5 12 05 notes

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Proposals

1. Tue 20th December: A Ceilidh! - to go with Buy Nothing Day
2. Fri 23rd December: All-night party, put on by Shefstock folk. 10pm to 6am, no-one in after 12.30am. Door and bar proceeds to be split 50/50 with Shefstock folk. Seven day period starts now... Cafe collective to decide if their space can be used for chill-out...
3. National Local Social Forum meeting: down as being weekend of 3/5th Feb. Need to confirm
4. Anarchist Federation meet-up: to go ahead 21st/22nd Jan, 15 people maximum, 1 room for each day. It was noted that MATILDA should try to be as broad, open-minded and accommodating as possible
5. Gig: Friday 3rd Feb (or 4th if NLSF meet-up isn't happening: will confirm): Benefit gig for Mind in small gig room
6. Gig: 24th Jan, already sorted...

Announcements etc

1. Seeds for Change: action trainers meeting 12th Dec
2. Help needed! 16th-17th Dec - Pakistan Benefit / Electric Blanket. Contact Helen and Nick.
3. Sheffield Dissent meeting: Wed 14th 6pm
4. A Sheffield Uni Political rag, called the Floor, is looking for any bits of writing about MATILDA.
5. Earth First gathering: 10th Dec, with a few people staying over on the 9th. Not a lot of people.
6. Cafe collective:
   1. anyone as wants to join in, please do! Help needed and appreciated!
   2. People who agree to cook on Thursdays must take responsibility for cleaning. Not nice for collective to have to clean up others' mess...
   3. Thursday chef list to go on WIKI

Other stuff

1. New PII computers: agreed that we would like one in the gallery and one in the cafe space above.
2. Article for Red Pepper: no-one objected to this being written
3. Heaters: gonna ask the freecycle list if they have anything / if anyone has any suggestions on what's best for MATILDA. Also, ask Centre for Alternative Technology if they have any bright ideas.

Friday night's altercations

Most of the meeting was given over to talking about the 'troubles' on Friday at the Global Warming Gig. It expanded into a bigger discussion about things that had been going wrong for a while, especially since Art05. Someone said we should keep away from blaming, and work on getting it sorted out instead.

A number of collective failings were highlighted:

1. Nothing was done about the abusive e-mail; the person in question wasn't supported. This may have led to what happened on Friday night.
2. On the night itself, the person in question let it be known that trouble was brewing: nothing was done then. Although note that a number of MATILDA people have been commended for their level heads and calming influence when things kicked off.
   1. Some MATILDA people who were supposed to be working the event were in no fit state to do so.
3. Lots of bad feeling post-Art 05: that situation was never sorted, partly due to issues never having time at Monday meetings. It was noted that:
   1. It should be fine to say 'eek! we f*cked up!' Mistakes do happen, and it's best to deal with them.
   2. The Art 05 event was overall a success: there was just a severe planning problem beforehand.

It was agreed that, at the next meeting, we would

1. Have a discussion about what to do as regards implementing the ground rules we've already set - NOT referring to any specific cases, just working out how to make sure already existing guidelines work.
2. Make this No1 item on the agenda.
3. Dan to facilitate next meeting (anyone wanna help?)