February 2004 Minutes

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Minutes 26th Feb
Apologies for note form - items concentrate on actions.

Apologies: Alice Natasha Jase

1.	Feedback from outreach so far (not included in these notes yet – I’ll put up on WIKI soon…)

2.	Catering:

2.1.	SJ arranging meeting with some people to sort – including her Mum and James

2.2.	Dave T to check whether Kitchen is booked.

2.3.	talk to New Roots shop volunteer meeting 6.30 on Tuesdays? Re. helping out with cooking and supplies

3.	Idea of event after Lantern festival at Bukowski’s – might be a little late.

4.	Proposed changes to schedule:

4.1.	Keep space / room for informal discussion at all times during the day.

5.	History, films and other stuff

5.1.	Showing radical films – can IMC help? Undercurrents?

5.2.	SJ: DVD of music history of Sheffield – can we show films in a room?

5.3.	Dan supposed to be sorting history stuff…

6.	What is the SSF? (This again!)

6.1.	John: if it’s a political organisation, we should be open about this. A lot of the things we said we’re going to do is already being done. The political angle has not.

6.2.	E.g. campaigning, direct action, etc.

6.3.	What can charities and community workers NOT do – that they could do through the forum of the SSF

6.4.	Idea: ‘re-imagining Sheffield’ (or some other title) – coming up with POSITIVE visions for the city; tendency of anti-globalisation origins of SFs to focus on opposing / negatives

7.	Things on day:

7.1.	SJ: feedback and ‘data capture’ from attendees

8.	Publicity:

8.1.	Newsletter / distribution list for future

8.2.	Flypostering

8.3.	Good quality poster

8.4.	SJ offered £100 toward this

8.5.	Kev: website needs more input

8.6.	Dave to press Red Pepper to help with publicity

8.7.	John to look into Urban Theology unit’s distribution list.

9.	Oil Day:

9.1.	Kev: Jo at Rising Tide agreed that co-operation is important.

9.2.	10th March StWC meeting – everyone encouraged to go and show solidarity.

Minutes 19th Feb
Thursday 19th February, 7.30 - 9.30pm. Sharrow Community Hall

Apologies from Sarah Jane and Dave

Before the meeting started we had an informal chat about the SWP's behaviour at the latest StWC meeting, which related to forbidding the advertisement of non StWC events on a newsletter's calandar, this was explicitly aimed at SSF launch. Details have already been passed onto the discussion list, and various opinions and viewpoints were expressed, including the usual range of cynicism concerning the SWP. This led naturally into a discussion of decision-making in coalitional organisations and the need to structurally avoid the problems of the block vote. Dan's recent on-list suggestions were given support.

Dan was proposed and agreed as facillitator for the evening, using an agenda from suggestions on the distribution list.

Announcements
 * 1) Kevin announced the demonstration the next day around Coca-Cola's promotional visit to Sheffield.
 * 2) Alice announced the forthcoming CAN meetings and workshops in preparation for the lantern parade.

Richard from Pakistan Advice Center

Kevin introduced Richard, a community activist from London who was currently advising the Pakistan Advice Center (Fir Vale). The group had shown some interest in the invitation letter they'd recieved from us but were unwilling to come to the meeting. Richard had come, therefore, to make contact and raise some points about the launch. Concerns of the Pakistan Advice Center were Richard passed the details of a key member of the center to Dan, who volunteered to follow up the conversation. (This discussion also covered the forthcoming meetings in London in early March to decide whether the ESF would be hosted this year. Kevin said he would be in the area at the time and agreed to go as himself (i.e. not a representative) and report back.)
 * 1) Whether there would be a report back from Mumbai. In response we suggested that this could be covered by Hillary's plenery session.
 * 2) Whether there would be black and asian activists from other groups present at the launch. In response it was suggested that maybe they might be able to help us, having better contacts in the relevant communities; we would, meanwhile continue our normal outreach efforts.  Richard said that this might be possible,  but that we would have to offer some reason for them to do that, for example, a session on particular concerns of black and asian groups.

Timetable and Outreach

Kevin introduced the things to do timetable, passing out copies and suggested that we needed to get people to take responsibility for certain sections. Methods for dividing the most pressing outreach work - follow-up phonecalls - were discussed. Those who felt able to take on some of the work suggested which kinds of group they'd be best suited to, and Dan and Kev agreed to divide out the list of contacts and pass them on to the relevant people.
 * Dan responded by taking on the organisation of the wall displays.
 * Jase took on the New Roots window display.

Workshops

Dan's proposed list of workshop subjects was discussed. A lack of issue based (as opposed to skill-sharing) workshops was noted. It was hoped that this situation would, in part, be remedied by outreach work discovering pressing local issues. The subsequent discussion came up with a number of interesting points: (I'm sure there were some other interesting points around these themes too, but they didn't make it to my notes. Apologies, therefore, for omissions.)
 * Jeff pointed out that the function of cross-fertilisation of ideas/talents between different groups that SSF should be fulfilling could happen at either skill-sharing or issue based workshops.
 * Alice suggested that the important thing was not that following the launch we had a number of things for the SSF to do/campaigns for it to run, but that participants in the event saw themselves as part of the SSF and were then empowered to act themselves.
 * Dave H suggested a role for the final part of the day, as an alternative to a plenary speaker format. He suggested that it should be a time when we can take feedback from the workshops, and generally from all those there, as to what they'd like the SSF to do, or be afterwards.  Or what campaign ideas and so on had come up.
 * Alison noted that our failure to resolve the SF as networking space vs. SF as decision-making forum issue should be in some way put out in the open. So a plenary or workshop on a 'what is a SF' type theme might be appropriate.  It was thought that Hillary should probably be asked to keep her plenery speech relatively short, and we should make room for a workshop discussion on the same themes, which she would hopefully participate in.

End. (Kevin G. - 22/02/04)