• jake: start planning for the 1 year anniversary, OWS, OT
  • invite all activist groups, talk about the future of activism in this region post-RNC
  • get a bus, run an infoshop out of it, turn it into a giant protest billboard, drive people to things, drive it to city council members and hassle them at their events, put wifi on there, more realistic than a house or commercial space
    • kickstarter
  • use wednesday meetings to prepare for saturday meetings
    • work out proposal kinks, etc
  • foreclosure – defend that house, outreach
  • keeping an eye on the gentrification issue in west tampa
• some kind of solidarity with charlette, plenty of OFA headquarters
• will NYC send busses for S17?
• overall fundraising for busses, bail, fundraising is a great idea all around
• mark: police seemed to use de-escalation tactics this time, i think we should do less actions but bigger actions with more planning, maybe one a month or one every two months, we have pretty good access to media
• pim: i think OT needs people going ahead to lead the way on DA's, one thing we should consider: people haven't really taken on much, but this is probably the most coherent occupy group left in this area of the United States, i don't think we should consider DA's in terms of whether or not we have enough people to actualize them, rather we should consider whether or not we have enough supporters in the state of florida, i don't think occupy will have much of an impact on the elections, we would have had more RNC protesters if that could happen, we can focus on things wrong
• john thomas: i have trouble understanding the difference between OT and the solidarity network. we should discuss what we want to do and form group consensus and start coordinating that with other occupations, interoccupy has set up an awesome hub system, S17 will provide a good planning grounds for this
• jake: re: the TSN, the difference, the TSN works by focusing on local winnable fights with specific threats. we gain members by helping those individuals win their fights. occupytampa basically functions as a highly-accessible affinity network. regarding fundraising, the bus will function as a specific goal
• samantha: re: fundraising: @ the union march we did, i saw a lot of different types of hardworking people who still hate what's going on, thinking specifically with the nurses union
• susie: unions doing labor day on monday, $10 if you want a plate of food, good opportunity to meet people, introduce ourselves … 11-4, location in a place called foggy bottom?
• elizabeth: loads of nice bread, please take them home. (2) i got a call today from someone with common ground relief network, trying to build a coalition with different occupations, common ground collective and FNB to provide relief to Issaic victims in new orleans. encouraging occupy camps and FNB to raise funds and medical supplies, mobile kitchens, common grounds will place them and provide on the ground disaster relief. i can give you this guys number if you see me after GA. i was thinking of just shipping big bags of rice and beans over to them. (3) we use the name occupy tampa right now, but once we stop occupying this park i don't think it describes us anymore, maybe we should give it a different name or direction to invite people in because i think we'll loose people if we hold on to this concept as occupy, but i still want the same spirit / network. i know some people might feel direly opposed to that, but, just an idea. (4) 9/7 the tampa IWW will have a fundraiser, they want to start a chapter here. suggested donation style of entry. (5) tomorrow @ the fowler publix near USF, CIW will protest them to try to sign on to that fair food agreement. day before labor day. 12 PM. 
• kayla: once you start controlling what type of actions we want to do as a group it takes the energy out of doing the actions because people will feel controlled and i don't think that falls into the spirit of what we're doing. that's actually why i left occupy st. pete. re: changing the name: i think that it's more important that we continue to do things, which will keep us energized, more into logistics than we have in the past, re: the wednesday GA as more of a prep, but i would worry about making that too strict, keep it as a regular GA. just keep it as a loose change in focus.
• andrew: yes the fundraising will continue as the actions continue. perhaps divide up the funds. occupy oakland and LA etc stay alive because they do actions multiple times a week. even if it's just a march to one location every week, it keeps people coming out. re: the name, i like occupy as an umbrella, weekly actions need to happen. even if just a march / dance party to some location.
• jeff: last night i went to tampa's critical mass, these seem like like minded people we might want to intermingle with, i would encourage people to come out to these on the last friday of each month. some have political leans, some just like bike riding. but i think we should try to interact with these groups. 
• jake: i'm not married to the occupy name, but a case for it: i like the idea, it served as a fundamental rupture in the way we understand things. every truth event tends to preceed some kind of institutionalization. e.g. christianity, communism, etc. re: frequency of actions, i'd love that, but realistically i don't see it happening. perhaps biweekly at best. i think the roving radical dance party was great, we can just do that, without the RNC. how the cops will react in the absense of the NLG, who knows. i'll start a google doc to figure out our pitch for the 1 year anniversary. i'd like to have this somewhat figured out by wednesday and then a proposal on saturday. 
• nathan: re: the name, does well with the media. lets get 5 things on the table right now, short term or long term
  • foreclosure
  • bus
  • s17
  • commons
• gonzo: i like sticking to the occupy name, the roving dances great way to remain visible, we're looking at the OWS anniversary, they'll recognize the name occupy, lets at least wait till the anniversary
• kuleci: occupy serves as a brand name at this point. you don't throw away a brand name. tylinol won't change their name for a smart reason. we've done awesome things, we've had a lot of fun, we're the crazy ones that the unions don't want to do, we need to stick with being nutjobs. that big ben power plant, it's still there and operational and won't go away. we got to keep fighting these fights. that was the best action that we've had in a long time so where's our follow up action. 
  • there is a story in the TBT that has a quote from joe redner. "redner denied setting a hard deadline at s15. occupy doesn't want to be there." if our choice is between having VoF or not, i want VoF. I don't know who told redner that we're afraid to be here and don't want to. and if he's on our side, then we have a fight with city council.
• steve: i want to focus less on marches and more on information we can dissiminate, like on the banks, the war machine, etc … marches accomplish less, lets get our hands dirty and do some work.
• elizabeth: as far as the garden goes, i'll contact this church and see if they want to take care of it. once we find someone, maybe we can throw ourselves into it and make it super spiffy and then hand it over. in light of the new park info from kuleci, i don't know if this pertains but we need to think about re-sodding the grass, clean shit up, etc … 
  • left over items from the really really free market. maybe we can have another one in conjunction with the commons idea. 
• zoe: i think occupy tampa as a name … our facebook has a lot of likes. it keeps us in contact with groups all over the world. having a 24/7 protest site, as a tactic, has been good, but on the other end i think it sucks up lots of resources that we could have spent elsewhere. maybe we should focus more on outreach to people in the community and other organizations. i think keeping a focus on DAs will really help. getting a legal infrastructure. because i don't want a public defense attorney, because i've seen my friends go through that. find our allies and figure out what we're really here for and how we're going to effect change.
• samantha: i think that everyone has addressed that occupy serves as an umbrella name, we need to understand our capabilities for effective action, perhaps the vague focus will hinder us, maybe we need to pick one or two things, like foreclosure or banks or environmental issues, because you can't stretch yourself too thin. 
• ?: some of us have made use of the instragram app, using our hashtag etc. people can have a more visceral attachment to an image than just text. 
• cheryl: marches and dancing in the street is fun but i want to do things that will have direct results. i want to work on GMO's and getting them labeled. in california they have a proposition to get them labeled. lets make phone calls to these companies 
  • ronin: i have someone in nyc you can network with on this.
  • cheryl: i just got a movie about this perhaps for movie night.
• jake: we should be careful not to bite off more than we can chew. if we want to do another radical dance party we should announce it at least a month in advance. 
  • kayla: we're afraid to do small actions because we worry they won't be effective enough. afraid of big actions because we worry we can't. 
• mark: speaking of: (1) i think occupy was originally supposed to be, was put together by the unions and other activist groups. the GA was supposed to be a way for these different groups to communicate with each other about common and shared goals. (2) another thing we should do: lets talk to city council members and start trying to get an audience for some of our elected officials. issues seem to be based on false premises now that the world has changed. they're creating laws for a system that doesn't exist anymore hoping to bandaid it together. (3) re the name: the thing that bugs me about changing it is that we may break solidarity with other groups
• daiquiri: looking around i think that occupy is a lot more mellow, is not being interrupted by drunk ramblings, i think that's a marketable improvement, i have a feeling we won't have these kinds of problems anymore, or at least not as much, this is a great time to put ourselves out there now that we have more control over our image. rnc is over, things that caused a great deal of tension like strong police survelliance is gone. also i'm leaving soon, so the occupy tampa hip hop club will no longer exist. but there is a lot of people with talent in the area, so lets reach out more to artists and stuff. if someone could create a timeline, for goals and actions, that would be nice.
  • kuleci: there's a lot you can do with media after GA, so lets talk.
• elizabeth: thomas flessas came out the other day looking for his pop up. we put it out setting up for the world gathering. people took it down when people were afraid of the storm. 
• steve: if we're going to write about RNC as a group, can we not focus so much about how the police kissed us before they fucked us, i think we should remember how terrible the police behaved in every other context but the RNC, since nothing immanent is going on now lets not take them all on at once. if something takes a month long or two months long, as long as we get something accomplished. as we do these things lets keep mindful of people that want to participate and not try to take it all on ourselves. also everyone here kicked ass this week.
• mark: there's a realy unintented consequence, because there was no violence and nobody showed, and nothing got chaotic, it gave protesters and those who don't agree with the mainstream a good name. this gives us and other activists a lot more credibility. 
• jake: andrew managed to get pro-blac-block coverage on the front page of the tampa bay times. 
• nathan: remember when we went to that homeless coalition charette stuff, we got a hit from our networking, we're going to talk with someone from the salvation army to talk about how we can help each other out. i'd like to not go into that on my own, if anyone wants to help .
  • zoe: do they still have their policy about illegal bed donations?
  • kuleci: niko told me that the salvation army denied housing during the storm? do we want to work with them?
  • nathan: we want to talk to them.
• kuleci: i may have room inmy car to the DNC. may not make it the first day. (2) s17: i hate 20 hour bus and car rides. the cheapest fare is going on, jetblue has nonstops back and forth for $189. billy said we can do floor space / couch surfing but we need to get names in and figure out the logistics of it. 
• ronin: i got a phone, gimme the info for the media streams. (2) NVDA meets on wednesdays, lets get this working now that the paranoia should be gone. after GA.
• john brower: one movie night a month? 
• zoe: anyone interested in doing a solidarit0 y action with charlette? chalk? maybe ckwe could focus on our one year anniversary and make that concrete and get people who are interested to come out. 
• Jake ideas for local S17 start thinking now bring back ideas for wed
  • we should not pat police on the back for thier treatment during RNC
• patches- biggest failiur of RNC was a national no show, not onJar part.. we did everything – livestream watchers.. where were you?? after meeting at tavern for more discussion on RNC
• Jake – smaller numbers may have been to our advantage
• Zoey – Several bussed did not show….. RNC was a joke anyway – rep party is divisive on its own – if we had harrassed more may have given the reason to come together in solidarity against us
• Discussion about picking local OT anniversary date
• Steve – If anyone needs after care see army steve to get in touch with medics
• nome – planning to go to charlotte the new york in camper -
• jake: i think the RNC was a blessing and a curse, i think we've matured a lot, we're still amateurs, like chairman mao said, from defeat to defeat to the final victory
• tristan: ows wants narratives about rnc experience, also i think one of our main issue should be housing, re: name: maybe historical significance, IWW, doug says hi

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tristan: shut down bain capital conf call
jeff: send calendar things to media@occupytampa.org
nathan pim: help me keep this whiteboard updated
2: tuesday = buckhorns meeting about how the RNC will effect us, lets show up and hold them accountable, after the town hall is over we’ll convene back @ VoF to talk about entrapment and how it’s affecting people in florida and how to make tampa as safe as possible for protestors
john: showing “home” tonight @ 9, it’s about earth and how we use it, abuse it, and how to fix it
tim: earlier today i thought about a mock republican march, regarding the gentrification of west tampa, we could go out with ties on, if this interests anyone please talk to me
leslie: we had a loose security meeting about how we’d handle the RNC occupants, if anyone wants to meet for 15-60 minutes, see me after GA
jake: my efforts to get the site plan for this place haven’t amounted to anything, so we need to contact redner directly, we need to do it before the city council thing, thursday morning, could likely determine the fate of VoF as well as Romneyvile, because they asked the local agencies to come up with as much bad shit as possible to try to figure out how to legally shut us down
nate: NVDA meets every wednesday after GA, ya’ll should go, we need help organizing shit, we can do something after this is anyone is up for it
elizabeth: we decided on Wed that we would have NVDA after today’s GA
heidi: i still need sheets for the billboard project, also (2) organizing a torches and pitchforks rally for the RNC, see me if you want to involve yourself
?: air occupy radio having a show on tuesday about RNC logistics

proposals:
roger: OT media team discussed a few things: list of ustreamers, people doing things during the RNC, in regard to twitter hashtags, we decided we wanted to go with #ornc as the official occupy tampa rnc-related hashtag
nate: what groups would use the hashtag?
roger: any groups coming down here, any independent media covering occupy, interoccupy, etc
roger: the purpose of this is to basically say to other occupations who promote actions during the RNC, say OWS says X is happening during the RNC in Tampa, they will refer to our hashtag, we want to differentiate ourselves from the other groups, something easy to use, and to consolidate our RNC stuff
pim: another important reason, is so that people can have live updates e.g. arrests, police actions, etc, so people monitoring social media locally can have something to refer to
juanita: does this relate to / do we need to worry about parisi’s “rnc” propaganda
dan: i like #otrnc better
nate: lets make that the backup hashtag
finalized proposal: we’re endorsing #ornc, and as a backup #otrnc, and will send this out to other groups to let them know how to refer to occupy tampa RNC information
kuleci: we’ve tried so hard to differentiate ourselves from occupy rnc, doesn’t this work against that
roger: that’s the point, to have a separate hashtag
jake: this is holding up GA,t lets delegate that to media WG and let them decide
finalized proposal: give the media WG authority to set the hashtag
consensus

jill: can i bring my fire grill here?
heidi: unless you have written permission from the private property owner, something something
tabled

jake: last minute announcement, i’ll do facilitation training right after GA – i was worried this would happen, let’s get our process back down so we can deal with big crowds of people

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Due to the storm, we held an emergency General Assembly and consensed to shut down camp until Saturday, after the storm passes. Please hold tent donations until then, so that we don’t destroy new ones.

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