MF/PL January 2015 meeting -- Day 2 (Day 1 -- See ​https://pad.riseup.net/p/mfpl20150110)

Summary from Day 1 ​https://pad.riseup.net/p/mfpl20150111 Started on the topic of resignations. We collaboratively developed themes of agreement. We took notes on areas of disagreement. We're continuing the conversation at the end of the day today to put together a letter to our membership about what happened.

Discussion of the political environment with the themes of governments operating with impunity and goverment repression. We talked about strategy and how we integrate with the movement and what that means. One strategy is to figure out how to integrate with the movement. And finally, how we control our infrastructure.

We reviewed all documents like statement of unity, intentionality and assigned a team to work on a new mission. Then, we reviewed and listed values. Assigned a team to work on that list to create a values statement.

Mission statement

Mallory, Aaron and Jackie reworked the statement with feedback from yesterday. Wanted to keep it short. Also to bring in more of the political moment and context. Because the mission must extend beyond moments, we left that out to perhaps be added with a separate introduction (or something).

MFPL participates in building movements by advancing the strategic use and collective control of technology for local struggles, global transformation, and emancipation without borders.

PMEP participa en la construcción de movimientos sociales mediante el impulso del uso estratégico y el control colectivo de la tecnología para las luchas locales, la transformación global, y la emancipación sin fronteras.

Alfredo: Global instead of without borders. Mallory: agree. Jamie: I think "without borders" is a fundamental piece of our organization and it belongs in our mission statement. Jackie: Add words "to support local struggles.." Maritza: Think it's good to include without borders because it strengthens the statement and is poetic. Adding the word struggle is not necessary. Olinca: Without borders gives the connotation that they should decide how. Start from the point that internet should be without borders. Alfredo: We don't support struggles, we're a part of them. Jackie: The grammar isn't correct. Mallory: It's correct. Jaime: Duplicate so that Jackie can express the idea she has. We're not allowing her to express it fully. Was it concious to remove "participates in the building" and "helps"? Mallory: It was conscious to remove it because we want to be more direct about our role. Maritza: Removing this means that we are directly involved. Pablo: Agree that we build.

(later) Alfredo: We've never said we build things alone. Mallory: We don't need to be modest about doing our part (alone) to build. Enrique: I would back the text as it is. The text as it is is a challenge to us to bring our memebrs into the organization to do this. To build it ourselves. Jaime: The politics in Mexico at least include the humility to say that we're participants and to make it clear. Yes, it's political to say we do not do this alone. Olinca: I think the question of a democratic movement is very broad. I can be a movement where there is strong mobilization. One reading of this is that in one way we address humility is that we don't support huge national democratic movements. It does sound a bit presumptuous and arrogant. We're representing a vision rather than a position. : "Build" is perhaps what creates the noise. Do we participate in its building. Substitute the word "build" for "contribute to the construction". Olinca: "Or participates in the construction." Maritza: We're throwing out synonyms. If it's presumptuous. I like contribute better than participate. Jaime: What about collaborate. Mallory: The English has a bad connotation. Pablo: I'm divided. I don't feel that it's so distant if we put the word collaborate. It's okay to change the term. Alfredo: We have to treat MFPL as any other political organization, but we have distinct roles and resources. Organizations participate. But they don't contribute necessarily and vice versa. It doesn't sound as important but in the US we are treated as a provider. We want to push politically that we are treated as a political organization, contributing what we have. Participate is stronger then. Enrique: I withdraw my support for the existing draft. We should take into consideration how this is looked at within the organization and others on the outside. Mallory: I don't agree still but I'm not going to flip a desk. Pablo: I would even leave the word construct out so it's just that we participate. Alfredo: Should we stay with democratic or change it to social? Maritza: I like democratic movements because it's more specific and social is more general. Olinca: In Mexico it's the reverse. Jaime: Some movements they don't use the word "democratic" even if they use the methods they don't call them as such. "Social" is much more leftist. Martiza: Social justice movements are people who receive funding, etc. What about transformative movements. Mallory: Just remove the qualifier altogether. Jamie: I like removing it. Our politics are clear later. Pablo: I think in Spanish it should remain social movements because it addresses what we do.

Goals (mission review, if necessary)

Pulled out all of the SWOT from the surveys. Pulled out notes from yesterday and pulled out goals. What's in this presentation are goals that we share as an organization but they're more for talking points. Then we should go right to SWOT. Then we can come back to goals and mission statement.

1. Build movement-led communications and technology infrastructure
2. Enhance awareness, particularly among members, of political issues surrounding technology
3. Make access to technology affordable, especially for Global Majority and women
4. Build capacity of movement organizations and activists in the use of technology
5. Support members’ communications and technology needs
6. Engage members in technology and advocacy work
7. Enhance communication across international borders
8. Advance the use of and develop Free/Libre and Open Source Software
9. Promote and defend internet rights
10. Defend privacy, data sovereignty, and security
11. Promote respect for cultural rights and linguistic diversity
12. Contribute to the development of technologies to advance solidarity economies and other alternatives to capitalism and to build just relationships in places where people work.

1. Construir comunicaciones y infraestructura tecnológica dirigidas por el movimiento
2. Ampliar la conciencia, sobre todo entre los miembros (de MFPL), sobre los temas politicos alrededor de la tecnología
3. Asegurar que acceso a la tecnología sea costeable, especialmente para la mayoría global y las mujeres
4. Aumentar la capacidad en el uso de la tecnología para las organizaciones del movimiento y activistas
5. Respaldar la solución a las necesidades de comunicación y tecnología de nuestros miembros
6. Promover el compromiso de nuestros miembros en el trabajo tecnológico y de promoción
7. Mejorar las comunicaciones mas alla de las fronteras
8. Impulsar el uso y el desarrollo de Software Libre
9. Defensa y promoción de los derechos en internet

10.Defender la privacidad y la seguridad en la soberania de datos 11.Trabajar por el respeto a los derechos culturales y la diversidad lingüística

12. Contribuir al desarrollo de tecnología para hacer avanzar las economías solidarias y otras alternativas al capitalismo y para construir relaciones justas en los espacios en donde las personas trabajan.

Jamie: Is it too broad for us to say that we want to strengthen left movements. Is it overreaching? Louis: Left movement capacity could have more wording but yes, it's covered. Alfredo: We don't have FLOSS here. We need a separate point. Jackie: Can we include it in the first one? Mallory: If we can make the "left movements'" bullet all about capacity building, that's the main aim here. Maritza: We want to say explicity that we want to link struggles across borders. We don't only want to strengthen left movements' tech skills, we want to also have the movement lead us on the tech that we create. Olinca: I would like to have two elements: rights and security. Enrique: Does the group would like to express these objectives with timelines for reaching them. This would help us if we were to set time frames for reaching those goals. "In 5 years we should achieve this objective/goal." If we think about it with timelines then that forces us to take a step away from reaching those goals. It's important for us to write up these goals with time considerations. Mallory: Add points about rights, security and another one about movement-led technology development. Jackie: Most of these have short, medium and long term timelines. Maybe we get the larger goals and then this afternoon we can create a plan for 2, 3, 5 year plans for each of them. Alfredo: These, more to add, and how to go forward? Jackie: We can put Mallory's notes up after SWOT to look at the revised goals.

(later) Enrique: There are existing solidarity economy models that exchange goods and work that highlights the time and elements that go into a product. Hiding the value of goods is important for capitalism to assert domination. Also hides the rate of exploitation. We can contribute to the clarity of power relationships in labor. Our strategies must consider this and look for new relationships and use of technology. We must ensure that all of these objectives support this. Add an objective to link specifically solidarity economy with technology development. Jamie: It seems that this is outside our mission. Alfredo: This goal expands on the vision of the organization. We're working to redefine how technology is used in society. We have to model that. Mallory: Solidarity economy is a term that is more relatable. Maritza: It's a concrete example of local work. It's part of the global movement that is seeking these goals so it's within our mission. When we relate it to technological development, there's a point we have about building infrastructure. So it's related. Relating this to solidarity economy will help. Olinca: I agree with the idea. The focus on search for alternatives of production causes some confusion for me. Jamie: I realize that there's a connection to the political environment discussion yesterday. Pablo: The search for alternatives isn't helpful perhaps. Solidarity economy in Mexico, there's also a transformation of that term. Enrique's point is broader than solidarity economy (social, solidarity economies, etc). There are people who don't even use those terms anymore, but they identify with it. Also number 11 is an outlier. Some people might say it's not a primary goal of the organization. The Mexican organization is in my mind and I want to know who is working on those issues in the US? Mexico is working on those issues. It's important to include them. Mallory: Workplace cuts out women who don't have jobs. Alfredo: We're looking to go a step further than capitalism so this revision also applies to socialism, etc., and propose to return to the previous narrative. Enrique: I like the change but I'd add "... and that builds just relationships in the workplace." Jaime: How do you resolve the issue of the workplace with the issue that gender perspective on work. Enrique: Ambiguity is useful and it can be any space where people work in our definition. It depends on our ideology. We're seeking survival through transformation. Maritza: I agree because what we're doing is creating a dialogue and everything is work. Capitalism is what put a price on the commodity of work. At home you're producing the labor of a society. Criminal activities can also be a form of labor. Creates a possibility of debate. Jaime: We have to be careful with the phrase "workplace" in English and "centros de trabajo" in Spanish. So use "work spaces" rather than "workplace". Or "places where people work". Pablo: Use the plural solidarity economies, not solidarity economy. Enrique: If unions are the only people who seek "labor justice" then that's in service of the capitalist system and the demands of the sectors for labor justice it can be transformatives. Is "labor justice" a restrictive term as a capitalist strategy. Maritza: It has too much connotation with the labor movement. It's better to talk about work spaces. Jaime: I have a concern about the English and Spanish of workplaces. In Spanish it's good but in English it's harder. "Places where people work" is better even if it's longer. Martiza: Agree.

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT)

These are all from the surveys.

Strengths

• Large member base represents important sectors of left movements
• Tech capacity and experience
• Bringing together technologists and activists
• Highly skilled volunteers • Plurality/diversity of members
• Cross-border alliances/ international outreach
• Model for privacy/security/disclosure policies
• Reputation for political work
• Willingness to stand up for members’ rights/privacy even at great risk/cost
• Values in our unity statement
• Possibilities for member participation

Mallory: "Possibilities" implies that this is an opportunity but it is not at all a strength at this moment.

Weaknesses: Organization and structure

• Weak internal mechanisms for managing conflict and democratic decision-making
• Need better balance between power of LC and technologists/support team in decisions
• Lack of regular opportunities for political dialogue/debate
• Non-transparent decisionmaking structure
• Weak process for managing resources
• Lack of formal bylaws
• Lack of well-defined medium term strategic plan
• Internal communications
• Understaffed

Maritza: I don't understand the balance item-- how is it out of balance? Enrique: We should collaboratively edit these. Maritza: We didn't get to debate yesterday and we haven't worked out our differences. The tech team does whatever they're doing and they have more power than the LC. Why don't we come up with something like Google? Louis: This is the place to get more clarity. Jamie: In the next section we're going to have a section on structure and we're going to analyse the work team model and we'll ask what the problems are with it. We have to address what the weakenesses are first.

Weaknesses: Member engagement

• Image as service provider
• Poor communication with and responsiveness to members
• Weak member participation
• Weak alignment of mission with member organizations
• Limited engagement of youth, people of color, women, indigenous (Mexico)
• Weak international outreach
• Failure to respond to member requests for more training on, e.g. CMS and digital security.
• Lack of connection to key movements happening now

Louis: Weak international outreach? Mallory: It's a political question as to whether or not we want to have the world on our servers. That's not a given for all countries and contexts. Maritza: Our mission says that we want to be global. Maybe a weakness is our internal communication about this political issue.

Opportunities

• Possibilities now for contributing to strengthening left movements
• Public openness to messages on net neutrality/privacy/FOSS, etc.
• Movement on race and policing provides opening to collaborate Potential to enhance tech capacity of working class people of color
• Potential to mobilize white techies in partnerships with people of color/anti-racist struggles
• Potential to connect with emerging movements in US & Mexico
• Challenging Google on doc sharing and email/calendar synching
• Connecting with groups providing local internet/mesh networks
• Room to expand work in area of free hardware (patent free)
• Growth in networks and events needing communications technology (e.g. WSF, etc)
• Membership capacities to contribute to MF/PL projects and outreach/education work

Threats

• State repression & surveillance
• Divisions in movements perpetuated by ruling class
• Corporate power
• Gmail
• Decreased movement consciousness around FOSS
• Mobile phone usage threatens privacy/data sovereignty
• Threats to net neutrality
• Failure to provide FOSS alternatives to major commercial software movements use
• Insufficient development of free hardware for our servers
• Constraints on movement resources and time as crises intensify

Jackie: Would add that we haven't incorporated the climate crisis enough. What will be the technology needs? Mesh networks. Enrique: Provoking the problem with climate change-- there are efforts already technology taking place to address this change and slow it down.

Structure

PRESNTATIONS Enrique and Jamie: Leadership committee and work team structure 3 elected LCs so far. Initially focused on approving proposals. This didn't work well since all LC members weren't in good position to introduce proposals 2nd year sub-committees were formed-- i.e., membership, democracy... developing visions for what MFPL should do. Again LC lacked context/confidence to do much. 3rd year: Work teams to do outreach and support work international, membership, admin. That hasn't worked. DIdn't effectively integrate Mexican 'commissions'. Also too many work teams for us to support and we didn't mobilize enough member support for work teams. We could reduce the # of work teams to make this model work.

Enrique: Proposed leadership structure Member assembly -- seen as main decision making body. But little participation from members. Vision of general assembly is not happening as envisioned. So Leadership Committee is now elected. The LC is structured to incorporate coordinators of working groups Working groups are open to all members wishing to participate. Five WG proposed. Mexican co-op is one of these. Work areas: 1) Support and system admin.; 2) Outreach and communication (external); 3) Internal communications (member) and administration; 4) International work and interpretation; 5) MX-Co-op--admin, tech., security,

With resignations, Membership/admin is not eing accomplished. We are also not accomplishing international work and interpretation. Members of LC are not all active in work groups; and some people who carry the work groups are not on the LC. We want LC Members to help guide the work of MFPL but know that they cannot be expected to be active on work groups in the way we had hoped. So proposal to restructure the LC to accommodate this experience.

ALFREdO: proposes expansion of LC from 15-21 members to better reflect the Global majority and the makeup of social movements in the U.S. Also outreach should be intentional to attract people of color and women. Of 6 new members, 4 need to be women. Proposes 2 year LC term to improve LC effectiveness.

Mallory has a report on gender and people of color balance on LC. Now majority people of color. Women underrepresented. Also Latinos significantly under-represented.

Jamie: Stresses that we want racial balance because of the nature of the movement, which is predominantly women and people of color. Decisions should be guided by this.

Decision making process (Mallory) 2011- change in leadership structure with Alfredo stepped down from coordinator role Idea of the structure is that there are people making day-to-day decisions. Alfredo as outreach coordinator, then support team must make decisions. On weekly basis coordinators meet. These are basically WG coordinators. Leadership committee makes larger decisions-- coordinators are on LC, but support team is not on LC. The overall structure needs to incorporate the experiences with this structure.

Member Communication- how and when we communicate Mainly through newsletter/lowdown-- irregular. (last one in July) readership has been limited. Mailing to ~3,000 people. We have social media accounts which are not active 2012-2013-- Lowdown amalgamation of info. on member activities and invitations to events/etc. Email list has been main communication for updates. REcent shift to CivCRM-which allows us to track it better.

Mallory Proposal (SEE CHART) Work done by:

Workers (paid staff) Project leads (paid staff/coordinators) Network representatives (member/partners) Working groups

Supported by:

Volunteers Contractors Interpreters, etc.

THESE REPORT TO & STRATEGIC PLANNING By LC and Mexico Co-op

PROPOSAL: To add level of 'directors' to help liaison between work/volunteers and LC; aid with strategic plan

DIRECTION: Comes from members NEED a Board-- to help us with legal/fiscal work. This is important for conforming with U.S. law and improving transparency NEED better process to integrate input from members

Emphasis on support vs. hierarchy. Jamie: *Still question on how Mexican Co-op fits in this proposal. Enrique: How do we think about the relationship among these different groups? This is key for determining hierarchy and power relations among the groups.

LUNCH BREAK 1:30PM

More explanation of Mallory's proposal. Directors' role is to help manage decisions about budget, allocation of resources, etc. Prevent LC from getting bogged down in detailed work.

Enrique notes that Mexico Co-op has board as well. Maritza: add some component for political education to ensure that members and LC members are familiar with MFPL mission, etc. Ensure that everyone has same vision, understanding of MFPL goals. Orientation for members and LC members. Spaces for youth/women/ Global majority spaces-mechanisms for ensuring voices enter decision process.

Enrique-- we need to be sure that paid staff don't eclipse/reduce space for volunteers. Also need to get more clarity about LC role and differences among LC members' levels of engagement. Some play more advisory role; others will be more active in the operations of the organization. Space for the most active members to help select LC

Projects can be ways to attract possible members. Members should also be invited to contribute support to the projects. A goal in projects should be to incorporate members and new members into the work. This will develop leaders in the organization.

Maritza mentions that the importance of LC members is to help connect MFPL with the larger movement, so recognizing that LC members are engaged in other movement work that relates to the larger work of MFPL

Alfredo reiterates this point and notes that LC needs to play important leadership role too. What we need to be sensitive to is the racial and class composition of LC. To emphasize the amount of effort/time LC members put into MFPL projects will privilige white participants and exclude others who are a key/intentional

Louis: notes how some of the member groups will be strapped for capacity due to economic constraints. We're also facing those constraints in MFPL. So we need to make choices about how to target our efforts. Do we think about deliberate effort to build up the LC at the expense of building the membership? Or look at existing membership and try to engage them more actively as LC members or as part of projects.

Jamie: Suggests rethinking place /role of support team

Political education- needs to happen internally and externally In near term, political ed. should help lead us to the next member meeting.

Jackie; proposed creating team to draft a fromal proposal of by-laws to reflect the model Mallory put out and the ideas/comments that came up in our discussion. We need to talk about roles of members and how we can engage members more in the work of MFPL. Louis made proposal to think about reviewing our existing member database and trying to cultivate more participation in relevant ways. Which groups might be in good positions to work with us on projects; which ones may be ready to help take leadership places on LC.

Mallory: On discussion of member meeting-- we shouldn't just hold one to hold one. We should be sure that it will have the participation we want and will contribute to our work.

Enrique: member meetings with limited participation won't kill the organization. But what we do need is some militancy, consistency between values, mission, goals, and what we do. We need to work on morale/moral commitment. We need to rethink /avoid a member meeting of a broad assembly. Meeting of the most involved members-- not excluding other members, but active participants central/present/ participate in crucial ways.

Alfredo-- these folks are all white. [And Mallory notes one woman]

Jackie -- We have to do things differently in engaging our membership. We need to think about creative ideas. I'm ambivalent about a membership meeting as a member of MFPL coming out of other organizations that have meetings. All of MFPL members are in this boat. How are we going to create a member meeting that makes sense. I'm also ambivalent about the climate footprint that this involves. If we have a section where we can talk about invovling members in new ways to achieve our goals, and thinking about existing members, we can come up with new solutions that already exist and where to go.

Mallory: Need to work towards enhancing representation of people of color and women in core work of MFPL

Enrique: That's the intentionality statement. We want to reach something better and push for that. Also in Mexico to some extent we have to incorporate members who reflect social movements. In US it's Latinos, African Americans, and Asians. The challenges need to be assumed by everyone. A lot of people might not be in agreement and won't see the relevance of this work. There are others who want to be involved and should be.

Olinca: Two problematic situations: Need to have participations in these sectors in decision making. The other is the need to diversify that participation in terms of not just having white men. In Mexico it's hard to put it in those terms because our situation is very different. There's a need for greater participation by indigenous people. In principle, we can work along both paths at the same time, in parallel. This doesn't have to be meeting face to face. This might lead to more diversity. I think we don't have to do one before the other. Give ourselves a short period of time in which we can address both issues. Let's look for a solution 6 months down the road.

Louis: We have a responsibility around the room to project this organization forward and we need to work with what we have. We've reached a lot of clarity already both yesterday and today about where we're going in concept. We need to focus on today and after today. In the near future, we need to tighten up this work we've done this weekend. These are our decisions to make.

Alfredo: Enrique, imagine that we get these colleagues to participate. Is it possible to invite other members that aren't on that list to the process. What would be the criteria for those invitations?

Enrique: The next meeting shouldn't be called a members meeting. You can call it whatever you want. But it shouldn't have a planning and evaluation as if it were a general assembly.

Alfredo: Would you convene all members?

Enrique: It could be open for all members. But it needs to fulfill a clear objective (there may be others) that is to bring together the people on the list who are contributing work to the organization and I think that's the first thing we should achieve. And then who else should we address? For example, it may depend on the strategy that we're thinking about without excluding anyone. It can be an open meeting. It would be a big mistake not to establish dialogue with all these people. To talk about the documents. The process we used and came up with. And to generate greater proximity.

Alfredo: I don't understand.

Enrique: We talk about values, structure, strategy, with all of these folks.

Alfredo: When?

Enrique: Couple of months after we have all of the different documents that we've developed them. This will also be the moment to renew the LC.

Mallory: Let's do it around the USSF.

Alfredo: USSF and AMC are the same week, so no.

Pablo: The context in Mexico makes it difficult. The sys admins participate the most. Is there agreement that these LC and Co-op members need to be in this debate? The part that is contentions is the sys admin. But this is the important part of the organization and where the information is. They must be considered if we agree in the current committee their presence would be guaranteed. I don't understand why you would say that you don't want them there.

Alfredo: To be clear I don't have any conflict with whatever Enrique is proposing but regarding the history I have with the people that are there. No one knows Rob Robinson. Or Kendra. But all of their colleauges should be in that room. There are several that are this way. The majority of these people should be in this room. They are from the global majority. We work in two different cultures. I'm doing my work in the heart of imperialism and racism is a key aspect of all of that. When you get a lot of people from one race or one context, it's difficult for people not in that context to function. This is the truth and not some emotional thing.

Louis: I understand. We can avoid these situations in the future. Part of implementing these perspectives involves bringing together who we have. How you structure all of that can be a controlled environment to aleviate the gaps and differences.

Maritza: There are no differences between our liberations. But we're set up against each other in our oppressions. There are different narratives about the resignations. That's why I wanted to meet face to face. I wanted to hear their narrative and I wanted them to hear mine. Like anyone, Alfredo can do better. How he was hired, his budget, calling him macho, being glad he wasn't at a meeting. Wants to hear the actual concrete criticisms. People planned it and targetted one person.

Mallory: White sensitivity training as part of this proposed meeting.

Louis: We're here but they're not. People in the founding leadership set themselves up for an ass kicking. Racial sensitivity training is a crock of bullshit. It's just going to make these white people better racists.

Mallory-- these folks are willing/interested in improving racial sensitivity. This work is important and useful

Jamie: We wanted to invite Maritza to the suppor team to do anti-oppression, movement school work. Mallory's intent is to figure out how to have this meeting in a way that is a controlled environment to mitigate the impacts of oppression. We need to invite these people to come because of their participation. We can do nothing more than invite them to come. Who are the workers, and be generous about that definition.

Enrique: We need to make them participants in creating the conditions for that meeting and can't just approach them after setting up an agenda. We have to develop the agenda with them. We have to have their participation and their willingness to debate and exchange. If not, it will be a guaranteed failure.

Alfredo: How are you doing to do that? We're asking them to help plan the meeting? You want to have a meeting to plan the greater meeting?

Enrique: We can create a timeline for the meeting that plans the meeting with phone calls.

Jackie: We can look at members and see if there are project we need members to help with. I don't think it's worth doing a membership meeting until we get a better engagement of members. We need more participation and then we can talk about involving the other pieces of the organization.

Jaime: It's not equivalent, but do we have an initiative to involve and broaden the participation of indigenous members? Is something like confronting the racial reality in the US happening here?

Enrique: We have intentions but we do not have systematic plans in the short and long term. We work with members in the state of Chiapas to promote membership but also strengthening our members there. The intention is to incorporate indigenous people, linguistic and technical differences.

Maritza: I agree we should get at finding additional members. This process that we've begun is to discuss the problems of the organization, etc, and if we can repeat or expand upon these discussions it would be great with past LC members, sys admins and with us all we can have an assessment. We could really make progress. It's not the same as the members meeting.

Enrique: Confusion in the character/scope of the meeting. Where does our strength come from as an org.? Can we best fulfil goals and advance a strategy without having adequately closed this 'crisis'? Resolving this crisis first/closure first or moving forward with new orientation. People working in org. are our strength. If we all agree to that, then convening a member meeting is not what we should be talking about. We should be talking of a 'workers assembly' to build unity and work with them to move forward, defining that together.

Alfredo: most of those on the list of 'workers' no longer work for mfpl

Maritza: likes idea of workers assembly- broad definition of who is worker--including those who have left -they should be invited to dialogue. volunteers too. Now we have a LC that is also a part of this conversation. We have some new clarity on mission/goals that can help guide work. Calling it workers assembly is good. The other thing about resignations is that we can say this assembly is open to those who have left.

Louis: We're in a crisis. We shouldn't have this assembly until we have clarity on structure, bylaws, etc as it will all inform a membership meeting. We've made progress on key pieces. But we need to do more work on this. We shouldn't go into the assembly with proposals. It should be about where we're going with all of these elements in place and what's the best way for them to fit into it. People are given the opportunity to discuss and to buy in.

Jamie: I can get with a worker's assembly with an open invitation. It avoids a distinct definition of worker. Difference with Louis that we worked today on what we're doing for the next year, but we really worked on is what fundamentally is this organization. We can't definitively decide that today so we do need a process to bring that to the membership to have legitimacy. And to take opportunity for political education of our membership. The core documents should be brought as proposals and we should think of this as one in a series of meetings with different sectors of our membership to get feedback and do political education with our membership, which could culminate in a membership meeting in September. Secondly, we need to figure out what we're going to do this year.

Mallory: check in on what we are to accomplish. Moving to next agenda item.

Agenda interlude

Contextual analysis (Alfredo, Enrique, Maritza, Jerome) X Mission Values statement (Juan G, Jamie, Enrique, Walda) X Goals Structure proposals (Mallory and Enrique) Process for bringing this to our membership (Enrique)

For the remaining time:

1. Letters (a) to people who left and (b) to membership about resignations (new kind of relationship to members)
2. Budget
3. Committed projects
4. Moving forward, getting things done that we haven't got done (Strategic plan)
5. Go around similar to yesterday

Letters

1. Response to people who sent resignations

​https://pad.riseup.net/p/mfpl20150110-letters

2. General to membership

​https://pad.riseup.net/p/membership_letterMFPL

Budget [See budget sheet] Budget deficit due to less coming in from member dues. Alfredo will bring proposal for expanding fundraising to next LC meeting.

Enrique noted that budget from coop is delayed [missed...]

Committed projects USSF 25 June. There are three sites for the forum convergences. One cross-border meeting being planned in Tiajuana that MFPL is leading. Alfredo attends 3 meetings a week for this project, and MFPL supports tech work for this convergence.

Allied Media Conference--earlier in May. MFPL is coordinating the activity for MAGNET. 168 member orgs in this alliance. MAGNET is now absorbing Center for Media Justice; Alfredo is now on CMJ board and coordinating this activity. this is a high profile activity in important networks. Alfredo is proposing that all members of MAGNET become MFPL members. working on an arrangement that would involve collaboration with us on fundraising.

In Mexico we've prioritized internal strategy geared toward developing tech skills of members. Reduced participation in campaign for 'without corn there's no country', but we've expanded our work on telecom reform campaign and FLOSS work with left movements. Hack festival/auto festival. Outreach to a larger public left in Mexico. Reasons for reduced role in corn campaign due to complexity of that coalition and lack of clear strategy but also young people are not committed to <FOSS-- using commercial tech.

Moving forward What folks have committed to doing; Jamie- will organize at least 2 calls in the next few weeks wrapping up this meeting and the budget; finsih budget report; develop value statement; political context...

maritza; will work on analysis documents and LC meetings.

aaron; will work in co-op and mfpl to advance the work. supporting visual communication. this is a strength we have that we want to continue to build.

mallory-will finish eval. of LC, working with enrique on proposal for structure; draft of letter to former staff. will help coordinate meetings.

jackie; support letters/statement work as needed, will work to mobilize more members of her org. to mfpl work, will work to advance intentionality-mobilizing women and people of color, also support political education work

alfredo; work with ussf. magnet work. net neutrality campaigns. work with jamie on budget, buildng alternative revenue policy to help deal with shortfall, political context statement

enrique; working on analytical documents and values, structure; work with la-neta workers on project that is a priority.

jaime; looks forward to being part of process and support team

edgardo; appreciated learning and different perspective on racism that was brought through discussion Pablo; working in co-op various projects relevant to the context. working on membership and administrative issues, including budget. goal is to finish the budget report, will review documents but wants to be on values discussion; work on integrating jaime into work.

louis; will work with mallory and enrique on structure. Go around evaluation