Agenda September 9 Meeting

• Place: Brecht Forum (​directions)
• Date: Sunday, September 9
• Time: 10:00 am (bagels, coffee), 10:30 am (meeting starts), to 5:30 pm (meeting ends)

Goals

• Redefine the relationship between May First/People Link and the group formerly known as mf-staff
• Develop the role of May First/People Link in the broader ecosystem of progressive politics and the Internet and plan how to perform that role over the coming year
• Plan how to open and expand the leadership of the organization in a way that challenges and works through forms of oppression, particularly sexism, racism, and classism.
• Project realistically a timeline for financial solvency
• Continue developing the idea of what membership means, how a membership organization is different than a regular ISP, and what roles we want our members to play in the organization

Agenda

Item 0: Describe:

• ECOSYSTEM: What is the ecosystem in which May First/People Link operates?
  • What are the different stakeholders that exist in the real world ecosystems of progressive organizations and information technology?
  • What are the needs of small progressive organizations?
  • What types of constraints exist in small progressive organizations in general and specifically with respect to information technologies?
  • What, coming from the perspective of a small progressive organization in this ecosystem (somewhat technologically illiterate), is valuable?
  • As technologists, are there values we are assuming or imposing that these organizations would not think of on their own? What are they?
• IDEAL: Once we have a clear picture of that, we want to imagine these organizations being connected and served in a powerful way, and what that would look like.
  • What are the benefits that might be gained from connecting and networking progressive organizations?
  • Which of these would be obvious to the organizations?
  • Of the benefits that would not be obvious to these organizations, what would be required to educate these organizations?
• MEMBERSHIP: Then we want to look at how MF/PL manifests it services currently, and how that measures up with the above thinking. We want to ask ourselves:
  • Does a membership model fit well with the needs, constraints and values listed above?
  • Why is the membership model important?
  • What has membership traditionally meant to MF/PL and how might it be re-ordered to satisfy the needs of all stakeholders better?

Item 1: Lunch, financial review

• LEADERSHIP
  • What would be the ideal role for the leadership of MF/PL to assume within this ecosystem?
  • What does the leadership need from MF/PL in order to fill this role?
  • What does leadership look like currently at MF/PL?
  • How do these two forms of leadership compare with one another. What is the ideal?

• STRATEGY
  • Membership / Marketing / Education
    • Needs / Dependencies
    • Goals (1 + 5 year)
    • Paths forward
  • Leadership
    • Needs / Dependencies
    • Goals
    • Paths forward
  • Finances
    • Needs / Dependencies
    • Goals
    • Paths forward
• Roles of people in the room in this effort
  • Who might be available to help with respect to moving froward, and what would these folks require of this process and of MF/PL?
  • Who do we need to bring into this discussion to help us move forward realistically? What will their needs be?
  • STRATEGY: what happens next?
    • Next Meetings: Who, What, When?
    • Plans of Actions.
    • Beer anyone?