our narratives from the patriarchy
Pat – honor girls’ experience, find collective voice of women like at UN women’s conference
Melanie – women’s issues are humanitarian issues, fukoshima example of interconnected emergent issues, patriarchy would like us to ignore these issues and we must not.
Loraine – women aren’t less than men
Joan – we don’t feel as open and connected as we could, end isolation
Samantha Dear – just graduate from college, young activist… equality of women in society, magazines sending messages about women’s image, health issues
Rae – counter corporate greed, war and occupation, and militarism as all being in opposition to feminist values, feminism isn’t just about
Mary – 66 years old, see young women that don’t want anything to do with “F” word, didn’t have to deal with negative stereotypes, we can redefine what feminism is, it’s a humanitarian movement, a movement for all people, excited about opening the discussion to trans people and all people who want to discuss the prison of gender sterotypes
Peggy – been an activist since the early 70s, women’s human rights, eco-feminism, solidarity among women (women so afraid of it, trying to be everything to everyone), value ourselves and each other, peace and justice, getting tired of being ghetoized into issues, want women to be at the table and on the world stage, crazy to leave the global housekeeping to people who don’t know how to clean up their rooms like the people in charge of Wall Street
Saphira Rain, Kansas City – grandmother, participated in consciousness raising in the 60s, radio program in which commentator warned about young feminists not being caring and consciious of the struggle, thrilled to hear you all
Carolyn Dixon, Alaska – calling in from afar, only opportunity to participate in Occupy is via computer, get women in power and in the front lines of media coverage, equity, equality, equal respect for all is the key to world peace

> What are you already doing regarding these feminist goals, or would you like to do for them?
Eliz – Develop allies to have the support to move forward, in Occupy we haven’t been thinking of our allies as much, there’s hundreds of progressive thinking groups that are all hung up in their own turf, we need to join together because there are more of us than there are of them, we haven’t been impressive enough in the streets yet
Tricia – we do have the numbers and need to show them, fun, family oriented direct action
demonstrate a different paradigm than the patriarchal, masculine, me vs you, get smarter, more strategy, more joy attractive for people to join in on

> What help do you need from your allies? What can we collectively do to bring about change toward these goals moving forward?
Janet – progressive stack in the GA – gender representation alternates between genders, media representation – talked to Laura Flanders about how even in alt media women are under-represented in the theory and big picture thinking pieces especially

Packed call with so many people wanting to get a word in! Apologies to those who didn’t get a chance to speak

6. Occupy National Gathering – create committees/working groups – 5 minutes
Tricia – expecting 1,000-5,000 people to come to Phily for the National Gathering, thinking ahead to the process and challenges, outreaching to endorsing vcocupies to make sure women are represented, will have a feminist GA in front of the historic site of Suffrage movement on 6th and Chestnut
Iwanka – also in Philly working on the National Gathering, hoping for big numbers
Check out the websites:
www.occupycaravan.org – how to get there? Take a ride across the country starting on the West Coast June 11!
Google search for Occupy National Gathering
Create care package kits for people going

Who is interested in attending the National Gathering or working on it?
Lisa Savage
Tricia
Mary Warner
Darlene
Eliz Barger
Atiya
Marad7
Pacifica
Lorena

7. Closing Comments/Housekeeping – 3 minutes
Show of hands for those who are not yet on the google group: invitations to be sent out. Feedback for making this call better? Send to codepink.nancy@gmail.com with subject “General Call Feedback.” Feel free to invite others to join.

Thanks for being on the call!

Call Participation Guidelines
Be Curious and Open to Learning: Listen to and be open to hearing all points of view. Maintain a attitude of exploration and learning.
Balance Advocacy and Inquiry: Seek to learn and understand as much as you might want to persuade. Conversations are as much about listening as it is about talking.
Show Respect and Suspend Judgment: Setting judgments aside will enable you to learn from others and contribute to others experiencing being respected and appreciated.
Seek Alignment rather than Agreement: Alignment is shared intention, whereas agreement is having a shared belief or opinion.
Be Purposeful and to the Point: Notice if what you are conveying is or is not “on purpose” to the question at hand. Notice if you are making the same point more than once. Do your best to make your point quickly with honesty and depth.
Own and Guide the Conversation or Process: Take responsibility for the quality of your participation and the quality of the work conversations by noticing what’s happening and actively support getting yourself and others back “on purpose” when needed.
Be Excellent to Each other: Share what’s important to you. Speak authentically; from your personal and heartfelt experience. Be considerate to others who are doing the same.

Thursday, 4/19/12, 1:00pmEST / 11:00amCST / 10:00amPST.

Call Host: Women Occupy
Call Facilitators: Rae Abileah
Maestro Board Manager(s): Iwanka Kultschyckyj
Note Taker(s): Janet Weil
Maestro Call Registration Link for This Call: http://interoccupy.org/womencall/
Link to these notes: http://bit.ly/zfvl0i
Link to share your contact info and introduce yourself to the group: http://bit.ly/zcmCSI
Link topowerpoint: j.mp/womenoccupycall

Number of participants: 45

CALL OBJECTIVES:
Connect women and feminists across the occupy movement
Increase awareness and understanding using Twitter in the OWS movement

Rae gave the welcome, introduced facilitation team, and reviewed call objectives and call guidelines (see Call Participation Guidelines at bottom). If you have addiitional questions, please contact Abigail at abigail@turnerstrategies.com, Rae at codepink.rae@gmail.com or Janet at janet.weil13@gmail.com.

Communication using phone keypad (review numbers 1-5):
1) Get on Stack
2) Agreement, applause & approval for current speaker or idea (twinkles)
3) Disagreement with current speaker’s comments
4) Direct response to current speaker
5) Point of process or request for tech assistance

If this is your first time on the call and you’d like to introduce yourself, raise your hand and tell us what inspired you to join the call? what Occupy are you calling from?

Cynthia Papermaster – Berkeley, CA – OSF and OO and little bit with Occupy Berkeley – longtime accountability and torture protest activist.

Robin Ryan – working with OSF and especially housing coalition and peace and justice league from Jan 20 action. Very interested in this call. One of my goals is to overcome my aversion to twitter. Thinking of relocating to Louisiana and looking of tools to bring back with me.

Joanna Clancy – Wilmington, NC – occupy Wilmington – excited to learn these tools better because I don’t have $50K to donate to a political campaign. Anything that helps us to be more effective and making some noise to get good things done is very welcome.

Madeleine – Women’s Media Center in NYC – I do twitter from WMC and always open to learning more.

Rae introduced the guest trainer Abigail Collazo, Project Manager of Turner Stratgies :
Abigail handles social media outreach, online communications, and progressive advocacy efforts, in addition to serving as the editor for Feminism2.0. She has extensive experience in grassroots organizing, social justice advocacy, and media relations. Beginning in 1999, Abigail served as a Motivational Speaker for Free the Children, delivering presentations to over 8,000 young people about youth empowerment, globalization, international human rights, and child labor. Abigail then worked for 3 years on the staff of Senator Amy Klobuchar, handling a wide range of policy issues including foreign affairs, defense, and global women’s issues. She also served as the Communications Director for the Women’s Congressional Staff Association. Abigail has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Mount Holyoke College. She is a Fellow with the Partnership for a Secure America as well as a Truman National Security Project Congressional Security Scholar.

Abigail: I’m going to talk about how to use twitter in the Women Occupy context. #pinktweet is the hashtag for livetweeting during training.

How has twitter been used in the occupy movement – how has it been useful?
Some of you have already been using twitter; I’ve been looking at your profiles.
Twitter is for spreading info about events. It’s about being local, in the moment, reporting in real time. Twitter broke the news about Occupy Wall Street! You don’t have to wait for a mainstream news organization to decide that something is “newsworthy.”

Liza Sabater is one of the leaders of OWS and women there; great account to follow, @blogdiva. (Melanie G gave a twinkle for her!)
To put a comment on a retweet – put it BEFORE the copied tweet.

Main difference between Facebook and twitter: Facebook is connecting with people you already know, and twitter is about meeting new people and connecting with organizations.
Twitter lists can be about anything, such as lists of reporters, or friends, etc.

Using new hashtags is a way to reach out to new communities. Example: using #enviro or #clean to draw in eco-minded folks to an occupy event instead of always #ows

Questions and answers:
Jacqueline: [question about finding a hashtag when you don’t know what a certain organization is using.]

Abigail: hashtags are fluid and quick. Use google search to find hashtags. Look at some of the tweets that organizations are commonly using. Hey people using “workersrights”, what other hashtags should I follow? People on twitter absolutely will respond.
When I was tweeting about workers’ protest in front of the Super Bowl, people suggested a Super-Bowl-related hashtag which was really useful.

Magda: when we’re livetweeting this training, what’s the hashtag to use?
Abigail: #pinktweet

Cynthia: I am completely lost. I don’t know how to get on twitter. Can I learn this on this call?

Abigail: We have a multi-level training here. The best thing is to go to twitter.com. It will ask you for a handle and a password. Type in the search box #ows, and then all the tweets that people are putting up, and see what people are tweeting about, and see who you’d like to follow. Spend a couple of weeks following people and seeing how they tweet.

Rae: Those of us in the SF office are a great resource, so if you’re looking for help, please contact me and Janet.

Pasha: I’m curious about tracking the whole movement – can you tell us where there’s more action, needs to be more unity and discussion? How can we make the movement larger?

Abigail: Great question, something that a lot of people are talking about. Some of the blog posts on the powerpoint deal with this. I don’t think that there’s a lack of conversation on twitter; the mainstream media have stopped reporting about it (largely). There’s offshoots, such as occupy housing, tax day, budget, etc. A lot of it is that the occupy movement still exists! Reply to people via twitter to make connections.

Rae: Thank you so much! I’ve learned a lot on this call.

Announcements: We’ll have another WO call soon – stay posted. Show of hands of people on the call who want to be added to the WO listserv. For feedback on calls, email rae@codepink.org. Please keep sending your twitter handles to the WO list.
May Day, General Strike, is a major mobilizing day.
May 17 – Feminist General Assemblies around the country.
More info coming out about how to have a lively presence, online and in the streets!
Mere (sp?): From Michigan: I got on because I thought you were going to be doing Facebook. Will you be doing a Facebook training?

Rae: Great suggestion and that’s a suggestion for a later training.

Elsa: My question: I’m in Europe, most activists are not tweeting. Is there a way to convey this to a new community?

Abigail: Much harder question. If they’re not on twitter, then this is not the platform to use. Fundraising is not successful on twitter, for example.

Rae’s note: For more advanced twitter use that twitter.com cannot support, it’s suggested to use hootsuite or tweetdeck. (Tweetdeck is simpler, but the latest version of it for Macintosh is very buggy.)

Magda: Tool to help us follow conversations between certain people? More specific than a hashtag.
Abigail: Let me look and get back to you.

Jacqueline: Thank you for all of this. The site you can use for uploading photos – is there one you prefer?

Abigail: The only reason to have an account with yfrog or twitpic is to have all your photos of an event all together (similar to flickr). Right now, most people are snapping photos on their phones and hitting the upload to twitter button; or use the regular twitter uploader.

*Closing Comments/Housekeeping*

Next Call: We will let everyone know when the next call is happening; Stay tuned we’ll keep you posted!

Show of hands for those who are not yet on the google group: invitations to be sent out.

Feedback for making this call better? Send to codepink.nancy@gmail.com with
subject “General Call Feedback.” Feel free to invite others to join.

Please share your twitter handle on the WO list and we will keep compiling a list and create a Women Occupy twitter list you can follow

Please add your events to the Women Occupy calendar: www.womenoccupy.org.

Women Occupy twitter handles
Women Occupy – @womenoccupy @womenows @wowsnyc (Women Occupy Wall Street Caucus)
Abigail Collazo – @abigailcollazo and @fem2pt0
Alice Slater – @aliceslater
Barbara Heisler – @barbara07040
Celia Alario – @celiaalario
Colleen Kelly – @colleenkelly, @insteadofwar, @stloccupy and @stlpsc
Cristina Castro – @crisforpeace
Dorothy Abbott – @womenoneworld
Eliz Barger – @1377Eliz
Elizabeth Coss @ChangeThruArt
Ellen Sturtz – @eos16
Janet Weil – @JanetRWeil and @wardollarshome
Jo Beall – @freespiritnc
Jodie Evans – @heartofj and @billionRiseLA
Lacy MacAuley – @lacymacauley
Liz Butler – @lizdc1
Magda Freedomrod – @occupyfreedomla
Melanie G – @gomelanie
Nancy Mancias – @nancymancias
Nelini Stamp – @nelstamp
Nicole Corre – @nicolecorre
Nina Klooster – @ninaforpeace
Portia – @usarevolution12
Prabsimran Sachdev – @Simran84
Quester09 – @_jester09_
Rae Abileah – @raeabileah
Robin Ryan – @hapiomusette

Call Participation Guidelines
Be Curious and Open to Learning: Listen to and be open to hearing all points of view. Maintain a attitude of exploration and learning.
Balance Advocacy and Inquiry: Seek to learn and understand as much as you might want to persuade. Conversations are as much about listening as it is about talking.
Show Respect and Suspend Judgment: Setting judgments aside will enable you to learn from others and contribute to others experiencing being respected and appreciated.
Seek Alignment rather than Agreement: Alignment is shared intention, whereas agreement is having a shared belief or opinion.
Be Purposeful and to the Point: Notice if what you are conveying is or is not “on purpose” to the question at hand. Notice if you are making the same point more than once. Do your best to make your point quickly with honesty and depth.
Own and Guide the Conversation or Process: Take responsibility for the quality of your participation and the quality of the work conversations by noticing what’s happening and actively support getting yourself and others back “on purpose” when needed.
Be Excellent to Each other: Share what’s important to you. Speak authentically; from your personal and heartfelt experience. Be considerate to others who are doing the same.

Wednesday, 3/21/12 5:30 PM PT/8:30 PM ET

Call Host: Women Occupy
Call Facilitators: Jodie Evans and Nancy Mancias
Maestro Board Manager(s): Iwanka Kultschyckyj
Note Taker(s): Summer, OccupySantaCruz and Rae Abileah
Maestro Call Registration Link for This Call: http://interoccupy.org/womencall/
Link to these notes: http://bit.ly/zfvl0i
Link to share your contact info and introduce yourself to the group: http://bit.ly/zcmCSI

CALL OBJECTIVES:
Connect women and feminists across the occupy movement
Develop next steps for Women Occupy

3-5 mins:
Welcome & Introduction
Introduced facilitation team, welcome, review call objectives and call guidelines (see Call Participation Guidelines at bottom).
Call Guidelines overview (from bottom of agenda)

3-5 mins:
Communication using phone keypad (review numbers 1-5):
1) Get on Stack
2) Agreement, applause & approval for current speaker or idea (twinkles)
3) Disagreement with current speaker’s comments
4) Direct response to current speaker
5) Point of process or request for tech assistance

3-5 mins
If this is your first time on the call and you’d like to introduce yourself raise hand and tell us what inspired you to join the call? what Occupy are you calling from?
Somer – in SF, OSF, Occupy Monterey, OO, 2012 mayan prophesy – let’s wake up and live in harmony together! Women are traditionally the mothers and caretakers. Taking notes on this call.
Marilyn – from Half Moon Bay, CA, wants to get senior women hard hit by economy connected to Occupy
Megan – in ethical leadership and globalization class, want to learn more about women in occupy, observing and listsening
Isabelle – OWS, moved to South Jersey, going to hear Vandana Shiva in Union Square tomorrow, happy to be on the call
Odile – Ann Arbor, Michigan, great to be with women, working with homeless camp in France

Additional notes from Summer:
Marilyn santa cruz and half moon bay senior called in to see what she can do to get seniors in her area more connected to occupy and if there are already seniors from the other side wants to connect with them. sees it’s important to put our words into action. seniors have been very hard hit by the economic down turn that’s happened. seniors occupy as a subgroup of women occupy.

Facilitator/Jodie: will connect her to occupy monterery folk

Meagan not part of occupy but from chicago in master program for leadership couse she is in ethical leadership and globalization. intrigued by occupy going to event down town. here as an observer and excited to plug in dt to see it in action.

THANK YOU MEAGAN

Isobel been involved in occupy movement in NY from beginning moved to south jersey into a senior village, wants to activate the community. felt she needed to connect with people who are doing things in the movement.

wants to be involved in occupy women is a representative for a ______ organization? presentation in union square. really happy to be here.

Facilitator: = we are here to support each other

Odel – also been working in occupy since beginning . for international womens day in ann arbor

Facilitator/Nancy: = was expecting melanie will move forward with agenda until she shows up

Summer’s words of wisdom = when you start to see just how much needs to change it can be overwhelming. in light of that just take on issue that you are most passionate about, and most educated about and focus on that. Also, if you can help just one person, help that one person. Because it really is just baby steps that will gets us moving forward and changing the world invitation to monterey gave direct contact

Facilitator: great advise, thanks!

Find your passion and join Occupy!

10 mins. (5 mins) Q&A
Melanie G and others from Women Occupying Wall Street (WOW) will give M17 NYC report back with discussion. (5 mins. questions, concerns, discussion with Melanie G and WOW)
on Saturday everything was going great – GA in Zuccotti Park, wonderful, celebratory mood; someone set up a tarp that looked like a tent and the officers surrounding the GA were not amused to say the least, 17 people were brutally arrested, one woman had a fractured rib from police brutality and had a panic attack, ambulance took a long time and was called by Occupy activists not officers, woman was taken to jail anyway
Occupy took Union Square to some extent, holding a public sidewalk
Protests today in solidarity with Treyvon Martin who was murdered for walking down the street while wearing a hoodie and being african-american – #onemillionhoodies
Possible issue with a pregnant woman in labor
WOW had first meeting for a feminist general assembly last night – 25 people came just for the planning meeting, felt fresh and wonderful

Additional notes from Summer:
move to Melanie as she’s time sensitive, come back to edeel

Melanie has the mic. is in the middle of an action, brief synopsis of NYC was in a very celebratory mood had a GA in zuccotti park some things were consented to.. mood was really wonderful and celebratory. someone set up a tarp that looked like a tent was pretty inspiring. cops were not happy. lol can give update from livestream had to leave really early.

LIVESTREAM UPDATE: big turn out today in solidarity march for Trayvon, 17 year old kid shot and killed in florida. person who killed boy is NOT being investigated. at occupy ny 73 people arrested. one woman had a fractured rib from the way NYPD attacked her. ambulance didn’t come till 20 minutes later. ambulance called by occupy, not by NYPD. went to hospital and went to jail anyway. she’s out and being treated. occupy has now taken union square.

Melanie will send us an aerial shot of union square several thousand took union square all marched towards time square. last night police tried to take everyone out of the park. the part of the park people are trying to hold down was public sidewalk. cops said park is closed. they said this is the side walk, police said sidewalk is now closed. was speakouts, singing, in response. the sheer determination was inspiring.

a woman was about to give birth at some point in the middle of the night, another woman was trying to help woman giving birth, cop grabbed and hurt her. these are some of the things that are going on.

everyone is determined, and palpable.

with that I’ll yield.

Facilitator: = thank you

back to Melanie i’ll just say one more thing, last night women occupy ny had first general assembly planning meeting for may 17th. there is a lot of fresh wonderful stuff being worked on right now.

patricia has the mic – what is occupy asking for in terms of Martin – the kid who died, is occupy asking for accountability? we are asking for Ray Kelly to resign, for bloomberg to step down, asking for brutality to end. melony’s personal request, she is a teacher… if teachers are to be accountable, why shouldn’t we be asking our police force to be responsible for us?

Someone asked, Martin was killed by a night watch from Florida, what about focus for that?

not sure about that but asking for people to be held accountable in NYC. the ability for NYPD to respond accordingly is so important.

Facilitator: asked for confirmation about the women who occupy around the country to create a solidarity action for women who occupy!

NYC would be wowed if that happened – maybe having a woman gathering every couple of months. gathering as many org’s focused on women’s issues to come together. one of the issues… what does feminism mean right now? what can we do to defend and support each other to support each other specific to our gender. so that possibly some org’s working on similar issues will be made aware of their overlap. would love to hear how things develop across the country.

one of the goals of women occupy is creating the space for such a collaboration of women and organizations to work together. from now until May 17, let’s learn about strategies for organizing together.

I’d like to go back, because 5 new people are on the call… 2 are new… looking to add some wisdom from these ladies.

Facilitator: heads up from Melanie. needs to get going… clarification would really like to get woman to the forefront of the movement – really wants to bring in some feminist leadership

Facilitator: – question from ? was asking about May 17th, to be combined with May 15th, Mother’s Day. perhaps an agenda to share w/ other occupies.

reluctant wants mothers day to be for mothers, wants the 17th to be for Women Occupy. Only agenda is to get everyone together to get the conversation out in public with everyone.

Patricia: What is OWS asking for in terms of support for Treyvon Martin?
> Asking for Ray Kelly to resign, Bloomberg to resign, Police chief in FL to step down, attorney general to take on the case, police brutality to end.
There is so much oversight over teachers but where is the oversight and accountability for the police force who is responsible for our safety?

What can we do as women to look at gender issues together?
May 17th as a national organizing day with feminist general assemblies?

Mother’s Day for mothers, feminist GA separate from that, goal is to find a common agenda, to get everyone together, there isn’t a separate goal from that. Get the conversation going out in public with everyone.

Odile on what’s going on in MI – posting signs at night
Freeway bannering opposing violence on women in Congo

Additional notes from Summer:
Facilitator: back to Odele…

Odele – i could go into the town, put up nice signs on the wall, important to do activism, middle of the winter in michigan. women can have big house of food??? work w/ other women – women in war, women in congo, focus on women in the world, and in our towns. we are the only ones doing actions. don’t seem to be doing any actions anymore. women will awaken the occupy movement to take action. question

Connect summer with Marylyn in half moon bay.

Back to dates we are talking about this may 17th date for women occupy

Marilyn has the mic interested in organizing in half moon bay area. really heard gail who said actions are important rather then just having meeting. not sure if that can be something to hook up w/ santa cruz, about an hour/ or a half hour away. wants to do something on that day.

Patricia thinks the idea for May 17th is incredibly inspiring… have an effort for consensus to aim for a unified action that of course everyone would do some variation of… as the last caller said, not sure what that would be but if there is a theme or a suggestion that would create a really wonderful thing.

Summer suggested cook a post mothers day dinner? perhaps link it to mother earth too? for moms who may not have relations w/ their children or live far away.

Odele – can host a benefit for women for occupy, another mothers day in the park, having our own kind of celebration

Facilitator: – that’s it for the hands.

has to chime in as many of us are into the anti-war movement. the knowledge of mothers day was actually about ending the civil war. women could get together on mothers day to figure out how to have war no more. this has been a reminder that women need to get together to end all wars.

Facilitator: has consensus on May 17th, taking the 17th to clearly have occupy own the day, to not be distracted by other focus’ of the day. some of the needs are ways to organize our local occupy movement with women. perhaps we can put together some training like how would you build your community of women around the 17th?

On the calendar in two weeks, there is a woman from a pr firm for young women who will teach us social media for change. we could create the rest of the month as a focus for skill training on how to plan for local organizing.

Facilitator: we have most of the callers say YES! one no.

Patricia pushed one, has the mic – meant to say yes. whoops!

FULL CONSENSUS!!!

Okay great, that is what we can work on from now until the next call to find trainers to bring people on to train us for community building,

Summer’s idea door to door canvassing. go w/ two people to keep each other safe.

OTHER PERSON name? social media would like someone to explain those things, i am one of those shy people and would not like to walk up to other’s door.

Facilitator: Be sure to watch email as someone will be on the call for social media training in two weeks.

Maya – WOW what makes a feminist GA a feminist GA? how do we bring the women’s movement to the next level in occupy?

Odele – we do something for culture or education. if you ever need that tool you can find the tool on the website… (where? please update with url)

Next person, Marilyn has the mic, I would like to learn how to cross the lines. I am a member of women’s groups in the area, but I don’t feel comfortable going to these orgs and speaking to them about occupy so if someone could help give us direction on how to do that, she’d appreciate it.

Facilitator: we can start offering this information up already about what works, what doesn’t work.

Patricia has the mic – thinks it would be great to have a training for kids. we need to know how to speak to the media as it’s really important to know who to talk to in the media. so a training on how to talk to the media would be good.

Dates for Organizing:

May 17th
inspiring, support for it
idea to have a unified action that would connect us all
interest to do something in Half Moon Bay from Marilyn and Rae
Bring mothers who don’t have something to do on Mother’s Day to Occupy – cook mothers a dinner and honor them

Mother’s Day is really about ending war, began with call to action from Julia Ward Howe

May Day organizing: What is your local Occupy doing? How do we bring our feminine message to May Day actions and protests

3 mins.
Survey: Are there issues someone would like to organize a call around?
– Social media & media training with Suzanne Turner in 2 weeks
– how to talk to new people
– how to create a feminist GA, how to take women’s organizing to the next level
– have a flyer about WO
– how to cross-fertilize with other women’s groups, speak about the Occupy movement with other organizations
– how to speak to media

Thanks to everyone!!! Let’s work together toward May 17th. Share info and ideas on the listserv!

Closing Comments/Housekeeping
Next Call: From here forward calls will be on Wednesdays at 5:30PT/8:30ET in the evening. You don’t need to re-register for next week’s call – you can use the same number you used for this call.
Show of hands for those who are not yet on the google group: invitations to be sent out.
Feedback for making this call better? Send to codepink.nancy@gmail.com with subject “General Call Feedback.” Feel free to invite others to join.
Please add your events to the Women Occupy calendar: www.womenoccupy.org.

GROUP GOOD-BYES!

Call Participation Guidelines
Be Curious and Open to Learning: Listen to and be open to hearing all points of view. Maintain a attitude of exploration and learning.
Balance Advocacy and Inquiry: Seek to learn and understand as much as you might want to persuade. Conversations are as much about listening as it is about talking.
Show Respect and Suspend Judgment: Setting judgments aside will enable you to learn from others and contribute to others experiencing being respected and appreciated.
Seek Alignment rather than Agreement: Alignment is shared intention, whereas agreement is having a shared belief or opinion.
Be Purposeful and to the Point: Notice if what you are conveying is or is not “on purpose” to the question at hand. Notice if you are making the same point more than once. Do your best to make your point quickly with honesty and depth.
Own and Guide the Conversation or Process: Take responsibility for the quality of your participation and the quality of the work conversations by noticing what’s happening and actively support getting yourself and others back “on purpose” when needed.
Be Excellent to Each other: Share what’s important to you. Speak authentically; from your personal and heart felt experience. Be considerate to others who are doing the same.

WOMEN OCCUPY CALL NOTES 3/14/12 5:30/8:30 pm

Facilitation Team:

Call Host: Women Occupy
Call Facilitators: Jodie Evans and Nancy Mancias
Maestro Board Manager(s): Iwanka Kultschyckyj
Note Taker(s): Kristen Ess Schurr
Maestro Call Registration Link for This Call: http://interoccupy.org/womencall/
Link to these notes: http://bit.ly/zfvl0i
Link to share your contact info and introduce yourself to the group: http://bit.ly/zcmCSI

Call Guidelines:

Listen To and Be Open to Hearing, Balance Advocacy and Inquiry, Show Respect and Suspend Judgment, Seek Alignment rather than Agreement, Be Purposeful and to the Point, Be Purposeful and to the Point, Own and Guide the Conversation or Process, Be Excellent to Each Other

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

Welcome by Nancy Mancias and Jodie Evans
This is the call after our IWD actions

Jodie Reviews Communication Using Phone Keypad:

1) Get on Stack
2) Agreement, applause & approval for current speaker or idea (twinkles)
3) Disagreement with current speaker’s comments
4) Direct response to current speaker
5) Point of process or request for tech assistance

Jodie Reviews Call Objectives:

Connect women and feminists across the occupy movement
Develop next steps for Women Occupy
Report-back from IWD actions

FIRST TIME CALLER INTRODUCTIONS

May Abdel Rahman: From Washington DC, glad to be part of this, part of all of the Occupies in DC

REPORT BACKS FROM INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY EVENTS

Kristen: Los Angeles. Good community gathering, fabulous costuming, ready with talking points, media ready, banners and fliers on point. Not sure whether to advertise location next time as police and security were inside and outside banks so inside actions were driven to the sidewalk.

Rae: New York. Real News video of footage including singing in Oakland, mock arrests in Dallas and LA, NYC on stage with BofA CEO, trouble across Zuccotti Park after action there. Medea will speak to this later. Loved seeing the actions, being a part of this kind of action with women. She was inspired by costuming from LA action.

Leslie: Dallas. Pink Possy, costumes, had a blast, marched to BofA, did street theater with bankers and a jail, roped them up and finale threw bras at them, fun and we needed that.
Rained but we had backup plans

Eliz: Tennessee. Incredible rain drove people to do a press conference under the Plaza. Several issues, got to talk about what International Women’s Day was on local TV, too rainy for march, met Women on the Bridge, exciting to get women from a lot of organizations together, make connections for future street theater.

Nancy M: San Francisco. Thursday Bust of BofA in the morning, went to two branches, shut them down, did an OM-in next to an ATM, Saturday great march and rally led by Occupy SF, great to be in solidarity with so many women across the globe.

Goals from IWD –

Jodie: Overall we met our goals — including new women. And the creativity was really awesome, soared. Got national media, including NYT, WSJ, Real News, Democracy Now and got local media.
Wanted this to be part of a longer term campaign and we supported three women-led campaigns. They said they were inspired and energized by our work in their daily work.
Didn’t have actions in as many cities as we had hoped.

Ellen: Did anyone have experience closing a bank with one or two entrances?
RESPONSE: Good to have longer discussion about strategy in cities with multiple banks. Good to have two doors because police in one, we’re out the other.
RESPONSE: Passersby become your audience after the bank closes, so may be okay that people didn’t get inside.

Patricia: Thought LA was a lot of fun, particularly good event in terms of costuming. Hadn’t been in any of the planning so didn’t understand if we were CODEPINK, Women Occupy, IWD or all of these. Thinks that some passersby didn’t understand connection with banks.

Eliz: Wondering how living room in the bank action was resolved.
RESPONSE: Other 99% action upcoming, put it up so others can see how successful it was and how quickly we must move. Look at their site to see their full clip.

UPCOMING

May 1st General Strike
Mother’s Day
Democratic National Convention
Continue with B of A — Moveable Feast of Furniture re: foreclosure (what Other 99% is doing) (Use broken furniture to show transience)

Eliz: Does anyone know more about the Bill going through Congress to make picketing near anyone being guarded by Secret Service a Federal offense?

RESPONSE: Interesting for us to take on particularly watching arrest of Rae (cop knowing he had impunity) and being at jail. Clampdown on our freedom of speech is huge. This would be an interesting issue to have women take on. Message has been: “If you go to the Occupies and speak out it’s not going to be pleasant for you”.

Some in favor of taking on Freedom of Speech, some not:

Francis: Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Rather have ACLU take it on than Occupy. So much reflects patriarchy of society. Rather see something that goes directly at patriarchy rather than just police brutality.

RESPONSE: Please give us an idea of another issue. Gathering together nationally to expose an issue, coming together as women and making the issue more visible with an edge.

Francis: Likes building homes where you aren’t supposed to – could take ironing boards, items associated with women to energize idea of women’s space.

Anyone interested in developing these issues for the next call or wait until next call? Patricia and Eliz interested.

Guest Speaker Medea Benjamin:

CODEPINK and Global Exchange Co-founder, longtime activist, author of new book on drones, and she wrote about busting up Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan in New York City and brutal arrest at Occupy Wall Street. Read her recent piece.

Entered day of activities from Occupy AIPAC without having been part of Women Occupy. Found it well organized, easy to plug into, difficult to get into the costuming side of things, but busting out seemed a lot easier.

Notes on the IWD handout were very useful, having background on the issues right there.

Action with BofA CEO: Room full of white men in black suits, the financial industry. The contrast of having us come in stripping down to pink bras. Camera person had his camera taken away. Spectacular seeing Rae standing on a table, larger than life, we can do it…

Shocking to see how second B of A action in NYC played out. Occupy Movement has had impact, special court, longer in jail, more quickly arrested.

How do people feel about stripping down action? I’m sure a lot of women may not like it.
In Mexico the stripping down was that they have taken our clothes. Powerful.

Good 99% idea with setting up the furniture in the bank, and it’s a nice idea to feminize it. Could sit outside with cans for childcare or rolling pennies in the bank

A lot of people in bank stripping down would have been much more powerful than three. Continuing to bring women’s issues to the actions would be great.

Questions for Medea:

Rae: Appreciate analysis. Strong nude actions in Europe around banking and coal. Being smeared with coal, not humorous, similar to Mexico.
What are other tactics useful around BofA?

Medea: Better if you have a simple goal like ending $5. Hook up with other groups on something smaller and specific, more so than Bust Up although that was good too.
Working in general on sweatshops was good, but better to concentrate on clean drinking water, for example, to give sense of accomplishment although it doesn’t end the campaign.

CLOSING COMMENTS/ NEXT WEEK’S CALL

For next call — Think about what we can do together on May 1 or around Mother’s Day.

Rae sent around Real News video link to list-serve.

Next Call: From here forward calls will be on Wednesdays at 5:30PT/8:30ET in the evening. You don’t need to re-register for next week’s call – you can use the same number you used for this call.

Show of hands for those not on the Google Group to be added

Feedback address: codepink.nancy@gmail.com with subject “General Call Feedback.”

Open invitation to invite others to join.

Invitation to add events to the Women Occupy calendar: www.womenoccupy.org.

GROUP SAYS GOOD-BYES

Wednesday, 3/14/12 5:30 PM PT/8:30 PM ET

Call Host: Women Occupy
Call Facilitators: Jodie Evans and Nancy Mancias
Maestro Board Manager(s): Iwanka Kultschyckyj
Note Taker(s): Kristen Ess Schurr
Maestro Call Registration Link for This Call: http://interoccupy.org/womencall/
Link to these notes: http://bit.ly/zfvl0i
Link to share your contact info and introduce yourself to the group: http://bit.ly/zcmCSI

CALL OBJECTIVES:
Connect women and feminists across the occupy movement
Develop next steps for Women Occupy

3-5 mins:
Welcome & Introduction
Introduced facilitation team, welcome, review call objectives and call guidelines (see Call Participation Guidelines at bottom).
Call Guidelines overview (from bottom of agenda)

3-5 mins:
Communication using phone keypad (review numbers 1-5):
1) Get on Stack
2) Agreement, applause & approval for current speaker or idea (twinkles)
3) Disagreement with current speaker’s comments
4) Direct response to current speaker
5) Point of process or request for tech assistance

3-5 mins
If this is your first time on the call and you’d like to introduce yourself raise hand and tell us what inspired you to join the call? what Occupy are you calling from?

15 mins
Reportbacks on International Women’s Day events at your local Occupy and/or community. What were some of the challenges? Any concerns?
10 mins.
Civil liberties at Occupy and police repression. How to address? Any interest?

5 mins.
Upcoming events: May 1st: General Strike. What is your Occupy doing?
Mother’s Day: Is this a day of action for women in the Occupy Wall Street movement? What can we do? (If we run out of time, table for next call)

10 mins.
Jodie to introduce Medea Benjamin. Hear Medea’s account on busting up Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan in New York City and brutal arrest at Occupy Wall Street. Read her recent piece.

3 mins.

Closing Comments/Housekeeping
Next Call: From here forward calls will be on Wednesdays at 5:30PT/8:30ET in the evening. You don’t need to re-register for next week’s call – you can use the same number you used for this call.
Show of hands for those who are not yet on the google group: invitations to be sent out.
Feedback for making this call better? Send to codepink.nancy@gmail.com with subject “General Call Feedback.” Feel free to invite others to join.
Please add your events to the Women Occupy calendar: www.womenoccupy.org.

GROUP GOOD-BYES!

Call Participation Guidelines
Be Curious and Open to Learning: Listen to and be open to hearing all points of view. Maintain a attitude of exploration and learning.
Balance Advocacy and Inquiry: Seek to learn and understand as much as you might want to persuade. Conversations are as much about listening as it is about talking.
Show Respect and Suspend Judgment: Setting judgments aside will enable you to learn from others and contribute to others experiencing being respected and appreciated.
Seek Alignment rather than Agreement: Alignment is shared intention, whereas agreement is having a shared belief or opinion.
Be Purposeful and to the Point: Notice if what you are conveying is or is not “on purpose” to the question at hand. Notice if you are making the same point more than once. Do your best to make your point quickly with honesty and depth.
Own and Guide the Conversation or Process: Take responsibility for the quality of your participation and the quality of the work conversations by noticing what’s happening and actively support getting yourself and others back “on purpose” when needed.
Be Excellent to Each other: Share what’s important to you. Speak authentically; from your personal and heart felt experience. Be considerate to others who are doing the same.

WOMEN OCCUPY CALL NOTES 7 MARCH 2012

Wednesday, 3/7/12 5:30 PM PT/8:30 PM ET

Call Host: Women Occupy
Call Facilitators: Nancy Mancias and Jodie Evans
Maestro Board Manager(s): Iwanka Kultschyckyj
Note Taker: Kristen Ess Schurr
Maestro Call Registration Link for This Call: http://interoccupy.org/womencall/
Link to these notes: http://bit.ly/ycXlz5
Link to share your contact info and introduce yourself to the group: http://bit.ly/zcmCSI

CALL OBJECTIVES:
Connect women and feminists across the occupy movement
Develop and practice media strategy for actions on International Women’s Day, March 8th
Answer questions and get help planning actions on International Women’s Day

CALL NOTES

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

Welcome by Jodie Evans on the eve of International Women’s Day

Nancy M reviews call objectives and goes over call guidelines:
Listen to and be open to hearing, Balance Advocacy and Inquiry, Show Respect and Suspend Judgment, Seek Alignment rather than Agreement, Be Purposeful and to the Point, Be Purposeful and to the Point, Own and Guide the Conversation or Process, Be Excellent to Each Other

Communication using phone keypad (review numbers 1-5):
1) Get on Stack
2) Agreement, applause & approval for current speaker or idea (twinkles)
3) Disagreement with current speaker’s comments
4) Direct response to current speaker
5) Point of process or request for tech assistance

FIRST TIME CALLERS

Julie from Texas, life-long feminist, must get involved, single mom without a lot of time but this is worth the time

Lynn from Occupy Atseigo, a rural upstate New York county near Cooperstown, low number but trying to being active, interested in women’s issues

Shanon with Occupy the Hamptons, lives on Long Island NY, excited to join call

INTRODUCING IWD AND JANET WEIL

Co-facilitator Jodie: We’ve been working for over a month about International Women’s Day, we’ve been learning how to use our voices, talking to media, dealing with what might happen with police, bank managers and public. This call is a review to make sure we are all comfortable and ready

Janet Weil has been with CODPINK for six years, Military Families Speak Out, Afghanistan working group, excellent writing skills.

Review of past speakers and their main points

Celia Alario on the media
Amanda Starbuck campaigner for Rain Forrest Action Network’s Bank of America campaign
Lisa Fithian, long-time activist involved in many BofA actions

Tomorrow’s actions are part of longer campaigns!

Starbuck–

Basic talking points:
BoA one of biggest banks, one of worst
Billions of $$ in bail out
Fee hikes are back
Laying off 30,000 employees
BofA is leading fore-closer of American homes
Largest funder of coal mining, including mountain top removal

Janet reviews practical tips given by Lisa Fithian long time activist who has been part of actions of BofA:

“All cops, security and manager work on a “power over” model. We don’t have to accept it or do what they say when they say it. Can begin negotiations over how and what you’re doing.”

Action examples: go in with signs and be quiet, go to manager and ask her to fax letter to CEO, group gets louder if it doesn’t happen
Group goes in with trash from fraudulent foreclosures

Review the goals — What are the issues you are bringing up, may not be able to bring up all 13 talking points, but chose some. What are the visuals? What is your goal? — Shut down bank, get information to public?
At BofA tellers may be instructed to shut down windows and go into back if there is a disruption, prepare for that possibility
Have group agreements as when what will happen – when to enter bank, when to speak, who will speak, etc
Talk to customers and encourage them to move their money
Send a letter to the CEO of BofA
If it’s a large action have police liasons – should be two people communicating between group and police/security. These people are not decision makers.
Plan how to exit and end the action – want to leave as soon as the police come? Sometimes police let you stay.
Be watchful — Don’t let people be isolated, notice what the police/security are doing
Think through what we’re doing, don’t just accept what police/security say, we own our own power

Janet reviews Celia Alario media tips:

“About power it can often feel with a journalist that your power is with others. Reclaim your power. Journalists need you for their story.”

Practice for media interviews and for conversation with the public
Practice in front of a mirror, look into your eyes and honor the woman who is speaking
Leave yourself a voice mail message and then listen to where you want to emphasize certain words
Say, “Hello Joe” with different emphasis
Get rid of the “um, uh, likes” Don’t buy time or get affirmation this way. Take silence!
Take a moment to breathe, a pause. Energize your power.

All of the speakers reiterated we must own our power, own our stories.

DISCUSSION/QUESTIONS

International Women’s Day action discussion: Document Action Day — Camera, Video, Tweets; Getting Media Out — Talking Points, Press Calls, Promotion; Check Your Toolkit — Flyers, Costumes, Visuals, Props; Legal – Know Your Rights

Julie: I’m new. How do I find a group to do this with? Is there an action in Dallas?
Direct Response: If not there we will connect you with more women later, next steps.

Anna: Direct response to Julie. In a rural area, alone but will go to local BofA with a sign and won’t go in. Feels funny and first but at the end it feels really good.
Direct Response: You are awesome!

Janet: Saturday, March 10th in Dallas, event listed on Women Occupy calendar

Jodie: Fliers/tools/costume ideas are on Women Occupy site. One woman can make a difference in talking to people coming out of the bank
Legal question: Do we have the legal right to be inside the bank?
Direct Response: You do until they ask you to leave. But security system has no right or authority over you, but if they call police you risk arrest.

Rae: Success inside the banks by having someone stand in the door with security guard to talk to them about something else while the others do the action inside. However, lots contracted by G4S and they are difficult.

NY action on the 10th in addition to the 8th.
1pm Union Square, Saturday, 10 March

Laurie: There is a Facebook page for tomorrow’s action, post your event, and tweet out the great video (on FB and sent to list serve). Search for “International Women’s Day: SuperSheros and Women Occupy”

Share videos from tomorrow!

NEXT STEPS

Rae: Would love to see Women Occupy the Convention in the Fall

99% spring trainings will be taking place in March and April
Question: What kind would you like? What is needed for women in the occupy movement?

WANT TRAININGS IN

Ellen: Interested in how to best use Facebook and other social media, tools like photo shop

Lynn: There is no BofA in my area. But we are having a rally at local college at end of month; involving Planned Parenthood. What are other areas doing involving attempts to block access to contraception, etc?
Direct Response from Texas: emailing senators, contacting legislators about bill, quote in her email used in a press release, one person can make a difference!!
Direct Response: getting advertisers to get Rush Limbaugh off the air, and campaign to get the license revoked, exploit rules about violence on the air, petition to FCC, also can go to Bain Capital, which owns Clear Channel. Del Sener is point name.

Janet: Train women as live-streamers

Shanon: How to empower women more within the Occupy movement. Learn ways to make our voices more upfront in GAs, etc. Women aren’t respected as much, looking to band together and move forward together.

GOODBYE

Local Event Support: We’d like to support you in planning your local events and we’d like to know where people are from who are on the call.
Harvest emails from each region for follow up
Press 1 if you are west of the Mississippi
Press 2 if you are East of the Mississippi
Press 3 if you are a local CODEPINK coordinator

NEXT WEEK’S CALL

Debrief of tomorrow’s actions on next call

Next Call: From here forward calls will be on Wednesdays at 5:30PT/8:30ET in the evening. You don’t need to re-register for next week’s call – you can use the same number you used for this call.

Feedback for making this call better? Send to rae[at]codepink.org with subject “General Call Feedback.” Feel free to invite others to join.

Please add your events to the Women Occupy calendar: www.womenoccupy.org.

Wednesday, 2/22/12 5:30 PM PT/5:30 PM ET

Call Host: Women Occupy
Call Facilitators: Nancy Mancias and Rae Abileah
Maestro Board Manager(s): Tammy of OWS
Note Taker(s): Janet Weil
Maestro Call Registration Link for This Call: http://interoccupy.org/womencall/
Link to these notes: http://bit.ly/ycXlz5
Link to share your contact info and introduce yourself to the group: http://bit.ly/zcmCSI

CALL OBJECTIVES:

Connect women and feminists across the occupy movement
Share resources and develop media strategy for International Women’s Day Events, March 8
Share and develop action guidelines for March 8 events
Goal setting for what to do for everyone on call between the call

CALL AGENDA:

Welcome & Introduction

Nancy Mancias introduced facilitation team (Nancy, Rae and Janet) and welcomed everyone.
Overview of what we’ve done so far: have been had calls every week; part of the occupy movement; so far, focused on organizing for IWD; 10 events now posted on womenoccupy.org calendar.

Call guidelines – Nancy read aloud the guidelines (see below).
Rae reviewed these details (see Call Participation Guidelines at bottom)

Communication using phone keypad (review numbers 1-5)

1) Get on Stack

2) Agreement, applause & approval for current speaker or idea (twinkles)

3) Disagreement with current speaker’s comments

4) Direct response to current speaker

5) Point of process or request for tech assistance

30 persons on the call from around the country.

Newcomers: Elizabeth Barger of Occupy Nashville, working to get women together for IWD action, just back from CA trip and folks at ON are enthusiastic, getting together w/women later this evening; Kasha of North Carolina, this call has already been clear and highly evolved; Pat Hunt of Chicago, CP and Occupy Chicago, local folks “obsessed” with NATO/G8, just starting plans for IWD; Shannon of Long Island, OWS, Occupy the Hamptons, important to bring GA back to local community, want to be more active w/women’s groups I’ve connnected with lately, IWD is very important to me, planning for IWD and attending parade in NYC on March 10; Barbara of Santa Monica, CA, fairly active with OLA and CP, have done a number of demos in front of Bank of America, happy to be active, important to let our voices be heard, longtime political activist; Kayla of Occupy Oakland, CP, RAN, wants to find out the plan for IWD, already inspired by hearing from women all over the country; Rosanne of Ft Wayne, Indiana, involved in Occupy FW since the beginning and just started a new CP group, women’s issues and women in general are under attack, we need to band together and get our voices heard (2 SPARKLES); Z of CP Philly, somewhat active in Occupy Philly, looking forward to learning more about IWD.

Nancy: Inspiring to hear so many new voices from around the country, exciting to be growing.

Update on Campaign resources

Lacy, Occupy DC and Institute for Policy Studies, introduced press packet for IWD actions at Bank of America. Calling from McPherson Square! The media team will provide a kit for folks to do their own media work for coverage of local events. Press release template was created by Laurie of LA . Take the press release and put your own details into that document, and send it to local reporters. Sample press call script will soon be available for women in cities where actions are planned (5 SPARKLES) — email Lacy at lacy@ips-dc.org for YOUR city’s press list. The press call script will soon be on womenoccupy.org. For more info on Lacy: http://www.ips-dc.org/staff/lacy

Update on events being planned, if you’d like your event posted to the WO calendar you can post it yourself on the womenoccupy.org calendar or email Melanie@codepink.org the info!
Other updates on WO organizing – Rae – Twitter & Article up on AlterNet

Special guest speaker: Lisa Fithian!
Jodie introduced Lisa: It’s such a great honor to have Lisa on our call, one of the rockstars of organizing and has great depth of knowledge and experience. We will be going into places where police may show up and also bank security and managers. Lisa has been “everywhere” including Seattle in 1999.

Lisa: Thanks, Jodie! I have been in many places and many bank lobbies. Are there questions on direct action?

(Nancy directed people on the call to press I and took stack.)

Jodie: One of the things about women occupy is we want to model a feminist way of being in the occupy movement and lead from who we are — what are some creative ways to deal with bank management when when it starts to confront our interests?

Ashley: I find that the police are targeting women, maybe to get a violent reaction out of men in our actions? They are pushing us around more than the guys.

Janet: question on approaching customers and passersby at banks.

Lisa: All cops, security, managers work on “power over” model. We don’t have to do what they say when they say it. Begin negotiations over how and what we’re doing. [Lisa gave a couple of examples of possible actions inside the bank.] EX: Go in with signs, group is quiet, one person went to the manager and asked him to fax a letter/statement of demands to the CEO, but when he didn’t, we got louder. EX: group dumped trash from foreclosures inside a bank and started chanting.

What are the issues and the visuals that will be good to use? What are your goals? Shut down the bank? In particular at BofA, all tellers are instructed to shut down and go in the back room so you might consider that in your goals when you’re coming.

Part of the art of action & set-up is designed for the police to over-react. If police are picking on women, that’s a good thing in that they’re exposing what they’re about. Train to be prepared for what it’s like to be pushed around. “The power of the action is in the reaction” (Saul Alinski) – so how does that play out? Men in our groups don’t have to “protect” us. What choices do we have? Sit down to change the dynamics? How do you set that up? We’re not in control of everything. It’s important to have police liaisons (at least 2 people), who are not decisionmakers but just relay communications between police/security and people in action. You can have a GA inside the bank.

Your group might decide to designate someone or group of people to liaison w/police; be clear about goals; how far you can push it; when to get out; might be all grouping up & marching out together; might be some taking more risks than others & everyone else getting out quickly as soon as police come. Even when they come, it can play out for a long time. In one bank, they formed a guantlet & people had to go through to get in. Talked to them.

Going into bank lobbies with signs is not very challenging. You can also “decorate” banks or do a photo op with your group.

Lisa repeated these points:

Have Police Liaisons (again, these are communications people, not decision-makers)

Have group agreements about what to do when

Plan how to exit/end the action. EX: there might be a non-risk-arrest group who leave as soon as the police come. Sometimes the police let group stay for a long time as they give info to customers.

Be watchful: how many police are on the scene, do they have handcuffs out?

Talking to customers is crucial. What do we want them to do? Two examples: Encourage them to take their money out of the banks. Send a letter to the CEO. Where as women do we want them to go?

More questions:

Shannon: What are some creative & effective ways to draw attention to women’s issues, within an IWD celebration? How can we come up with something creative to focus on BofA in an IWD march?

Lisa: Two things: it requires research on women’s issues – obviously women need their homes; student debt affects women. Go with theme of the 1% – have a day without the 1% [this will be messaging on May Day]. How do we move the narrative of the stealing of our common wealth? (4 SPARKLES) Brainstorming tactics – the best thing is to get a local group together and talk about ideas, images, stories relating to BofA and let’s share them so we can reproduce them. BofA has extensive reach into charities, local music halls, etc. *also see action guides on womenoccupy.org for inspiration!

Rosanne: How to combine women’s issues and natl issues? Foreclosures actions have been happening. I’m just a little confused about BofA – I’m in Indiana and my city doesn’t have a BofA, but we have Chase and Wells Fargo. I’ve done my research on them and the bailouts. Focusing on women – they take care of children, they’re facing all kinds of insecurities – food, housing, transportation — I don’t know how to use the bank as a target.

Lisa: These banks touch all aspects of our lives. Another way is to think about the larger frame: banks are affecting food supplies, food stamps (Chase?), debt. Interest rate swaps lock cities into bad deals and then there are cuts to city budgets. Depending on cities – check out New Bottom Line. Think about broader messages. I’m willing to keep thinking about it.

Nancy: Great discussion on thinking about actions and then police counter-reaction.
(SPARKLE)

Breakout Sessions (10 minutes)
1 – Western States – Nancy & Jodie
2 – Eastern States – Melanie
3 – Midwest – Rae & Janet

Questions for your breakout session: What event are you planning? How are you outreaching to get people to your action? Are you coordinating with other occupies in your area? Do you have a media plan? What are your visuals/props? Is there anything else you need to make your action a success?

Report Backs from Breakout Sessions
Nancy: Just had a great Western States discussion. Laurie in LA: 2 events planned, in Bev Hills and a local community college. Ilene has an idea of dropping off aspirins at Darrell Issa’s office re cutting off contraceptions. Kayla wants to do a action in the East Bay.

Melanie: We had Shannon, Ashley, and Sasha in our group from Eastern States. Shannon discussed doing a creative action during larger IWD march on March 10. Need to find a bank that’s open on Saturday. Next steps: outreach, outreach, outreach!

Rae reported back from the Midwest group when Janet’s call dropped (she got back on call).

Notes from Janet during breakout:

Jennifer, Pat, Leslie, Rosanne (Rose), Rae & Janet in Midwest group.

Rose: I didn’t know about IWD, have not seen anything from women in occupy about IWD and we don’t have anything planned. Just became a local group coordinator for CP, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to participate but would love to hear what others are doing and maybe it could still happen in Ft. Wayne.

Jennifer of East Lansing, MI: Nothing planned for now.

Leslie: I have suggested IWD actions several times. Occupy Dallas has been “taken over” by women and they are very organized with other actions. CP Dallas. We recently did a funeral march to BofA for the death of the American dream, single file silent procession with everyone in black, weeping widows, preacher, Angel of Death figure, drummer. We put the coffin in front of BofA while women moaned and cried, then had a woman speak about her foreclosure. Woman gospel singer. Preacher (male) read from the book of “Eviction.” We have already done our thing and now people are focused on ALEC and there will be actions at school district meeting over layoffs of teachers and spending money on expensive machines.

Rose: What about groups like rape crisis center? Has anyone contacted them to get their involvement?

Rae: REMINDER: your event does not have to be an IWD action/event to be posted to the Women Occupy calendar!

Summarize next steps
All calls are on Wednesday, 8:30 ET/5:30 PT. You can use the same pin for the next call on Weds, February 29.

Closing Comments/Housekeeping (5 minutes)

Next Call: From here forward calls will be on Wednesdays at 5:30PT/8:30ET in the evening. You can use the same number as you used today for the call next week, February 29. We’ll have a special guest – media strategist Celia Alario!
Rae: please stay on call afterward to give me your email.

Feedback for making this call better? Send to rae[at]codepink.org with subject “General Call Feedback.”
Please add your events to the Women Occupy calendar or send the info to Melanie@codepink.org. Putting your event on the national calendar is good for attention and publicity – you can use the link in social media.
GROUP GOOD-BYES! (UNMUTE ALL)
New emails:

References / Links

Call Guidelines and glossary of terms
About Women Occupy
Women Occupy call notes

Call Participation Guidelines

Be Curious and Open to Learning: Listen to and be open to hearing all points of view. Maintain a attitude of exploration and learning.
Balance Advocacy and Inquiry: Seek to learn and understand as much as you might want to persuade. Conversations are as much about listening as it is about talking.
Show Respect and Suspend Judgment: Setting judgments aside will enable you to learn from others and contribute to others experiencing being respected and appreciated.
Seek Alignment rather than Agreement: Alignment is shared intention, whereas agreement is having a shared belief or opinion.
Be Purposeful and to the Point: Notice if what you are conveying is or is not “on purpose” to the question at hand. Notice if you are making the same point more than once. Do your best to make your point quickly with honesty and depth.
Own and Guide the Conversation or Process: Take responsibility for the quality of your participation and the quality of the work conversations by noticing what’s happening and actively support getting yourself and others back “on purpose” when needed.
Be Excellent to Each other: Share what’s important to you. Speak authentically; from your personal and heart felt experience. Be considerate to others who are doing the same.