For those who maintain the occupation at night and all day: “They also serve who only stand and wait.” ~ John Milton (1608 – 1674) from Sonnet XIX.
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OccupyHouston’s next big scheduled event will take place on 11/11/11 – DAY OF SOLIDARITY. More details of this and other events and news details are below the jump.
Women’s Group Meeting, Tuesday, November 8th, 5pm:
1) to take an informal survey on each person’s PoV regarding gender balance/imbalance…
2) talk specifically about the homeless population issues….
Also below the jump, updates on the latest posted GA minutes (11/4-5/11) and some other agenda details.
Click on this link for List of 
Accepted Proposals, as of November 5.
Click here to learn how to Contribute.
All of the information below is available in various places on the #OccupyHouston website. What I do here is try to consolidate it and make it easy to find. – Mike
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Tuesday, November 8th, 5pm
I would like to call a meeting of the women’s group for 2 primary reasons.
1) to take an informal survey on each person’s PoV regarding gender balance/imbalance (great time to hear about any gender/sexual-identity issues as well) within activities, personal experience or larger decision making process of OccHou. (survey meaning I will take notes, but in an informal discussion format if possible)
2) talk specifically about the homeless population issues. I know this might not seem like a women’s issue, but traditionally women tend to take on related caretaking roles like social workers, etc, and my attention has been drawn to the demographics at the occupation (men to women ratio) and how this is likely to be slowing down the solution finding process when it comes to the homeless population issues. There are other ties to women’s issues, but we can talk about more of the details then. Essentially I want to take action on some of these issues, and would like to utilize this women’s group meeting to get the ball rolling.
///hope to see you there///
If you can’t attend, please see me (Cassie) at some point to share our thoughts on #1 (or send it to me via email or facebook).
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11/11/11 – DAY OF SOLIDARITY
November 5th, 2011 · Kevin · EventsNo comments – Tags: 11/11/11, event, solidarity
Stand with Occupy Houston and the 99% on 11/11/11 for a peaceful student walkout and celebration of global resistance at Tranquility Park!
We call on University of Houston students to meet in front of the library building at 11:00am. At 11:30am we march to Tranquility Park in downtown Houston for a day of solidarity and celebration of global protest movements. The festivities start at 2:00pm in the park!
From 2:00pm to 5:00pm we’re holding discussion circles in the park. All topics are up for chat, but we plan to discuss:
- health care
- the homeless
- taking care of our veterans
- spirituality in collective movements
- occupation ideology
Don’t limit yourself to these! Tighten your thinking caps and lets talk about the issues that drive our movement. At 5:00pm we’ll open it up and celebrate art and poetry. We’ll have an open mic, so come on out and rap, sing, or perform. Get creative! This goes on until it ends, folks. We’re going to do this one right.
Don’t worry if you’re not at U of H. 11/11/11 is a national day of solidarity, and we welcome everyone! We are the 99% and we are finally making our voices heard!
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SUMMARY OF UPCOMING AGENDAS:
Intro to GA
Fred (opinions because he had to leave):
we’re having a Speak Outs every 2 weeks at University of Houston– next Wednesday Nov 16th, opportunity for everyone to speak out at Satellite –not far from music/theater building . Entrance 16 has parking… will be from 10:45 am – 1:15 pm
Volunteer Group Report Backs:
Food (Jeremy):
- Cleanliness if important everywhere. If you use plates/cups WASH THEM after use. Everyone needs to clean up after themselves.
- Jeremy himself brought 2 kinds of spaghetti for supper (vegan and non)
- Wed. Socialist Feminist meeting 6pm at OccHou
- Eric Cantor – Thurs, 11 am at Rice – nonviolent/ peaceful action — canevents@rice.edu to register by Monday for participation
- Had first meeting today, large meeting planned for Nov. 19th from 2-4:45. This will be a public discussion. Venue at public library can hold 200 people for Nov 19th. Occupy Houston Study and Strategy Discussion, during which we will be discussing 3 main items:
- How did the financial crisis happen?
- Finding concrete solutions to financial crisis
- Where will OccHou go from here? (sustainability of movement)
- National Lawyer’s Guild formed historic local chapter of the NLG
- Occupy actions need more numbers at GA
- Courts are split. We will keep you posted.
- OWS call to action to call attention to the crumbling infrastructure
- Officially state solidarity with national call to action and rubber stamp direct action in solidarity with it -BLOCKED
- 11-12 International Day of Action – Houston is where the Egyptian consulate is located –action is protest at consulate. -ACCEPTED
- Creation of support group for alcohol, substance abuse and depression. Says there are people to run this group as he is not volunteering himself. -ACCEPTED
- ACLU TX annual conference– Rev. William Lawson very interested in Occupy Houston. We need to get media and PR to correlate info on arrests, etc. We have allies we are talking to OccHou.
- gist: shares vision and concerns regarding freedom- eloquent writing on these issues, will be adding in his statement as soon as I receive a copy. Artem moves to have Adam’s statement added to the OccHou newspaper.
- Like to hear disparaging opinions as much as agreeing ones–lots of interesting visitors and discussions
- We can hang out anywhere and talk but we need to do more direct actions / DO something. (speaking to ongoing debate between those who want stronger civil disobedience actions and those who want to discuss avoiding arrest and avoiding ‘disruptive’ direct actions)
- proposal to stand in solidarity with Freedom Flotilla sent to Gaza Strip -BLOCKED (concerns about not knowing enough of issues to make decision)
- Strategy Discourse – Organize Texas and other organizations are having a peaceful action : Jobs Not Cuts on Wed, Nov. 16th. Proposal to accept this as supported by Occupy Houston –ACCEPTED
Opinions
Laura:
- If we are accepting getting arrested it would get media but will also help clarify OccHou agenda.
- Been supportive of OccHou since beginning. We need to have clear demands –number one complaint or feedback he has received…
- response from Jaimyn: OccHou accepted the OWS Declaration
- chant “We are the 99%”
- Been a lot of work done to maintain relationship between HPD, mayor and OccHou good. Don’t want to ruin that.
- We really need to study the causes of current economic crisis.
- Despite good relations with HPD, mayor, etc. the powers that be are forcing cut-backs to all civil areas. More and more people are getting involved in occupy movements.
- lull recently around the occupation was just a phase and glad we now know more about what works and what doesn’t. Now we just need to do it!
- forgot opinion –asked for questions and statements
- Meaningless to pass actions about being open to certain proposals.
Peacekeeping report (Ben):
- Nonviolence communication experts will come out tomorrow to help teach some diffusing tactics of peacekeeping etc. so we don’t have to ask for police intervention when these few incidents have happened at the occupation
- Clarifying getting arrested, bonds, etc. Bonds *can* be worked out. Participants in actions have OccHou support and need to not be afraid of arrest. There are also additional sources of bond money available from sympathetic organizations and labor groups.
- Getting arrested does get attention but so does getting into Outreach to get people to come out and participate.
- I think radical action will get us publicity, I think radical love will get us more publicity.
- Every single direct action of OccHou has reached far away places.. like the zombie flash mob and Juan Gonzalez visiting Occupy Houston– who mentioned when he got back to NY that the welcome he received in Houston was one of the best he’s ever experienced. Think how many people want to connect to OccHou but don’t know how. Think how to reach these people.
- Gaza proposition brief education session toward getting earlier proposal regarding Freedom Flotilla –get with Michael for more info on this or research on your own
- opinion on FB post by Evan C – pic of Mondrey who is a homeless man who got arrested– thought this was very distasteful as well as other comments made on the post
- Supports needing more / stronger civil disobedience, having less resistance from others for those who DO want to participate
- Thinks of direct actions are intelligently directed they would pass consensus. Ultimately it will come down to standing for our 1st Amendment rights. We need to stop cut backs and find solutions.
- Should not confuse internal goals with forcing having demands, which is not as important.
- another chant of “We are the 99%”
- Call strip to cold-call Houstonians about Occupy Houston. Many of us have time here and there and unlimited calling plans, etc. Let’s use these and put some time into calling folks about the movement.
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Intro to GA
Volunteer Group Reports Back
Web (Kevin) :
- Website was down for a couple of hours after being moved to the new server. Problem won’t happen again.
- Media area is not an internet cafe. If you want to use space please sign up because there are expensive electronics, etc.
- 11-11-11 is coming up. Great ideas in the air, but we need a plan:
- 11:30 am Walk-Out at University of Houston
- around 2-3 pm meet back at Occupy Houston
- Discussion circle from 2-5 pm
- Topics like taking care of vets
- open mic like before: sing, vent, performances
- Tell everyone about it
- anyone by finance group sign the list yet to be designated of a lock and key -pass key onto someone else in finance team?
- Overnight watch needs volunteers
- 11-1 needs to be published online
- Next week have first issue of OccupyHouston newspaper – printing 10,000 issues, each costs 8cents so we need to raise $800. 8 pages in color
- Need reporters, researchers, interviewers, distributors
- Need food donations and volunteers
- OccupyAmerica greetings from New Orleans, Chicago, St. Louis and Washington DC
- Housekeeping – cleanliness is a must
- Story time – 30 minutes after GA
- New volunteer group Strategy and Game Plan by the bridge 7pm
- in 2 days celebrating our first month.
- want to make a video montage would like help from MEDIA (but did not offer to volunteer)
- Finance volunteers discuss agenda for Sunday
- Collecting info about mothers who are part of Occupy Houston Sunday for play day
- Honorable Eric Cantor having event at Rice 11-10 at 11am – open to public but must reserve seats. We should reserve seats but ten walk out.
- Allow Burk to file permits for tents , structures, electricity, etc. -ACCEPTED
- Pipeline — an oil company front group Called ‘Jobs for the 99%’ is a scam that has been trying to co-opt the Occupy movement. “We stand in solidarity against Keystone XL Pipeline” –ACCEPTED
- GA 4 times a week instead of every day (dedicate M W F for work group discussion) -BLOCKED
- OccupyHouston accepts declaration of occupation (?? not sure what declaration was –needs clarification)
- Action to block a bridge on 17th of Nov. in solidarity and response from OWS call for solidarity – BLOCKED
- Organize sharing ideas
- Sharing space for World AIDS day December 1st
- Sign up for lectures on 11-11
- Feel free to talk on GA, express opinions
- Everybody get involved more
- Communication is the basis of all relationship
- Veterans for peace are rallying on 11-11-11 join them at 11am Memorial Day parade.
- Gathering a list of cities affected by pipeline
Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig 