Occupy Mobile GA Minutes for 2012-01-16

- AL Arise meeting Wed. at Noon. Dauphin Way United Methodist Church at Dauphin and Catherine. Several people stated they will be in attendance. This is important to ensure AL Arise is confident in our commitment to the March March to Montgomery.

- Community outreach ideas: Churches, community groups, etc. Can we tap into existing networks in the community to attract new members, ideas, etc.? Travis suggests getting in touch with interfaith directors at some progressive churches. Someone also suggested getting in touch with local unions. It was mentioned that this has been attempted before, and the unions that were approached in this area seemed timid about supporting us openly. David wants to go talk to the Democratic Party headquarters here and see what that might lead to. Travis suggests going to local businesses to ask for their support.

- Mardi Gras: Julie suggests making up a survey with about 5 questions and using it as a way to start conversations with people at the Mardi Gras parades.

- Fliers: We don’t have enough fliers (or sometimes any) at events. Grace suggests everybody who has access to a printer bring 20 or so fliers to every event, rather than relying on one or two people to bring all the fliers as we have in the past. Eleanor will print up a large number of fliers, and some USA students will post them on campus. There will also be a working group on the forums established for community outreach / advertising.

- USA Occupation: Scott suggests a mini-occupation at University of South Alabama. Have one or a few tents with literature to pass out to students. Also, Sean suggests going around dorms and taping fliers on dorm room doors a la takeout restaurants.

- Meeting Location (Again): Are we going to have trouble meeting during Mardi Gras? Should we move to a location on the other side of Broad St.? Scott points out this would all be moot if we had a place of our own to hold meetings, among many other things. He believes very strongly that this is absolutely crucial to the movement and needs to be addressed very soon. Consensus was reached to look for a place we could rent over the next two days and bring our findings to Thursday’s GA. Grace has looked into locations and thinks downtown storefronts will be financially unfeasible, but there are places not far from downtown that could be affordable.

- Foreclosure Defense: Travis proposes forming an active working group of roughly five people who will start working on details of the foreclosure defense project starting tomorrow. This group will have a brief meeting after this GA to decide on a time to start working on this.

- Signs for Protests: We need more eye-catching signs. It is suggested we make some signs with balloons, lights, etc. to draw more attention. Also, we need to track down the many, many signs we have made that are currently MIA.

- Skype / Venting Between Meetings: Eleanor suggests we should get skype accounts or something along those lines so that we can have more conversations with each other between GAs and such. She feels this can bring us closer together.

- Neck / Back Rubs / Massages at Events: We could have a massage chair, free haircuts, or something along those lines at our events to draw more people in.

Next GA will be Thursday, 2012-01-19, at 1830 (6:30 PM) in the back room at Saucy-Q Barbecue on Government St. See you there!

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