WEBVTT - How to Organize a Meeting (And Stay Sane), Pt. 2 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:03.160 As media. 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:05.920 Hi everyone, it's James here and I have an update 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:09.560 on Primrose and her daughter Kim. Primrose, if you do 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:11.080 not remember, was one of the people I met the 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:14.600 Darien Gap, whose story we shared in our dairy En podcasts, 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:16.840 and we later updated people that she has arrived in 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:17.639 the United States. 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:18.919 Have an update. 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.200 From her lawyer here. I'm going to read that out now. 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:25.680 Primrose and Kim were detained by Ice approximately two weeks 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:31.120 ago and sent to a quote family detention center in Texas. Yes, 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:33.960 that's right. It's country put single mothers and children seeking 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:37.520 refuge in prisons due to a settlement agreement that's still 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:40.200 in place involving miners only being able to be detained 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:43.400 for twenty days. Primrose and Kim may have an opportunity 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:47.479 to be released. They are, however, in need of housing funds. 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:50.920 The lawyer has been raising funds for their legal fees, 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:52.960 but we'll gladly allocate some of these funds so that 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:54.600 she can at least have a place to stay for 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:57.440 the rest of July. The rest we will figure out later, 0:00:57.640 --> 0:00:59.959 one day at a time. Thank you for your general Ross, 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:02.840 and Primose and Kim thank you as well. Obviously, I 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:05.240 would add that I thank you. It means so well 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:09.440 to me when people support these things, and you know, 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:12.360 we use our little podcast to help people. The address 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:18.319 to donate is gofund dot me slash d d A 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.319 zero to CC seven. That will of course also be 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:23.959 in the notes for this podcast. You can just click 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.679 it on your phone. Give a few bucks. It's vital 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.319 that she gets some money to make rents so she 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.720 can stay in the same place as the address that 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.720 she's given to the court. If you'd like to contribute, 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:35.920 that would mean a lot to all of us. 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:41.800 Thank you. Welcome to it could appen hear a podcast 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:45.560 about organizing. I am your host, Mia Wong, and in 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:48.640 a moment we'll be continuing our episode about how to 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:51.320 run a meeting, which is one of the fundamental tools 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:56.320 of building democracy and free societies. Here we go, okay, 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:58.240 so other roles. So we talked about that. That that 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:00.760 was a long digression about the concept of stack taker, 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:03.920 which is at a very simple level, you write the 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:08.160 names down, you call the names in order. Yep. Yeah, 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:10.720 we're gonna move on to some of the other ones. 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:14.440 Those are like the two I don't know if most 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.600 important is the right word Funnily enough, stack takers, not 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:19.240 the one. I thought that digression was going to happen 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:20.359 on that was. I thought that was gonna be the 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:21.880 last one we're gonna get to. 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:23.519 But oh no, taker, Oh. 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:25.800 No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is vibes checkers. 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:31.160 Oh shit, the vibes checker. Okay, but okay, okay, please continue. 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:34.560 Okay, let's do timekeeper. Timekeeper extremely important person you want 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.720 someone with like a watch or something, and the timekeeper's 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:40.160 job is to give people reminders of like how much 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.240 time things are taking. So you know, a thing you 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:45.720 can do is like, okay, so we know we have 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.400 this much time allocated for something, right, so we have 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:50.600 twenty minutes to talk about this, Okay, so like ten 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:52.040 minutes and you go, we have ten minutes left, we 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:54.440 have five minutes left, we have like fifteen minutes left. Yeah, 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:56.000 this is really important. And at the end of it, 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:57.600 the time keeper's job is to go like, hey, this 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:00.239 is our allotted time. Do we want to keep talking 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:02.760 about this and use more time or do we want 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:06.240 to move on? Yeah, And that's a really important role. 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.160 It's also kind of why you want to generally have 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:10.560 like an idea of how long you want to talk 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.360 about something in the agenda. It's also worth noting that 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.119 like this is all guidelines, right, Like these are all. 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:18.200 MIA's guidelines of order. Is that what you're calling this? 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:20.040 Oh god, no, we'll take it. We'll take you on 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.480 more digression. Digression, which is that the anarchy symbol, the 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:26.120 A with the circle around it is from a per 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:30.040 Dawn phrase that's the circle is actually an o because 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:32.600 the original thing was anarchy. The original saying is anarchy 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:35.440 is the mother of order. Yeah, and that's that's where 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.440 that comes from. So I was gonna make it like 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:42.040 MEA's VIA's like procedure disorder whatever joke, but it's like, no, no, no, 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.240 this is actually like anarchy is order, baby. 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:47.360 I believe in an organized society. I just believe in 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.560 an organically organized society. That is from the to use 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.760 the Zapatista phrase from the bottom and the left yep okay. 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.280 So that that's timekeeper the note taker. Sometimes you need 0:03:57.320 --> 0:03:59.320 to decide whether you want notes of your meeting. 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:00.880 Yeah, it depends on how crime you are. 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:03.680 Yeah. I hear this all the time from people making 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:05.960 jokes about the scene for the wire that I've never 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:07.760 seen the Wire, but everyone's making jokes as the scene 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:09.520 for the Wire, Right, guy, guys, are you taking notes 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:16.080 of their criminal continracy? So okay, are you going to 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.479 have a note taker? And then secondly like, okay, the 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:22.039 note taker takes notes on what's being talked about. I 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:24.599 actually this is also mea going into a little bit 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:26.840 more advanced stuff. I actually like the practice of kind 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:29.919 of rotating this throughout the meeting because the problem with 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.040 being the note taker. So if you're the timekeeper, right, 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:35.080 you can be involved in the conversation. Stack taker is 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.880 also hard to But the thing about the note taker 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.760 and it's you know, if you get good enough at this, 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:44.719 you can rotate all of these roles during the meeting 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:48.240 so that everyone has a chance to participate. So you 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:50.560 don't just have a group of people who perpetually can't 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:53.680 be in the meeting. And so note taker is a 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:55.520 thing that you can pretty easily just like pass to 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.480 someone else and be like, hey, you're not the note taker, 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:00.919 so the person who's being the note taker can like say. 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.920 Things yeah, although okay, so there's two weird funny things 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.440 about this one. Sometimes people who tend not to want 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:09.960 to talk much in a meeting, but also maybe have 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.320 an attention span where they would prefer to be doing 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.839 something at all times, prefer to be note taker. 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:16.440 Yeah. 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:22.440 But famously, the International Workingmen's Association or whatever, the the 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:26.039 First International was a organization of a lot of different 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:30.280 stripes of leftists. And someone went to someone's friend's apartment. 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:33.120 This anarchists went to this anarchist friend's apartment and was like, Hey, 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:35.680 I want to invite my friend to this meeting. And 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:37.640 this guy answers the door and his name's Carl Marx 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:41.080 and he's like, oh, well so and says not here, 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:42.719 and he's like, all right, well you can come too. 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:46.080 So an anarchist invites Marx to the International. I don't 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:48.279 have my notes in front of me, don't at me. 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:52.360 But then Marx goes and he becomes the note taker, 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:57.520 and by means of that takes a minority position which 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.719 within the group and makes it the major already position 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:03.320 by controlling the way that a lot of the media 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:06.680 and expression and stuff around this was because Marx was 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.919 a good writer. Yeah, and for better or worse, I 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:11.960 have my opinion about whether it's for better or worse, 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.960 and so there's a power within note taker that actually 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:18.400 is a reason to rotate this task. 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:18.800 Yeah. 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:21.480 On the other hand, if you're like not worried about that, 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:23.200 you can just have a person who's like, I just 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:24.680 really want to be the one who takes notes. It 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:26.800 really depends on everything's going to be contextual. I just 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:28.559 wanted to tell that story about Marx. 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:31.120 No, like this is this is the story of how 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.320 Marx became Marx by taking a note taking job and 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:36.800 then becoming the person who would write the declarations for 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.760 the organization. Yeah, we should note like this is also 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:41.960 kind of how Stalin took power was by being the 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:43.440 person in the back of the room. He didn't say 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:46.040 anything and keeping track of what everyone was doing and saying, 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.200 and you being able to manipulate like the inner workings 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:53.239 of these sort of parliamentary procedures that the Bolsheviks were using. 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:56.440 That's what the Robert not of the rules of order, 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:58.800 but of the behind the bassards was saying about, Oh, 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.040 the Cambodia man, the horror Bolga man and killed everyone 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.560 pullpop pot. It was that he he was the quiet 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:05.240 guy at the back. 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:08.920 Yep, same kind of guy can be extremely dangerous. The 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:11.360 guy who says everything all the time can be dangerous. 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:13.040 Quiet person also can be very dangerous. 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:15.040 Yeah, just never trust anyone, that's the answer. 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:18.080 Wait, no, hold on, hopefully we're not producing pulepot in 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:23.600 these meetings. Okay. So the last like official role that 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:25.040 I want to talk about, and there's a lot, there's 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.240 like a million other roles that people use. I want 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.440 to talk about the vibes checker. So this is the 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.280 one that's kind of not obvious from like the name, 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.520 but the vibes checker is someone who actually has a 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.239 really really important role, and your role is to figure 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:43.840 out like, is everyone in the group okay, does this 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:45.560 meeting feel okay? 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:46.360 Yeah? 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:47.800 And is just something we need to do about it? 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:49.880 And some of this is like okay, everyone is clearly 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.320 really tired, let's go get lunch. And that's like a 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:54.840 pretty easy sort of vibes checker thing. But then also 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:58.080 like I don't know, this is partially a facilitation job, 0:07:58.200 --> 0:07:59.800 Like I don't know, if someone says something racist in 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:01.680 me in a bunch of people are uncomfortable, it's like 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:04.480 now you're suddenly glad you have the person whose job 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.240 it is to be like, hey, what the fuck? Like 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:09.720 and that's also that's like obviously, like that's a blatant 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:11.800 enough thing that everyone can be like hold on, hold on, 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:16.640 like don't like say a slur or whatever. But like, 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:19.120 you know, the vibe checker's job is if there's a 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:21.720 lot of people who are uncomfortable with something, or if 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:25.040 something like they're kind of there or something is going wrong, 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.880 or if people are checked out, or if like stuff's happening. 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:30.800 Sometimes this is behind the scene things. Sometimes this is 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.640 like explicit, like you make it, you bring it to 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:36.720 the group to be like, hey, this is okay, we 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:41.079 need to address this. Yeah kind of thing. I don't know. 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:45.400 It's a hard role to sort of like explain it's fuzzy. 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:48.800 Yeah, I mean, but it's it's in the name. How 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:51.079 are the vibes? And vibe is a fuzzy word, and 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:53.800 you know it's a the word that people are going 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:55.000 to interpret in different ways. 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.880 Yeah, and like I as a very sort of materialist, 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:01.760 godless atheist, I it's like, okay, this is how people 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:02.240 are feeling. 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:02.800 Right. 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.839 People also take this in sort of when new agy directions. 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:08.920 People take it and like but like you know, like 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:11.680 the important thing about this is right you can feel 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.400 in a meeting when it's really tense or when things 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:19.800 are like just weird. Everything feels off. Everyone is like 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.760 pissed off or tired or like just grossed out or 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.560 like you know, and that's this person's job. This is 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.199 why I'm putting it in here because it's it's one 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:35.120 of these roles that like, idally, I guess this person 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:37.480 doesn't do anything for a whole meeting, but they're just 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:39.480 they're sort of watching it. I mean, like it's it 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.240 can't be good at the interviewing, but it's especially important 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:46.199 if something is going wrong in ways the group isn't addressing. 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.720 Totally this, it is good to have someone who's ready 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.280 to step up and say, yeah, this is this is 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.040 what's going on. Can I make a pitch for another role? 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:55.920 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't. 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:57.920 Have a name for this role. The very first activist 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:00.880 meeting I went to when the world was young, during 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:04.280 the alt globalization movement. I went into a meeting for 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:06.840 New York City indie media and I had no idea 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:08.840 what was happening, but it was a public, open meeting, 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:11.600 and I was a young activist anarchist or whatever, and 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.559 I went to this thing and someone sat next to me, 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:18.640 knew that I was new, and sat next to me 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:20.199 and explained what the fuck was happening. 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:21.600 That's a good role. 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:24.240 And I don't know if I would have become an 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:28.320 activist if that person hadn't done that, because I went 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.000 in and it was the middle of a contentious meeting 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:35.240 about people talking about some stuff that was pretty important, 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:37.280 and I had no idea what was happening, and someone 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:39.560 explained it to me. I think it is very important 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:43.280 to have someone know who is new and help them 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:45.720 feel comfortable. You could call it like an usher if 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:46.800 I was going to have a word, But it's like, 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:48.959 because I'm really into this idea that our movements don't 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.400 need gatekeepers, we need ushers. We need people to help 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:53.880 people figure out find their seats and figure out how 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:56.719 to plug in onboarding. But then the other thing I 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:59.520 want to say is that with roles, the larger and 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:01.880 more normal a meeting, the more likely you need these 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.600 to be formalized roles. But I also think that these 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:09.840 as generalized skills can be dispersed through Like I think 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.640 that a lot of groups, especially if they're kind of 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:15.880 comfortable with each other, you maybe have a rotating facilitator. 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:18.560 You maybe have a stack taker and you maybe are like, 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:21.320 who's taking notes right now? But stuff like timekeeper and 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:24.440 vibes check might be a thing that everyone feels empowered 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.640 to do. I think that understanding these as roles is 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.600 different than saying at the top of the meeting, this 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:33.040 is the way it is done. You must assign these things. 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.000 It is always contextual based on the meeting. 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.840 Yeah, the range inside of the meeting structure of like 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:41.400 how formal and informal it is changes a lot. And 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:43.800 that yeah, that changes you know, that changes the roles, 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:47.520 That changes how all of this stuff works totally. And 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:49.840 that's one of the most important things about this is 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:54.480 like being flexible, because the point of a meeting is 0:11:54.600 --> 0:12:00.760 not everyone followed the exact parliamentary procedures. The point of 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:03.319 a meeting is we did the thing we came there 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:05.760 to do, or sometimes we did we did a different thing, right, 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:09.600 But it's like we all did something together and that 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:12.280 thing happened, but we figured out how to make that 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.400 thing happen. And that's the actual important part. The content 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:17.920 of the meeting is what's important. Not all of the 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.840 structure is to enable the content. It's not the other 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:23.800 way around it totally, right, totally and like, yeah, I 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:25.720 don't know, like if you have a timekeeper and someone 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.520 else they're doing time stuff too, right, Like that's a 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:33.640 significantly better result. Then. Yeah, we just kept talking, So. 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:46.679 Okay, can I make one more pitch about the thing 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:47.520 that's important at a meeting? 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:49.000 Yeah? 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:51.439 Food. I think that it's not always going to be 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:53.719 appropriate in every specific situation, and there's a lot of 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:56.160 things around dietary restrictions and all of these things, but 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:58.720 making the meeting feel like a place that is worth 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:01.440 going to and the thing that like, I think food 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:05.520 is basically like hosting and good hospitality and these sort 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:11.320 of again invisibilized. Yeah, feminine labor things goes a really 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.960 long way towards making everyone feel comfortable. It also helps 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:19.200 people's attention spans and blood sugar, like whether every meeting's 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:21.520 a pot luck or whether everyone just brings snacks, or 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:23.840 whether it's at someone's house and they're like, fucking I'm hosting, 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:25.920 I'm gonna make a bunch of food and you know 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:26.600 whatever it is. 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.320 Yeah, I've been theorizing this for a while that like 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:32.760 we need because like obviously a lot of this technology 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.560 has been worked out already, but also we have so 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:38.480 much further to go in order to like be able 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.480 to make decisions together in a free society, And like, 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:43.679 I think we need to just have an initiative of, 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:46.560 like how do we make meetings fucking rip. One of 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:49.920 my ideas has always been, like, you have a meeting 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:53.680 that's just like the standing barbecue meeting that happens like 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.319 every like it's like the endless meeting, and it's like, okay, 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:58.760 you have it at like yeah, this time, and there's 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.439 just like a barbecue and everyone one does barbecue stuff. 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:03.320 And yes, a standing thing where if you want to 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:05.880 come and like and then okay, just to keep talking 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.439 about some of the stuff childcare. Childcare, you think when 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:10.520 you mentioned at the beginning being like making sure that 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:12.640 the space is accessible to everyone. And there's a lot 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:16.120 of stuff that gets forgotten about. In particular, I would 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:20.520 say that single parents are often forgotten about. And I 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.880 think that having or parents in general, or children in 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.760 general are often forgotten about. And I think that having 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.400 a plan in place for accessibility of all kinds of 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:32.840 different people often includes childcare. 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:35.760 I used to do this. Oh that's cool, Yeah, that's 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:37.920 like one of the things that I did for some meetings, 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:39.720 and like, yeah, there are like meetings that happened. They're 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.480 like tens meetings that happened because like people stayed and 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:44.520 played with everyone's kids. It was a good time. 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:49.640 And yeah, there's also this idea where sometimes meetings people 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:51.320 can come in and out of the society that I 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:53.880 want to live in has neighborhood assemblies that then move 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.360 up to larger structures and make decisions right and in 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:58.840 those there's also this thing where it's like you don't 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:00.920 always have to go to meetings. There's a thing that 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.920 about democracy that people don't quite always get, which is 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:05.760 that sometimes the most beautiful thing we can do for 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:10.720 each other is give our agency freely to other people 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.320 to make decisions for us that we trust. Working groups 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:14.960 are actually a good, big part of this where I'm like, 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:16.600 I don't actually want to have a say in every 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:19.440 single decision that affects me. I want to be able 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:23.240 to have a say in every single decision that affects me. Anyway, 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:24.920 I'm again going kind of meta on this. 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:28.840 Sorry, no, no, well this is important, right, you know. 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:30.680 And also like doing the childcare was part of that 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:33.640 because like, yeah, it meant like, you know, I was 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:35.720 kind of I was like trusting my people in the 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.280 group to like do the meeting without me while I 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.960 was just sort of like taking care of like just 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.960 taking care of kids. And that was a really beautiful 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:49.200 thing and it worked really well. It fucking ripped. 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:52.440 Yeah, and you can build multi generational movements, which are 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:56.320 the only movements that accomplish That's not true. Sudden movements 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:58.040 also accomplish things. But when I look at some of 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:00.760 the real high water marks from the bottom and the 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:04.600 left organizing around the world, you're talking about people who 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:07.760 are drawn from hundreds of years of radical legacies, or 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:09.120 at least a couple of generations. 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:13.080 Yeah, speaking of generations, I don't know. I don't have 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.200 a good pivot into this, but okay, so we've been 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:18.320 talking a lot of about a lot of the technology 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:21.080 that's been used for meetings. I want to talk about 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:24.760 a couple of other kinds of meetings that you can have. 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:27.200 When I originally was writing this, I was like, oh, 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:29.360 I could fit this whole, this whole section how to 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:30.680 run a meeting. This will be like this will be 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:32.640 like twenty minutes. Then I can have twenty minutes about 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.200 like the spokes councils of twenty minutes about general assemblies, 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:36.560 and we're not like an hour, we're not this is 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:40.640 like this episode, Margret, and we have not even started talking. 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.600 So okay, that's going to be another the general assembly 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.480 episode is going to be another episode completely in and 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:48.880 of itself. But I do want to talk about spokes 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:50.720 councils because this is the thing that I've been finding 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:53.800 really really useful that I think people just don't know 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:57.280 about anymore. And because people have lost the knowledge of this, 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:01.920 a really valuable organizational tactic has been lost. So Okay, 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:04.480 the thing that a meeting is there to do is 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:06.840 so a group of people can come together and make decisions. 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.520 But how do you make decisions between groups or And 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:13.040 this is also often more important less than having like 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.000 cause you know, a lot of spos counsuls aren't usually 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:18.960 supposed to be like we're all making like we're all 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.000 sort of like this is like a binding decision handed 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.719 down by like spost council, right. This is also a 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:27.160 really useful coordinating tool. Yeah, and this is what it's 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:28.800 you know, what it's like actually designed for is how 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:31.680 do you get groups to sort of talk to each 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.639 other and work with each other in a way that 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.360 also lets them continue to be like their own groups 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:39.880 and not you know, a sort of. 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.400 Like subservient to the larger coalition. Yeah. 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.320 Yeah, And you know, the answer to this turns out 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:47.359 as a technology that was developed. Actually don't know the 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:49.119 history of the post council. I mean it's been around 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:50.160 for like a long time. 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:51.640 I've done either like at. 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:55.240 Least like thirty forty years in anarchist circles, but it 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:57.240 hasn't really made it out of them. And so spokes 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:00.679 council is a meeting of groups. And so it's it's 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:03.679 a meeting of spokespeople. Right, So your group sends like 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:06.040 one or two people to a thing. You send like 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.000 a couple of people, and all of the other groups 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:11.680 send some people and you come talk about a thing. 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:12.480 Yep. 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:15.639 And this is really useful for a number of reasons. One, 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.000 it's a way for different kinds of groups to interface 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:21.960 with each other in ways that they usually don't. So 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:24.760 this can be anything from like an affinity group to 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:29.840 like an NGO, to like a union. It can scale 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:32.159 between different kinds of things. It can theoretically you can 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:36.320 do this with like you you're like fucking spokes council 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:40.680 could theoretically send a person to another spokes council totally, right, 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:42.280 And this is you know, we'll get more to this 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:44.879 a second, right, but like, like like this is a 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:47.199 way for a bunch of different types of organizations to 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:49.320 come together and do something. And it's a way for 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:50.800 them to coordinate with each other. It's a way from 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:52.879