Guideline for General Assembly and its Decision Making Process

Updated: 10/20/11

This is a guideline for a decision making process and structure for the General Assemblies (GA) of Occupy Oakland. This process was inspired by and informed by the decision making process used by Occupy Philly, but the Facilitators Working Group (FWG) has tried to tailor Occupy Philly’s process to the needs of Occupy Oakland. This process is not intended to ever be set in stone and will be modified by the Facilitators Working Group (as necessary).

Committees needed for the functioning of the GA:

·Facilitators Working Group (FWG): Responsible for finding facilitators for our GA, responsible for refining our decision making process and structure, and organizing the structure of the agenda for the GA; it does not determine the content of the agenda. FWG will also help hold ongoing facilitation trainings twice a week through the Raheim Brown Free School.

(FWG will have an open meeting every day at noon, under the trees in the small plaza near the flower shop– the first half hour will be reserved for concerns and suggestions)

·Coordinating Committee (CoCo)*: CoCo gathers the content of the agenda of the GA. It is responsible for taking proposals, concerns, and announcements from committees and other groups in Occupy Oakland to the FWG. (please see below under “decision making process” for further details on this.) CoCo is independent of the FWG.

*this committee needs to be formed and does not exist yet

Proposed agenda for GAs:

·Welcome & Opener
·Agenda Overview, overview of process and hand signals
·Committee announcements
·Action announcements
·Proposals from committees
·Proposals from other groups, caucuses, affinity groups, etc.
·General announcements (open)
·Forum

Decision Making Process (Proposals)

The below decision making process is a modified consensus process, which means it strives for full consensus (100% agreement) by allowing ample time to discuss everyone’s questions and concerns and make amendments, but will accept less than 100% consensus if after addressing questions and concerns, consensus cannot be reached. (see the step by step process below for details.)

Only Occupy Oakland committees or groups (which we define as 3 or more people who are a part of Occupy Oakland) may make proposals to the General Assembly. The proposal made to the assembly must have 100% consensus within that group or committee and must have 3 members attending the GA to present the proposal (all three or more people must speak). The proposal must be written down or said aloud to the proposal note-taker at the GA(there is a proposal box at the info tent). If it becomes apparent that the group giving a proposal needs to gather more information or take more into consideration, the coordinating committee may have them bring their proposal back for later.

*Note: In order for the GA to make a decision on a proposal, at least 50 people should be present (this may be amended as the occupation goes on).

Step by step of decision making process:

1. proposal: written and presented as thoroughly as possible

2. stack: clarifying questions*, pros and cons, suggested amendments (with full explanation)

3. test for consensus; 90% passes proposal

——————————————

·if 90% approval is not reached, consider friendly amendments and repeat steps 1-3 and try for 80% approval to pass proposal

*clarifying questions can be immediately addressed by those giving the proposal

note: facilitator may use tools such as a straw poll, group break out discussions, according to their discretion

GA Facilitation Roles (these will be rotating):

–Co-facilitators: core facilitation, announcing agenda items

–Coordinating Committee presenters: gives brief summaries of subcommittee announcements

–Participant advocators: addresses points-of-process concerns and factual responses from crowd, counts during tests for consensus, directs people to stage to speak, answers questions about decision making process

–Note-taker: takes notes of announcements and decisions made during assembly, gets notes to the web committee

–proposal note-taker: takes down new proposals for the current GA or a later agenda

–Time-keeper: holds up visual reminders of time available for speakers and announcements

1056

Upcoming Events

About OccupyOakland.org

This website was created in the fall of 2011. Most of it is now moribund, but the Occupy Oakland Calendar, which lists activist events in the East Bay (and occasionally elsewhere) is still maintained, the Search facility works to find earlier posts and keep OO’s history alive, and articles are occasionally still posted to the front page.

The Occupy Oakland General Assembly met in-person weekly (with a rare skip) since October 10th, 2011 up until the pandemic, at which point we went to bi-weekly Zoom meetings. We do checkins, go over the activist events of the past meeting interval, and have general discussions on politics and revolution.

For many years, until the pandemic, we put on a Feed the People event monthly at Oscar Grant Plaza, where all were welcome to come and partake of a freshly cooked, savory meal, before our GA.

If you would like to participate while the pandemic is still amidst, send an email to occupyoakland-request@lists.riseup.net. Check the calendar or this text to see if we have resumed in-person meetings.