From AshevilleLETS
Contents |
Agenda
- Reportbacks
- Pamphlet Rerportback
- Legal Reportback
- PO Box Reportback
- Outreach/Meeting Spave Reportback
- Wildflower Reportback
- Outreach
- Principles
Attendance
- Joe
- Kila (note-taker)
- Kim (facilitator)
- Scott
Notes
Reportbacks
Pamphlet Rerportback
Translation: Wednesday's friend Mischa said she'd do it but we didn't know when. Scott said he'd put a text version on-line so we could all contact more people and direct them to it. We consensed on the fact that if we didn't have a commitment with a date from someone by Thursday, we would call Sarah (the professional we can't quite afford) so that we can just get it done. At some point during the meeting, Kim called a friend of hers who said she'd do it the next day. Hooray! So, depending on how it looks we may or may not pay a professional to look over it for 5-10 minutes once it is translated.
Use: These pamphlets are worded as if the system is already up and running. These are not to be distributed widely at this point in time (their use is not to recruit members of the system right now). They are simply to be used as samples and explanatory material for our outreach efforts. There will be more detail about this in the outreach section of the notes. We all agreed that having the pamphlet in Spanish would be a good sign of our commitment to making this system available to Latino communities, but in the long-run this will not happen unless we have someone bi-lingual working with us more closely. We hope having this pamphlet might help interest such a person.
Legal Reportback
Joe emailed Ethan Miller but hasn't heard back. Kila emailed her friend Robin but hasn't heard back. Kim emailed her lawyer friend Susan but she may not be able to help us right now. More suggestions were made for pursuing leads on lawyers and or legal advice. Kim said she'd try to contact someone she knows with the American Constitution Society in DC. Scott will contact the ACLU lawyer he spoke to for the immigrant's march. We all agreed that this was an ongoing issue, but not so urgent because the forms will not be finalized until the hard launch in the spring.
PO Box Reportback
Brenna was able to get half of the money back for the large box and attain a smaller box. So we have a new PO Box # which won't have to change mid course. Yay!
Outreach/Meeting Spave Reportback
Kim went to Stephens Lee and spoke with some people. Kim is going to call Allison Dawes @ 350-2058 about renting a room for meetings. She also saw contact information for other groups who meet at Stephens Lee: El Centro de Ninos / Mtn Area Child & Family Center 298-0808, Project NAF (Nurturing Asheville and Area Families) 253-1610, and Headstart 252-2495.
Wildflower Reportback
Joe and Scott went to the barter discussion last Saturday at the Wildflower Free Fair at Montford Community Center. There were 5 people in the discussion. Only a few lived in Asheville. The discussion went well, people seemed very interested in LETS except for a woman who was a puritan when it came to barter. It sounds like the French Broad Food Coop is going to take off with the barter books idea. Possibilities of LETS and Barter Books helping to promote each other were discussed. Joe also said he was trying to arrange a dinner between LETS and the Barter Books people.
Outreach
Goals
Long Term Goals: Diversity of skills for the health of the system, and diversity of population to reflect the true demographics of Asheville. Numbers: We consensed that having 75-100 members for the hard launch is a good and feasible goal. We discussed the fact that doing outreach to other community organizers now would help the numbers in the long run. Short Term Goals: Two goals for present outreach: 1. To recruit other core organizers 2. To seek out other resources for our system. Resources we need to be seeking out: money, long-term printing, webhosting (we already have this), organizations to plug the network, space to distribute materials and hang trade boards, other methods of distribution. Our short-term goal for number of members needed for the soft launch is the core organizers plus 20-30.
Strategy
We consensed on a strategy to approach outreach as a "call to participation" to grassroots organizations. Kim will send the list a copy of the "Invitation to the first stakeholder meeting for the Ashevillage Building Convergence" as an example. We decided to compose an email which can be sent to organizers, and act as a guideline for phone calls as well. Joe said that he would create a version of the pamphlet which could be mailed as an email attachment. Scott said he would email the most recent version of the pamphlet to Joe with a reminder the next day. Scott and Kim will work on this email together by sending versions back and forth. We consensed on the fact that we are not doing outreach to masses of individuals right now. Our efforts will be focused on community organizers to build a network of people who know about LETS, who might offer ideas for shaping the system to better serve their communities, and to acquire resources. Scott is creating a document to track people we have contacted and the contributions they have offered. This will be updated by next week.
We talked about the fact that a lot of community organizers already have too much on their plates. How do we find up & coming organizers who would want to get involved? We decided one of the things we could do is look for events and/or meetings involving groups which would benefit from the LETS system so that we can plug and recruit. Scott is going to look at AGR for suggestions, Kila will look at Mountain Xpress, Kim will look at MAIN, Scott & Kila will check out La Voz. When we find events, we'll talk about a representative of the group visiting to talk to people and perhaps make an announcement.
Kila pointed out that we need to be keeping diversity of skills in mind this early in the game in terms of outreach too. Kila took a list of categories and subcategories that Kim had gathered to work on, and agreed to make sheets of categories to pencil in possible members for the soft launch and hard launch. This is just to keep these things in mind so that we don't end up with a totally unbalanced system.
Principles
We talked about the "Equitable Exchange" principle, the practical and idealogical thrust behind it. We talked about the possibility of inspiring a LETSystem specifically for small businesses in the Asheville area at some point. Scott said that he would make that suggestion again at the local currency meeting next week (Jonah is involved with BALLE). We went on to speak about the importance of defining the word "collectives" in the constitution. As the constitution will be on the agenda for next week, Kila will send out the draft document with an email containing a rough working definition of collectives and a call to bring input for the constitution to the next meeting.
Next Week
MEETING LOCATION: We did not decide on a location for next week's meeting. If possible, we will meet at Stephens Lee. If not, we might meet at Kim's house. FACILITATOR: We forgot to decide on a facilitator for the next meeting. We should decide that on the list beforehand so the person can draw up a draft agenda.
