April 2004 Minutes

This page is an archive of minutes/agendas from April 2004. Click here to go back to the main meetings page.

Minutes from 29th April
Speaker: Sue Corker from Sheffield Credit Union Development Trust
 * Most of this meeting was given over to the speaker, who offered much information on Sheffield Credit Unions which was discussed, and questions were asked over the policies and democracy of Credit Unions in general. Some very positive experiences were offered.
 * The remainder of the meeting was given over to discussion of the planned demonstration for the following Saturday. Roles such as press liason and police liason were assigned and the flyer was agreed (see the Campaigns page).  It was agreed that two people would get there early to get the traders onside, and the plan of events decided.

Minutes from April 15th
Approximately 20 people attended. Dan facillitating.

First, it was accepted that with wider publicity we could have easily had higher level of attedance. Some collective responsibility was taken for the fact that those who had been part of the organising group for the launch had failed to take action with the contacts list from that earlier to give people reminders about the meeting.) The idea of moving the meetings somewhere more central was suggested with fairly general assent, though no specific venues were considered, so for at least the next meeting the Sharrow Community Hall will continue to be used.

moving to the agenda...

Impressions of the launch and where to go next. A go-round was used to introduce ourselves and our impressions of the launch. The word 'positive' came up again and again in different contexts, some positives included: change to see/meet so many people who want to take action to improve their communities; very good speakers/workshop leaders; energy; (sorry notes fail me)

Following ideas for moving forward were discussed. Brighthouse protest. Brighthouse is a particular shop at Moorfoot which 'sells' goods in exchange for five valid names and addresses, if the debter defaults the seller claims money from the others. The idea for a mayday protest around this, publicising the positive alternatives available such as credit unions and IMPACT's proposed banking scheme. This idea came out at the launch and has gained momentum in other groups. Various possibilities for the day were discussed, more information will be posted here as it becomes available, and it was decided that the next SSF meeting will incorporate a speaker from credit unions to explain exactly how they work. It was also agreed that we would work collectively on a flyer highlighting the things to avoid and the things to go for in obtaining credit. Idea for an SSF action in Sharrow. Kev repeated his proposal for a clean up on Lansdown estate in Sharrow, introduced on the list like this,
 * "Landsdown estate clean-up. I might have the name wrong, its the estate in Sharrow that the lantern carnival went through.  There's a small corner of the carpark, next to the closed down pub (Tuxedo Blue) on Sharrow Lane that's been a right mess for ages.  We could turn up one afternoon with a sound system, some decent transport and lots of hot food and take all the  rubbish (sofas, car tyres, burnt out bins and tellys) to some dumps, maybe encourage some local kids to decorate the walls.  It'd be really nice if we put a little cash to getting a basketball hoop and sticking it up on the wall.  This might be a really direct way to reach a community that we have totally failed to get in contact with, and a fun day out too!"

Various issues have been raised on the list about treading on others toes, the potential to be patronising, and the street-party like atmosphere that could be produced with the use of music. The fact that similar events had been carried out before in Sheffield was raised, with the point that its achievable. Practical issues were raised:
 * What to do with the rubbish, as dumps would charge, it was suggested that the councils 'bring out your rubbish day' scheme could be used.
 * A Star campaign for community action, with associated celebreties was mooted as a possible way to move forward.
 * It was noted that it was essential to communicate with the tennants association before any action was taken.
 * It was also noted that it was essential to find out who owns the land before we take any action.

Introducing the 'Greenspace' networking area on the wiki. You can find it here.

Wiki afternoon training session While some thought this was a good idea it raised some issues about the validity of work done on the wiki, as it tends to lead to decisions and action outside of the most accessible forums (i.e. the meetings and the email list). Damian pointed out that his plans for his launch contribution were overridden by late-night wiki changes. Alice pointed out that with emails and meetings another level of communication might overburden people, and thought it should not be essential to SSF participation that people use the wiki. It was, however, thought that the idea could be taken forward, possible using Access space, to give people a chance to play around with the wiki software, create web pages and find more suitable places to host work done. It was suggested that the sandpit would be given greater prominence on the site.

as a proposal was mentioned, though it was noted that it was a plan separate from the SSF work and long term in strategy, no links were made for future work.
 * SHARESHEFFIELD


 * The "Distributed Library Project"

http://sheffield.communitybooks.org/

was described by one representative,as available for the Community Library. This link could be followed as a means for fundraising (2,000 grant), http://www.aol.co.uk/about/community/innovation/

Finally an issue was raised about our 'dynamism' in attracting new people to take part in the SSF. Ideas such as doing stalls, handing out literature, doing small community based actions and personal networking were all raised. The continuing need for a publicity/outreach group was mentioned. There seemed to be general acceptance that this merited further discussion.

Agend items for April 1st (pending minutes)

 * Feedback on the launch - yikes! Including what we could do better next time
 * Kev: idea for an SSF action in Sharrow.
 * Dan: Discussion of structure of SF - coming up with suggested models (Dan will be proposing something like the New York SF model, which I'll put up on the WIKI here at some point soon...)
 * Newsletter. We now have a newsletter mailing list, and a bunch of addresses.  Should we send out a fortnightly newsletter? What dates? (maybe the Thursdays between meetings so we can include both minutes of last, and agenda for next) Can somebody (two bodies?) take responsibility for getting it sent out - we can write it collectively on the wiki.
 * Social. Can we have a social (joint with CAN?)? Perhaps in the Kashmir.  Perhaps on Fri 16th April?
 * Data entry to do. We've got the feedback forms, the sign up sheet, and all the bits of paper from the walls and from the sessions.  Perhaps it'd be fairest if we bring them all along to the next meeting and divvy them out for data entry.  How best to do it? Suggestion:
 * Sign up sheet: email addresses put in text editor (e.g. notepad) separated by commas (no line breaks).
 * Sheets from walls: suggest entered straight into wiki (launch report), or possibly into text editor with no formatting if people are not confident with it.
 * Sheets from sessions: same as sheets for walls.
 * Feedback forms: perhaps we should set up an access database for this. Volunteers?