[Imc-girls] minutes

[Zoe S.]

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

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