[Imc-girls] Meeting Reminder (and Minutes!)

[Anne Odom]

All:

REMINDER: The next RAGG meeting is tomorrow night at the IMC from 6:30p to
8p.

The minutes from the last meeting are attached in an MSWord Document (THIS
IS NOT TRUE - THE MAILING LIST WOULDN'T LET ME POST A MESSAGE WITH THE
ATTACHMENT, AS IT WAS TOO BIG; IF THE MODERATOR OF THE LIST APPROVES THE
MESSAGE, YOU MAY RECEIVE THE ATTACHMENT LATER).  If you can't read Word, or
you have trouble with attachments, they are also cut and pasted below
(unformatted, so maybe a little difficult to read...).  The main points are:
we selected a mission and chose a name (details of the process are in the
minutes).

NAME: RAGG - Resource and Action Group for Girlz & Womyn
MISSION: RAGG is a local grassroots partnership of girls and women for girls
and women whose aim is to provide safe spaces, resources and activities to
foster creativity, self-expression and empowerment.

I AM DUE THIS SATURDAY, 2/14!!! Do not respond to this message with any
questions or important information, as I may be out of email contact at any
minute.  If you need to send an email to a core organizer, please send it to
Danielle Chynoweth at chyn at ojctech.com.  THANKS!

Anne

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NOTES
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INTRODUCTIONS
-	We all introduced ourselves, as many of us hadn’t met in person.
-	The purpose of this organization is to fill a void in the community left
by the closure of GirlZone.  However, this is a new organization that can
strive to be anything the community needs/wants it to be.
-	Why are we part of the Independent Media Center (IMC)?  The IMC was a big
part of girl space for GirlZone and GrrrlFest, and it offers a valuable
collection of resources for a new and growing organization.  As part of the
IMC, we already have our 501c3 status and can start raising funds as a
non-profit immediately.  Because the IMC supports our efforts, we have a
volunteer base that we might not otherwise have.

Our CORE Group
-	Groups have been in town focusing on girls and women for a while, and
GirlZone was the most recent effort to provide for opportunities for Girls
in the community.  GirlZone focused on giving girls (not women but younger
girls) access to activities they don't normally get the opportunity to
learn.  When GirlZone ended, it held a community forum to see what what the
community might want to do to continue efforts for girls and women in the
CU.
-	There were many women and girls interested in seeing something new grow in
our community.  We created a rather large mailing list of these women, then
we asked for core organizers to help us get things off the ground.  The core
organizing group consists of 10 women who are trying to birth this new
organization; core organizers meet at least once a month outside of general
meetings, decide on format and discussion topics for general meetings, and
likely will head committees to accomplish various organizational goals.
-	The core group called this general meeting to:
o	Agree on a mission for the organization – the core group has worked
together to come up with a proposition for this mission.
o	Agree on a name – the core group has worked together to come up with some
initial options
o	Brainstorm activities/events/resources that this group should seek to
provide.

What it Means to be Part of the IMC
-	THE GROUP AS A WHOLE has been approved by the IMC as a adhoc committee,
which allows us to do non-profit fund-raising and elect spokspeople to
participate in the IMC decision making.  We are one of the working groups of
the IMC – a part of the organization, not a child of the IMC.
-	One of the requirements of being a working group of the IMC is that we
make certain core decisions by “consensus”.  Consensus is a decision making
process in which everyone present at time of decision making agrees on the
outcome of a decision.  The process works like this:
o	A decision is proposed.
o	The group is asked if there are any concerns.
o	All the concerns are listed, and each one is addressed by the group.
o	If the concerns are successfully addressed, the group eventually gets to
the point at which there are no more concerns about the decision.  When
everyone is agreed that there are no concerns, the decision is accepted, and
we have reached consensus.
o	If there are concerns which cannot be addressed to the satisfaction of the
concerned parties, the decision needs to be altered, and the process begins
again.
o	Process is repeated until a decision is proposed upon which the group can
address all concerns and reach consensus.
-	We made all decisions about the mission statement and the name of the
organization using the consensus process.

MISSION statement
-	The core group proposed the following mission statement:
o	<<Girlz Org>> is a local grassroots partnership of girls and women for
girls and women whose aim is to provide safe spaces, resources and
activities to foster creativity, self-expression and empowerment.
-	The following concerns were raised and addressed:
o	Concern about exclusivity of “girls”. Does this mean that there is no
place here for activities where boys and girls can interact in a supervised
away to encourage the learning of non-sexist behavior?
§	The organization itself is not providing resources for boys.  However,
that does not mean that a co-ed activity or workshop on non-sexist behavior
would not be something the organization could host.  In addition, there is a
group of men at the IMC who are interested in starting a group for boys and
men; if they do so successfully, then partnering with that group to offer
these kinds of events would be something we should encourage.
§	There is nothing in the mission statement that excludes this kind of co-ed
activity, so the concern was addressed.
-	The mission was approved as-is – no changes were required to reach
consensus.

EMPOWERED SPOKESPEOPLE
-	Empowered Spokespeople represent us at the IMC steering committee meetings
every month.  They participate in making decisions that affect the IMC, and
they make proposals for our group to the other working groups of the IMC.
Currently, Zoe Swords and Shawn Williams are our empowered spokespeople.
They volunteered for the responsibility, and are willing to continue their
roles unless a concern is voiced.
o	No concerns were voiced about Zoe or Shawn.
o	Concern was voiced about rotating out empowered spokes, and all agreed
that we should rotate spokes.  No plan was made for rotating spokes; it
should be discussed at a future meeting.
o	What is the specific commitment of an empowered spoke?
§	IMC Steering Committee Meetings are the first thrusday of every month at
8pm; the spoke must attend.
§	PLUS the spoke must participate in the core organizing group for this
organization – a committment of up to 2 core group meetings and one general
meeting a month-

NAME OF THE ORGANIZATION
-	Many name suggestions were put up on the wall; the paper copies of all the
suggestions have been kept for records, but are not listed in these notes.
-	We divided into small groups and discussed the existing names.  We also
allowed ourselves to brainstorm new options. Then we came back to the large
group and voted on the new and existing names.  This reduced our number of
name choices to two: WRAG (Women’s Radical Action Group) and Grrrlz.
-	WRAG – Women’s Radical Action Group – we worked to see if we could
consense on this name; it had a lot of support, but also many concerns.
o	CONCERNS
§	CONCERN 1 - Doesn't match with the mission statement;  it seems like we're
more activist and political than our mission statement.  It doesn’t seem to
embrace the “safe space” and “resource providing” that are the center of our
mission statement.
§	CONCERN 2 - Possibly unoriginal; it was suggested because one of the
people at the general meeting had belonged to a group with this name.  On
further investigation, she had started that group, it had consisted of a
handful of her friends, and had disbanded when she moved here.  We decided
this concern was not a reason to discard this name.
§	“Radical” may turn people off; may exclude people.  While creating safe
spaces for girls and women is radical work, the social connotation of the
word “radical” can be negative.  It could be intimidating to girls, and very
importantly, it could be intimidating to their parents (who will be giving
permission for them to attend our events).  “Radical Action Group” ought to
be a subset of what we’re trying to create, but not it’s whole identity.
§	There’s no "girl" in the acronym
o	ADDRESSING THE CONCERNS
§	There was consensus on liking the “WRAG” acronym; so why not change what
it stands for to address the concerns above?  Ultimately, we hit on removing
“Women” from the front of the acronym and respelling it to include Girls:
RAGG – Resource and Action Group for Girls (Girlz? Grrrls? Gyrls?) & Womyn.
§	While we had not yet consensed on how to spell Girls, all felt that the
new name addressed the concerns above – it keeps the “active” feeling of the
original acronym meaning, but it’s general enough to match our mission
statement.  And we get to keep the cool acronym
-	FINAL DECISION: RAGG is the name.

SPELLING of GIRLS:
-	Top choices were Grrls and Womyn
o	Immediate consens on womyn with "y"
o	Concerns with Grrls: too much like GirlZone, looks funny without three “r”
s; concern that with three r’s we look like posers on the riotGrrrl
movement; concern that girls today no longer identify with the riotGrrrl
movement.  We didn’t feel like these concerns could be easily addressed, so
we moved on to other spelling options.
o	Gyrls - concerns with gyrls - looks kind of like “guy”.
o	Took a straw poll vote on Grrls and Girlz - straw poll turned up girlz;
there was no blocking of consensus or concerns raised about  girlz, so that’
s how we’re spelling it.

OFICIAL NAME: Resource & Action Group for Girlz & Womyn - RAGG

BRAINSOTORMING:
The list that follows is a massive brainstorming on things we could do with
the organization.  We didn’t go into detail on these; this list is a record
for discussion at future meetings:
-fun fundraising activites - we need money and funds
-guy/girl co-existing group or subset
-all-girl art time (women-owned studios?)
-pink flamingo fund raiser.  like rolling with toliet paper, but people pay
to have other people "flamingoed"
-leadership workshop
-storytelling workshop for women who earn a living telling stories and
traveling
-workshops on specific careers and life journeys
-theater workshops
-college workshops
-tutoring & mentoring
-managing money
-dj-ing workshnopos
-breakdancing workshop
-self-defense
-classes, as opposed to workshops
-fishbowls - people with something in common stand in the center and talk
about what they have in common, and others stand on outside and listen, then
they switch (race/white, gender, generational, sexuality, etc.)
-things that address segregational community issues
-transgender and gender variance type of class.
-handy class (changing tires, oil, apoxy, plumbing)
-spirituality and religious focuses addresses
-sound engineering and performance stuff
-body image workshop
-sexism in the media
-cooking workshop
-link body image with something like belly dancing
-penny wars for fundraising
-video and/or video editing
-computer technology and troubleshooting computer problems
-clothing - making /sewing
-sports workshops
-health and exercise workshop
-skateboarding
-boxing
- bike repair
- clothing trade
- weight lifting
- silk screening
- stained glass and radio
- include wicca and other alternative spiritual choices in religious-focused
workshops
- support groups for traumatized girls
- middle school girls talk about their experiences now
- language (sexist)
- web stuff and design program training
- sexual education
- producing radio shows
- media literacy
- performance of self
- RAGG Mag (our own zine)
- Mother and father/parent education
- etiquette workshops and dinner parties to practice etiquette training


DISCUSSION TOPICS FOR Next Meeting:
-child care at meetings and events
-transgender issues – should we address them in our mission?
-Next Steps – identifying committees and real tasks for items on our
brainstorming list
-outreach
-rotating dates, times, locations of meetings

Date of next meeting:
-February 10th, 6:30 - 8p.
RAGG Meeting


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anne Odom * Product Manager * WebEasel, Inc.
WebEasel - It's that easy!
anne at ojctech.com * www.webeasel.net * 217.344.0444