Coordinating Council minutes 10.29.12

Minutes of Occupy Asheville Coordinating Council 10-29-12
Present: Mark, Tom, Lindsey, John, James, Bev, Susan and Kathryn facilitating and taking minutes
Discussion of whether the list of e-mail addresses taken from the original website should be kept by one person (Susan) or shared.  Decided: it should be kept by one person, used frugally once or twice a month to announce events.  If you have an event to be announced which is directly related to Occupy, let Susan know and she will see it is announced.
Finance:  Mark is leaving and Lindsey shouldn’t be the only one left “holding the bag.”  Decided: John will join her on the finance committee.  They will open a new account at SECU.  Policy making on finance should be separate from disbursing.  A check has been cut for Ben Scales.
Further acknowledgement for Ben Scales: NVDAT will pursue holding a meal at Rosetta’s to honor Ben.
Transit: Tuesday there will be a joint survey with Homeless Network people helping City of Asheville employees to distribute information at the bus depot.  They have extended service to 6 holidays.  The City could use money from parking meters and lots to increase service, especially on Sundays.
John also told us about a letter he has written to the Citizen Times about homeless people and cold weather (Code Purple).  We discussed whether such actions should be taken in the name of Occupy.  We would like to have it recognized that Occupy includes a number of groups which are taking independent action.  Further discussion is needed on which actions should be identified with Occupy.
The status of the Monday evening meetings.  After discussion on e-mail and in the meetings it was decided that the Monday evening meetings will be called the “weekly Occupy meeting” and open to all.  We will continue to request that proposals be made one week and decided upon the next to allow for maximum participation within the community.  We will continue to focus on action.  We will continue to have an outdoor GA on the first Saturday of the month.
James told us that the national Inter Occupy vision has been refined and asked us to consider the 21 statements to see what we would like to adopt for our local Occupy.  We agreed to make this the first item on the agenda for next month.  We will also take into account the visioning process done locally in June and the recommendations of that group.