Invitation
The Leadership Committee of May First/People Link has set the date of the Membership Meeting the weekend of November 7, 2015. It will follow a day of pre-meeting workshops on November 6.
Pre-Meeting workshops: Friday, November 6: 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm America/New_York
Membership Meeting: Saturday, November 7: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm America/New_York
You may participate in person in New York, in person in Mexico City or online.
Please register to attend: https://outreach.mayfirst.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=10
New York
Dedulus Foundation in Sunset Park
254 36th St.
Suite 2BE
Brooklyn NY 11232
The BMT "R" and "N" trains stop at 36th Street in Brooklyn, two blocks away from the Center.
Mexico City
Elisa #10, entre Laura y Elvira
Colonia Nativitas
a cinco cuadras del Metro Villa de Cortés
México DF
On-line
Using jitsi-meet, our web-based video conference system:
https://meet.mayfirst.org/membership
Spanish/English interpretation provided to all who attend.
Childcare provided by request (please request by Friday, October 23 via email to members@…)
Who Should Attend
All members. If you can't be there in person, attend on-line. The rule is each organization member has two (2) representatives who can vote. Each individual member has a vote. Any member of a member organization can attend and participate in the discussions.
You must register and your registration helps us with food and other arrangements. Registration link is here:
https://outreach.mayfirst.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=10 Questions?
If there are any, please email alfredo@… and he will try to answer them or forward them to someone who can.
We'll be sending more emails as things develop.
What Will Happen
The Membership Meeting is May First/People Link's highest decision-making body and, at its meetings, our organization determines its general priorities for the coming year and elects our Leadership Committee which implements the Membership Meeting's decisions.
This year, the Membership Meeting takes place at an extraordinarily complex moment for the organization with a movement in flux, a clearly sharpened need in our movements for an organization of our type and a strategy that clearly needs updating and perhaps radical change.
In keeping with that situation, we have organized a four-part meeting, each of whose parts play a very specific role in the meeting: : the pre-meeting nomination and discussion period (now ongoing), the workshop day, the face to face meeting and the week-long LC elections and document approval period.
Monday, October 19 -- Nomination and Discussion Period
A period for online discussion, contributions as well as nominations to the Leadership Committee opens on October 19, 2015. On this date:
You may nominate yourself or someone else to be elected to the Leadership Committee
The Leadership Committee has prepared a number of documents defining our goals, structure and purpose and then circulated them among the membership for feed-back and contribution. The final version of these organizational documents are available at:
https://support.mayfirst.org/wiki/projects/membership-meeting/2015/org-docs
Friday, November 6, 2015: Pre-meeting Training and Workshops Day
Members are invited to a series of workshops to orient themselves to May First/People Link, learn how to use the control panel, learn how to be more secure in your everyday Internet use, and find out why they should come to the membership meeting.
Registration will allow members to choose to attend in person in NY, in person in Mexico City or via web conference. Depending on registration numbers, we may cancel in person venues with fewer than 5 registrants.
All times are America/New_York. Mexico City is one hour earlier.
1:00 pm - 1:45 pm: Member orientation. This session will cover the basics of May First/People Link, starting with our mission and vision of the Internet, and including concrete tasks like how to use the Members Control panel, how to check your email and how to ask for support.
2:00 pm - 2:45 pm: 5 steps to increase your privacy. Learn about tools to increase your privacy in your organizing work, including collaborative editing tools, sharing documents using ownCloud.
3:00 pm - 3:45 pm: Undestanding the denial of service attack and how we defended ourselves. Over the summer, the we were hit with a massive denial of service attack targetting reproductive justice groups. Learn about what happened and how we defended ourselves and what we can do to build a stronger movement.
4:00 pm - 4:45 pm: Our Movement Work: The US Social Forum, Media Action Grassroots Netork, Allied Media Conference and more: Learn about our work in the movement and bring ideas to shape 2015 and 2016.
Saturday, November 7, 2015: Membership Meeting
All times are America/New_York. Mexico City is one hour earlier.
10:00 - 10:30 am: Welcome and Key Note: One person in Mexico and one in the US will provide a key-note, live, via video conference and simultaneous interpretation.
US speaker: Malkia Cyril, Executive Director, The Center for Media Justice.
10:30 am - 12:-00 pm: Special presentation panel: The panels will be held separately in the US and Mexico.
In the United States:
Joseph Torres, Free Press, author and activist, one of the main architects of the campaign for Net Neutrality
Steven Renderos, Media Action Grassroots Network, one of the principal organizers of several major grass roots media campaigns of the last few years
Maureen Taylor, Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, veteran activist who has most recently been involved in the leadership of the struggle around "water rights" in the Detroit area.
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm: Lunch
1:00 - 3:00 pm: Four Mesas, each on "key areas of struggle," to happen separately in the US and Mexico.
The mesas should produce two or three "priorities" for the organization which will then be voted on by all members and sent to the incoming LC for implementation. In the US, the mesa topics (with facilitators):
Human and People's Rights and Democracy - (facilitator) Catherine Albiza (NESRI) and the Center for Constitutional Rights
Relations with the Earth and Non-Human Life, Alternative Living and Climate Justice - (facilitator) Rob Robinson, Leadership Committee of the Take Back the Land Movement, recipient of the 2015 U.S. Human Rights Network's Movement Builders Award
Human Communications, Technology and Art - TBA
International Relationships and Movements - (facilitator) Jackie Smith, professor at the University of Pittsburgh and co-founder of the International Network of Scholar Activists
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm: SUmmary: New York and Mexico jointly, via video presentation: Presentation of the mesa proposals and approval by the Membership.
4:00 - 5:00 pm Presentation of the published documents approved by current LC and to be voted upon in the coming week.
Sunday, November 8, 2015 - Saturday, November 14, 2015 (11:00 pm U.S. Eastern time)
During this week, there will be on-line functions for electing the Leadership Committee and approving the final documents.
