[Januaryfirst] (very long) Notes from last meeting - Jan. 15, 2014

[Gil]

Present: Dave, Teresa, Karin, Alexandra, Gil

We mostly talked about our upcoming event, though we also touched on the
need to clarify what we are going to tell people who want to become
involved, what we do, etc.

First, the details (which Karin can use for the invite if it helps):

--------------
*Chips+Salsa vs TPP*
Let's learn about TPP, NAFTA, and how to make a free trade-killing salsa!
Jan. 31, 2014, 6:30 PM
Calvary Baptist Church (1803 East 1st Ave., between Commercial and Victoria)

This will be our way of joining the Inter-Continental Day of Action against
the TPP (tradejustice.ca/tpp/jan31). At the event we will feature a cooking
lesson to learn how to make a tasty, free trade-killing salsa, and learn
from a brief presentation about NAFTA, TPP, free trade and what we can do
to join communities in resistance across the world.

Bring an avocado and/or tomato to make sure we have enough! We'll provide
the rest, but donations are welcomed.
--------------

Now, the notes:

For the chefs, we proposed that Raul and Simon could hopefully do that
part, but Raul will be out of town! We're still trying to confirm if Simon
is available. Anyone want to volunteer? This portion of the event will
touch on some of these points (suggestions of course welcomed!):

   - labour issues
   - culture (stereotypes, homogenization, etc)
   - who benefits from exports and imports? (avocados from mexico being
   controlled by drug cartels, etc.)
   - energy required to mass-produce "local" crops (tomatoes in massive
   greenhouses, etc.)
   - availability of seasonal produce year-round (aka disconnection to
   nature, local reality)
   - health, gmos (corn chips from the US?)
   - displacement, migration (temporary agriculture workers in Canada, etc)
   - 1st nations issues (touches on everything, but can mention NAFTA's
   changes to mexican constitution, patenting of traditional knowledge, etc)

Then the presentation that Karin and Harjap have will be adapted
and facilitated by them too :-) They will focus on a bit more broad context
of free trade, resistance, and lead us into an open dialogue of what to do
about these issues.

At then, adapting the idea of having a big drawing of a human body and
asking people to put 3 post-its on it, one each on the head (what you
learned), the heart (what you felt), and the feet (what are you going to
do), we'll have small sheets of paper which people can fill in in the same
manner, but that's also where they will leave us their email/phone and
comments. This way, we sort of pressure people to put a name to their
ideas, and, hopefully, to give us not only their contact info, but also
ideas of what we could ask them to do with us. Just a bit of pressure! We
don't want to force them, but also we don't want them to take off and
forget about this :-)

Just before having the dialogue though, we'd present what the Jan. 1st
collective is and stands for, remind people to join our list, and invite
them to invite us to come give a presentation or organize a potluck with
groups/people they know who might want that.

As far as "what the Jan. 1st collective is and stands for" we can revisit
some documents on the shared drive (Aaron wrote a very good one for the
Mosaic event), and add these ideas, which we discussed throughout the
meeting:

   - We want to facilitate a process that strengthens people's
   participation and action in issues  we talk about. This would be primarily
   with people who are "floating around" our work, such as those in our list,
   those who come to our events, etc.
   - We want to offer/create spaces and opportunities for people to be able
   to build a deeper understanding and "connect the dots" between issues,
   complex struggles, etc.
      - On this note, we though we can recover the idea of sort of being an
      umbrella, and have a defined model of explaining/understanding
the issue of
      "trade" so we can have different "channels" through which we can funnel
      people. For example, one of these channels can be "health", and if people
      show an interest on that aspect, we can "refer" them to
volunteer or become
      active with people already working on these issues, such as sanctuary
      health. Or if they are interested in resource extraction, they
can link up
      with the mining justice alliance, etc.
   - Offer a space to deepen the connections with groups/orgs with a
   similar analysis as ours. For this we are starting to develop a model based
   on potlucks, where we organize more "intimate" potlucks which include a
   more focused discussion on particular issues. This hopefully allows us to
   create a relatively loose framework to "hang out", but also a bit of
   clarity to discuss deeper issues/ideas and really get to know each other.
   - We are structuring our work, including out methodology, to be able to
   offer "kits" such as a package for people to offer/host their own
   "chips+salsa vs free trade event", which would be a sort of lesson plan,
   with the salsa recipe, the guide of points for the chefs to talk about, the
   slides for the presentation, and questions to lead the dialogue, etc.

As far as the more "targeted" potlucks to strengthen relationships with
groups, we decided to follow up with Rising Tide and check when they would
be available. We threw around the idea of focusing this potluck on Miguel
Alvarez's presentation at our event at YWCA (his 5 points). So we need to
get a copy of his presentation, circulate it to read it and use it to chat
about it at the potluck.

*Tasks:*
Dave will look into availability for the space, since we moved the date.
(DONE!)
Karin will create a Facebook event and adapt the presentation slideshow
Gil will send these notes (DONE!), make a graphic for the web announcement,
and ask Miguel Alvarez if he can send us notes from his presentation at the
YWCA event. Also look into translation.
Teresa will ask Rising Tide when would be a good date to have a potluck
with them
Karin and Harjap will facilitate workshop
??? (maybe Simon) will be the chefs
??? will get the following ingredients (We'll provide for around 20 people,
and the rest will be provided by whatever people bring. We'll split the
bill even and each pay that, unless we come up with something else):

   - tomatoes (on the vine or roma) x 20
   - onions x 1 sack (at least 6 small ones)
   - cilantro x 4 bunches
   - avocados x 8 (we can get them a few days early and ripen them by
   leaving them wrapped with newspaper)
   - limes x 10
   - chips x 6 bags
   - salt
   - garlic & dried jalapeños provided by cipovan

*Random thought of the night:* Similar to how we're trying to shift away
from particular free trade agreements and focus on "the big picture", the
Zapatistas reacted to NAFTA back in 1994 and used it as an excuse to
explain their uprising, but "moved on" from that to focus relatively
quickly onto the "real" task at hand: building autonomy within communities.
Even though it's pretty arrogant to comparing us to the Zapatistas :-p that
sort of sounds pretty cool for how we're framing our work so far!
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