[Flyingbrickvolunteers] meeting minutes

[jen lawhorne]

Flying Brick General Meeting July 19 2010

Meeting Minutes

10 people in attendance

1.Saturday hours (christie)
2.  Outreach to students (VCU and Open High)
3. Collection of Books and zines (hermelinda)
4. Facebook postings/email lists
Event proposals Jen
Reportback from calling (Claire)

Facebook postings (Jen)
Newsletter (kendall)


Three new people showed up at the meeting interested in volunteering for
open hours.  We gave a brief introduction to the Flying Brick Space.

1. Saturday hours
.Saturday hours have not been successful, no one has stopped by and it
seems to be the summer doldrums. Since we are already having a hard time
filling our  open hour shifts with volunteers, Christie proposed that we
delay the Saturday open hours experiment until September and at that point
do an evaluation.  It was agreed that it won't be announced that Saturday
hours are no longer available.

2. Student outreach
It was proposed that when students return for VCU, that a massive flyering
endeavor occur at the dorms and different campus locations.  It was agreed
that the discussion should be tabled until the August meeting.

3. Book/ zine collection
 Hermelinda was concerned that the library is being over-utilized for
events and that not enough attention is being brought to the books and
zines that are here. Kendall said several events have been done in
linking the books with the events and mentioned that it seemed like
people seem not to read enough anymore that we could do more to highlight
the books that we have. Christie said we should organize events that are
book centered, like readings. Hermelinda feels like the book collection
is outdated and maybe we should get more titles. Scarlett has a friend
that works at Barnes and nOBLE and mentioned that she could possibly
acquire more books through her connection.

Book donation protocol: Books that are left here is for people who are
present at the time of donation should agree if the title is somewhat
radical or poses new progressive ideas and if its a book the Flying Brick
library doesn't have, then it can be agreed upon if the book should be
included in the collection.

It was agreed to bring more attention to volunteer picks of the month.
Next meeting discussion topics:
1. Linking books with events
2. making space/ accessible, inviting and comfortable for reading
3. better labeling
4. new material (subscription to magazine)
5. getting books from barnes  and noble without covers but are new releases

4. Facebook messages/ email contact:

a. Too much traffic on the messaging
b. Some fb messages have a harsh tone, complaining about people not coming
to meetings
c. Facebook should be announcements and not for organizing lists

Kontra will bottomline setting up  a contact list (physical and
electronic) of people explicitly interested in organizing/volunteering
with the flying brick

Hermelinda username and password to accessing the information on RISEUP is
in the red book. Once you arrive at the riseup site there is an important
stuff on the left with the information on how to access the riseup lists

5. Newsletter

The newsletter hasn't come out in a while. Christie suggested that we
include the same sections in the newsletter to give it continuity. Claire
said it's ok that the newsletter doesn't come out regularly but we can
always unite forces in the future to make another.

There will be a meeting to talk about format different ways to format the
newsletter.

6. Event proposals

a. Gun possession debate-  a formal debate with structure with a
moderator, questions, timed responses and two teams
August 23 7 PM Jen and Kendall will bottomline the event

b. Following the debate there will be an informational session on
obtaining wepaons permita

7 Reportback from callings on general meetings

Nathan and Claire talked about the best ways to organize a general
meeting. They called the contact list to ascertain the interest in a
general meeting. Claire said that no one had an objection to a set time
for a general meeting. Monday seems like the best time for a general
meeting.

Other people had concerns about having a set time for a meeting being
exclusionary. It was also brought up how the composition of people at the
meeting was mostly white and middle class and how our events appeal to
white middle class people. It was brought up how race and class privilege
affect the participation of people in this space. There was not discussion
on how to change this composition. The meeting turned tense, with some
people leaving upset. DISCUSSION MUST CONTINUE ON THE RACE AND CLASS
COMPOSITION OF PEOPLE WHO PARTICIPATE IN THE FLYING BRICK LIBRARY

Claire proposed bottomlining a call to people interested in attending a
meeting again to find a good meeting time. Next meeting will discuss this
further.