All right, Chris is online. I think Riley will join us eventually so we can start. Okay.
Good evening, everyone. Today's September 14. Meeting is in calling the meeting, I guess. 619. I don't know if I have to do all that. So we're gonna do the call to order. Or that's for the meeting. Okay, so roll call for any meeting leaders. myself. I'm here. Adri and our steering committee. Members.
Yeah, we're half here. I'm Harpreet on the one of my campaign coordinator.
Yes, Chris Stark. Treasurer. I'm here.
Perfect. And
hello, I'm Paulo, just a member.
I'm Joanna also on number.
Perfect. And then we'll see for ally comes in, whether online or in person. Alright, so new members right now. So we'll skip that. And then what we're going to do is approve minutes from previous meeting on the 28th. Yeah. Is anyone? Yes. Any modification requests? Okay, so we'll go ahead and motion to approve the minutes from August 28. We have a second. We have a second. Let's go ahead and put it to vote.
Everyone that agrees? Raise your hand. Or Chris. Just say yes. Yes.
Okay, motion passes.
All right. So any reports of members sick or in distress?
Are you raising a hand, Chris? No, sorry. Yeah, I guess I can report on Robbie's back. His mom, I guess suffered from a double stroke. So she's in the hospital at WC or at UC Davis Med Center. He said she's getting a little bit better today. But they're doing a scan today to see if the swelling has gone down. So open the best for her. And we're going to try to see if Robin needs anything. And get with him. I think he has to leave at like 9pm every day so they don't let them stay overnight. So we can reach out tonight.
Okay. Yeah. All right. Any others just before? I don't think there are any others? Okay. All right. So any reports from we could start with the secretary. Are there any reports on behalf of the Secretary? Yeah, that's
Robbie. I just say. So Whitney, from UC Davis are nice to sorry, DSA, North Central Valley. She told me that PSL will not be joining the Ewok group, the union organizing group. So they're down to knots, four out of five members. I know we can do a fit. That's something to bring up later. But that was her correspondence. They're also having their membership meeting tomorrow on Zoom. I don't think they do hybrid. They're doing this one on Zoom because they sent out a blast to like all the DSA members that were in Santa King County also because they incorporated it. So they're doing online this one time I guess. So I told her, me and like anyone else would like we stopped by just to say hello, because I don't think they're doing all that much in their meeting agenda. So we can just say hello and introduce ourselves. But that's Oh, and Elon Benjamin also emailed again about the the Paris Convention in November. I don't know if so. Riley Paulo, Chris, don't have their passports. So they can't go.
There was other her name she was interested as well in the last meeting.
Oh, Alyssa. No. Okay. And yeah, so we still get two tickets. I mean, I want to ask Robbie, you can still go if you can keep my being like someone please come we want we want the youth we want to
thank you. Again,
but uh, but yeah, so that possibility is still open for a bit. But really, I think at this point, it's like you and Robbie and me that are Back left that can make it.
Yeah. And so much pressure. It was in November, right.
three through five. Yeah. This weekend sort of thing.
Yeah. It's Thursday read I so you only take Friday off, and then you read it back on Sunday. So that's the correspondence. Yeah. They they are kind of desperate for people to come. Well, for us to come. Yeah. Because I think they just don't like DSA and they're like, Oh, someone not from DSA that might come.
So Geez. Well, um,
but yeah, that's out there. Anyone listening to this? Which is your Robbie? Let me know. Yeah, sometimes. Yeah. I can let Alan know. But yeah, it's probably a no. Yeah, I know. I'm like, I gotta ask Robbie. This is like terrible timing, to be asking this.
That's like, at the end of my like, I like that's in the thick of like writing a research report and all these other
things. Well, you got 12 hours on the plane.
Yeah, and like 12 hours to recover, which, I mean, realistically, zero hours recover. It wouldn't. Yeah, it was just it just wouldn't happen in that timeframe. Yeah, so there's no, there's too much.
They. They did not take into account how like barely anyone else passports in America.
So these people are from Europe?
The people we're talking to are? I mean, he was from SF. And then he moved over to New York. And but the rest of them are from like Europe. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So lucky them. I know, they got their little EU passports to?
It would be just, there's no way in America to get a passport in under a month.
You'd have to Yeah, you'd have to do like an expedited passport. And you pay more for that? Well, also, I've been able to do that I've been able to do with the X Bay passport. And that's how I have my now but I think it's so you're kind of hoping that you get it within a month? Like there's no guarantee. And I think that's where new will only Yeah, that was mine was new. So you if you want this changed.
If you apply for a new one, you can apply for emergency to get like to emergency approval, but then you don't you have to have your tickets. Like you have to have travel tickets already. And you won't know until the day of your flight whether it's approved or not.
Yeah, no. Well,
does that cost a lot more? I mean, we can be willing to do it. Or how much of the cost throw away?
I don't remember I one second?
Okay, well, we can come back to it. But, um, and maybe they'd be willing to like chip in for it. Since there. They've been asking
that desperate.
I don't think it's desperate. I think there's like, you know, it's cool to have young people. Well, they've been
there is a big get get out of this.
I think they're, I think the real issue is that you just they wouldn't be paying for the tickets. And they will not know, we wouldn't know if we could go until like, the day before it happened. Yeah.
Yeah. Which I mean, I can talk to them if they're willing to like, you know, roll the dice on that one. But, okay, something that I'll reach out to them and and see. But I don't treasure Do you have any up update?
The I mean, we, we just didn't update general update, we went to the bank, Riley and I and we needed a IRS form, which is, of course, the one form we don't have. It was we got the EIN number. And I was under the impression from from the articles that I read, I thought that would be enough, but I guess they they want to really make sure that you are cleared with the IRS as a nonprofit organization. And then I was looking into because they gave a little pamphlet. If you want to make like a business account, in the meantime, you you have to be a business licensed organization, and you'd have to have an EIN, ie, essentially, you'd have to have paperwork to be a business. So I just will look into I'm going to start the process essentially and hopefully get it done relatively quickly to get that IRS tax exempt form and then we can go ahead and open up a bank account at For a tax exempt organization
me and Alan Chris heard aqueous, right, we were talking. And we thought maybe if we opened like just a normal business account, not like Bank of America or something. So we've saw like the business license form. That's the San Joaquin County. I think that's a pretty quick approval. And then that way, we have like, something not tied to any one of us. And then the nonprofit can retroactively apply. Okay, yeah, I mean, we can just move it over to uncle's credit afterwards.
Gotcha. Okay. Yeah.
Well, we could dissolve the the profit corporation and just transfer everything over to the nonprofit. Yeah.
Yeah. Otherwise, we'd have to restructure it. So I again, I was just reading the documentation, it seemed like you had that restructure and have the correct documents. But yeah, if we can do it at a different bank, maybe I'll look into that. I can give them a call. I'll get back American call. Good. I think the credit union just, if you Yeah,
it might be like, legitimately, it might just be better to wait for the approval for the nonprofit because like, opening up, like I was thinking about this a little bit more over the weekend, and or the week. And if we open up another business account, one of the issues is that, like, we like Chris was saying, we might run into like restructuring issues. And it just opens us up to a whole nother vector of like, legal trouble. So I'm not sure if we like it depends on how we want to if we want to really like go hard and fast on the dues, then maybe we want to go that path. But if we want to make sure that we're like, dotting our i's and cross crossing our T's or whatever.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. I, like I said, I think we can get the other paperwork. Within a month, I was gonna really start researching this week, this weekend, but um, as far as I can tell, we are on the path to doing it. We just tap that last step. And that's obvious. That's the step that you know, people don't do you have like two years within being a declared a nonprofit that you can actually do it. So people just don't do it. But we could i If bank accounts are requiring it, I would like to. I know, we would all like to start collecting data so we can start. Yeah, doing stuff or stuff.
Yeah, I guess my question is, is how can you not do it for two years and still operate? Right like most people have bank accounts, and they're operating? So
what's the barrier to like the the bank account or opening one
right now? It's we're not a 501. C four. We're just like a
record. Yeah, we need to we needed the IRS. What was it called? It's a It's a letter from the IRS that I can't remember the name of right now. But
yep. So C four account, like ID or whatever, to certify that we're nonprofit.
Yeah. But we have an EIN.
Yeah. Yeah, the certification letter. That's what it was. Yeah.
I mean, I know for like my campaign, we just had an EIN. And then I think we had a business account, and we were able to open a bank account for it. But it wasn't. It wasn't like a C three or C four. So it was like a soul requirement thing that was open.
I'll give them a call. I guess I'm gonna give them a call on Saturday and see what's going on there. Because that there's that it's weird to me too, because they didn't seem seemed like as soon as we told them we didn't because I was like, Oh, we have an EIN like now that's not that's not right thing.
So yeah, I mean, I guess if we can also see like, what the retroactive stuff is for the C four. Because I would kind of like to go hard and fast on the dues. Yeah, yeah. Okay, anything else?
Nope. Okay. Moving on to membership coordinator. Okay. Yes. Okay. Anything to report?
Not really we're just working on the well for membership. We're working on the membership handbook. We're working on the membership like development process, the membership pipeline, probably the mentorship program is going to be the thing we work on next after that. And yeah, the same same thing with the education we're working on like the tenant union handbook and the processes for both setting up like tenant workshops, you know, all that kind of stuff. So it you know, if you want to come to a membership slash education committee meeting and want to help us work on it, you're more than welcome.
What they are they
Do you want the next one is real quick?
I don't know what it is maybe it's like my calendar that I'm having issues with that I just sometimes don't get notified about the meetings, even though I did the whole like link the calendar. Yeah. So like this meeting shows up. I still forgot about it. Kind of. Sorry. I'm still here. But like, then I'm, I like don't see the other one some more. I don't know.
So if you don't get notifications, the membership and education committee meetings are on the second and fourth Fridays of every month. Okay.
I think if you actually have to, like, register, yeah, like go or RSVP there and go on and fill it out.
And I was gonna say you also need to ensure that like the notification permission is active on your phone or whatever to let's see the thing.
They should send you emails, if you do that. I think
it might be that because I did the whole like, you know, we're
added to your calendar. Yeah. Then maybe that is I think you have added it. Yeah, I don't think it like puts in reminders. Okay. Like for your own events? Yeah, not germane. I think maybe I will just so I put this stuff here just for ease of use. Because, you know, I think it's annoying to have to like looking at email all the time. But I think this also discourages people from actually are this RSVPing because it is right there. And so we're not actually, like the point of this whole calendar thing is supposed to be like, you can do this and you're subscribed and you'll get like updates about it. Yeah. But yeah. Or we can also just email more frequently about the events that are upcoming. Because this would only RSVP for, like the one event that you're signed up for. It.
Makes sense. Yeah.
Okay, well, we can increase the level of spam.
My brain needs it. Like even though it might over is might seem overwhelming. Like I need it.
Yeah, I think you're right. We've been very, we've been very reluctant to like mass spam, but like,
yeah, this campaign calls campaign text, same thing like, Oh,
also, we should make sure that we post in the WhatsApp like the day before or whatever, so that people like know what's going on. Okay.
Just post that link, it says you can apply without having a IRS Dennis. So I don't I don't maybe it's just uncle, maybe I'll look at other credit unions and see what's going
on or other banks. Central State is the one that's more established in this area, or like Valley strong.
Yeah, I you have a central state. My concern was, I don't know if I'll double check. But I feel like they don't do cash transfers through. Like, unless you can do transfers into the bank from I don't know, I don't have a lot of ATM locations. And uncle had a lot. So I thought that was cool. But maybe I'll just have to give that up and just go physically to the bank and drop off the money. I mean, it's probably safer anyways.
I know if anything Valley strong has more locations. And not just in Stockton to
I'll look into that. That's definitely that seems. Yeah, I
think I wrote some of them off because I didn't see like a business account. But maybe they do nonprofits still.
Oh, that was I remember. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Or we just give up on all of it and just go to like a big bank and just say pocket.
Yeah. I mean, they wouldn't care. That's I thought it was interesting
uncle. There's a big bank and there's an ally online. I know, I use them personally. But I don't know if they do business accounts. But it's like, yeah, banking says,
Okay, I know we, we were thinking of doing Alliant because that's what I have. And they don't do business.
In the ATMs or the other thing with them. Yeah. That's lion but okay. Yeah. Well, I'll look into it. Definitely local, maybe a local will be easier.
So membership meetings. second and fourth Friday. Yes. Okay. Any, any more updates?
Um, yeah. Just to follow up on what Riley was saying. As a, um, for the tenant union stuff. Part of what we're also working on is Oh, where'd you go, buddy? The flowchart. Please scroll? No,
we're not seeing right one. Yes.
No charts.
So we're trying to map out I mean, this is just a preview of the fun things you can expect if you come to one of these meetings. So we were just trying to map out what it means like you As part of the tenant union, you know, we'll have research, we have outreach. And the main thing we were working on as though was building a tenant association on a local level. So one thing is the way that we're going to, I'm going to talk about later, you know, just going to a location that we've already chosen, and just agitating there. The other way that we saw online was a tenant rights workshop. So that was like all this other steps that you can do, and then you recruit from the workshop instead. But it ties into like doing the research and finding a location that makes sense and then doing doing an outreach in that area. But anyways, it's kind of the stuff we're working on. I know we're going kind of slow, but we're making some progress this week. Yeah. So yeah,
good. Foundation is important. For sure. Okay, that's all anything for the campaign coordinator.
Yeah, that's my campaign update.
Okay, perfect.
All right. So financial report. Is that Chris? Okay, Chris, you're on.
Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, I as soon as soon as this big stuff gets going to like, research and right now. Be done soon.
Am I the only one? No, Riley. Oh, that reminds me. Yeah. I gotta get the shirts from you. Yeah.
Yeah. Riley and Christine Sony. They're short. So.
All right. So unfinished business. We talked about this a little bit, but for unfinished business, the International Paris event. Who wants to go?
All right. I would love to go. But who would like
to act in as Adri for grad school for maybe four days? And then maybe I'll go. But I'm taking those in the wind. interested?
I think we're all interested. I think it just limitations. Yeah. Yeah. Government doesn't make it easy.
No. Okay, so moving on then union organizing campaign with DSA the Ewok. So are Preet mentioned that? There's was it PSL is no longer going. So is this still the one with two reps from us?
That's the one where we have one right now. But since they have four, we have the man they need five to actually start a committee and get funding from DSA. There, we can present them with two. And so I haven't had a chance to talk to Lucas yet. He's who I had in mind is like more of a permanent fixture. And then the rest of us like fill in. But yeah. I mean, should we put it for a vote? I'll let you decide. If we should push to people instead of one.
I think, well, I guess we could open the floor for discussion first, but I think there could be a benefit to having just a backup person. I think we're kind of having to keep that mentality of like all of our positions can be replaced by someone else. So kind of the same idea with this. Maybe that's my thought of, you know, the benefit of having someone else a second person.
Training tomorrow, so if someone's interested, and I just want them
I can't I can't hear what he's saying. Oh, did
there was a clarification if there was an Ewok training tomorrow, but it's a DSA training tomorrow sorry. I was just I was just filling in. Oh, info. Yeah.
I mean, like personally, I so I think that the more of the more WC you people we have, you know, like connected to other groups, the better because it gives us more of a voice in whatever's happening in the area. So if we're if we have two potential seats that we could fill that would be I think that we should try and do that.
Would this count as a I'm losing all Yes, thank you.
Um, no, I think because this is like a once a month thing. It would be like a side quest like the park cleanup. And I don't think it requires any extra like prep like for the park cleanup. Gonna take, like, it's really two days, you need a day to like, kind of buy all the stuff at a time. So this would kind of be the same amount of time. I think you have your meetings once a month. And then maybe they'd have like, right now they kept it up one meeting a month. But I think if they were going to, like, go Canvas at a place they'd probably want to meet beforehand to, you know, to talk about things. So it would be like one Planning Day and one canvassing day
would it require the VCU to do any voting on certain things for those two reps? Yeah.
I don't believe so. Because they nothing that that committee does more make the VCU do anything, I think most will be like. So each, well now there's only like three committees, three groups, so we'd be doing it four times a year would be in our area, because they switch off. And so I think four times a year, so every three months, we'd have to choose a place that we want to flyer for potential tenant organizing. So it'd be like picking a park location or picking like a workshop area or shopping center where we want to end up fires. That would be our involvement as a VC.
So I what I was thinking is, if so because like one of the structures that the bylaws kind of allow us to create, or like temporary working groups, we could make like a semi permanent working group that just has like two people assigned to it. Who are the representatives to this organization, right? And then like they could come their job would basically just be to report on whatever it is that they said at a meeting or learned at a meeting or whatever.
Do we have working groups in our bylaws?
I think so. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. We might Yeah, it's been a while since I
yeah, I don't remember. Yeah, maybe
I missed it. Maybe I'm maybe I'm thinking about the Cleveland bylaws.
But one Ctrl F and like, as I'm doing that right now
which of course I just don't have open your bylaws. Yeah. Article Nine committees section three temporary working groups. Temporary working groups are maybe authorized by the membership at a general meeting such groups should not necessitate a significant ongoing commitment of resources from the membership.
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Okay, so I guess we'll, if you want, I guess if we decide to do it, then whoever wants to come to that next DSA meeting. Tomorrow we can. It's online. We can go and talk to them and see if I mean we can vote for two but they gotta also say it's okay. For us to have to. Yeah. And then maybe at the next meeting, like make the workshop and like if they're DSA lucky with two, then we can have the working group. I mean,
well, we could we could do is just like, approve. Like, say if DSA approves this, then we just automatically create the working group.
Okay. So we don't have to vote right now on who those people would be? Do we have to vote on that being two people or just voting on doing creating the working? Creating the working group?
I guess we can just I mean, Paulo was saying we want or I think you were saying like, revolving mic positions for everyone. Yeah. And I think we just leave it as a working group and whoever wants to go can go because there might be some times where, I mean, I think we should all go to like one of these meetings, just to see what's up. So let's not cap ourselves for no reason.
So I'm hearing then maybe just voting on creating it as a working group. Alright. So I'm going to create a motion to vote on making a working group for a buck.
Yeah, I'll second it since Yeah.
Wait a second. Yeah, one of you just thinks the one of you just needs to be not a steering committee member. Yeah.
Oh, to motion.
Either way, like we just can't motion and second steering committee only because that way we could just sipping drive the whole agenda.
True. Okay. So let's go and put up to vote. Are we in favor? Those in favor?
Chris, wait, I can't see your hand. chatbox is in front of it. Are there
any opposed? Okay, motion passes.
Next slide. So,
oh yes. I didn't know that cultural Korn day Do we have a report for the event?
I thought either Chris or Paolo could present since they were there.
I really wish I was able to go by I had already made plans. Uh, go ahead,
Chris. Do you have before?
Okay. Yeah, it was, it was a good. I mean, overall, the event was good. It was. We essentially made some connections with the end there. There's so many letters in their acronym that can't the
L claw.
l claw. o clock. O lock law. Sorry,
whack. Whack club. We made some connections law club. They stopped like when people was Sandra. She's running for Lodi city council.
He said. No. Assembly in like 2026. Oh, up in like Sacramento area. Okay. Yeah, it's a bit of way.
That's way off. Okay. Yeah, but it was nice. Like mine people. Overalls, nice to go. I mean, get out of our usual. I've never been I've never even heard of it. And it was cool to witness some different cultural traditions. And I guess it's been going forever. And I had no idea. It was. Yeah, it's really cool. I'll follow Do you have anything to add?
No, I think that was everything. Hello said no. Yeah.
That's That's it for me, then I can't think of too much. I mean, it was cool to
were there any recruits or people interested in WC you?
So Sandra was, which is why I gave her shirt. And I talked to Louise a little bit and talk to his wife, Chris, Christine. She was interested in like the tenant organizing. And so she said to reach out and talk to her once we actually had stuff in Spanish. And Sandra brought up the idea of Sandra is also close to Louise, who's the guy on the right. The idea of using his space as a space for holding some of the Spanish tenant union organizing events. Because a lot of people in that community know him know that location. And then if we have dues, if we could, like, pay him for like hosting the event, it could help with his rent, because I think he sometimes has trouble maintaining the space.
The space that's near like, the food for less, yeah. Okay. I randomly been to that space before. They were like, they were making they were doing a food fundraiser in my family was shopping. And so my sister and I were like, hey, we want some of that. So then we walked into this whole building space like, Whoa, what is going on here? So okay, I'm familiar.
Yeah, it's a very cool place. And so if we could use that connection to actually, you know, do some organizing with the Latino community, that'd be great.
Yeah. Yeah, we just can move on. These mics feel like they're really good for us are. Okay. Alright, so we have our board game night planned, the one that was rescheduled for Sunday, Sunday, September 17. So we have to vote on the time five to seven or six to eight. And yes,
okay. The reason for the vote on the time is I wanted or we had scheduled canvassing at caovilla like right before the board game night. And so we can, just for like an hour. So we can either do do a right before like four to five have or we can do five to six for the canvassing. And it's like, you know, it's down the street from here. So we can either park here and carpool over, and then carpool back. Or we can change the day that we're doing canvassing but think third Sundays is what we voted on for canvassing day for tonight. You need stuff.
So are we are we voting both on the canvassing time and the board game time at the same?
Essentially, as well? Okay. All right. The canvassing times are supposed to be Sunday. I think five. We don't have time. So we just said on Sundays. Okay, so those were set already. The day was set, or at least,
I mean, it seems like maybe whatever time we pick consequentially we'll have to the canvassing will have to be before that. Okay. All right. And then we still need volunteers as well for food board games and question marks.
Anything else that people wondering? Sorry, super quick. Whitney from North Central Valley, DSA said she's available to pop in and say hi, is that okay with everyone? Yes. Okay, let me send her the zoom. But you guys can continue discussing alive figured out how to do this
oh, go ahead. No, go in.
There's three of us. Okay, the question I had was just where the board game was gonna happen the board game night here. Okay, here. Okay.
If you want to
bring like food food or if it's like snack, if it's like snacks, I'll bring my chips and plates for us. Okay.
I have a game I can bring. I don't know. I don't know what we were planning on playing. I kind of forgot.
Monopoly for sure.
Definitely be a good hour, but it would still be fun to start.
Have you seen on no roads barred they have? They kept calm monopoly. It's all about like, it's monopoly but in the Soviet Union?
I have not. It's pretty great. Yeah, now I want to I have some board games. I got Bananagrams you know?
Nice. Yeah, I have cou it's a cart. It's on a board game was a card game though.
But that is a good question. As far as will we be hungry after canvassing or not? Which seems like we might we can
get pizza.
Yeah, there's a Hookah Bar. pepperonis. Like, they got good pizza.
Are they still open though? As
I went, but that's probably six. I'll check.
I happen to see that the on Facebook, they dude was trying to sell the business. And that was I don't know if it was I wasn't sure if it was open or not. But yeah, pizza tacos. Okay,
we have board games, we can bring, like a random selection. We can pick. Yeah.
So we just have to vote on the time. Time,
do we? So do we think that if we're trying to get people on Sunday, do we think that they're going to be more receptive to us between four and five or between five and six?
You mean for the canvassing? Yes.
Yeah, what time did we do last time? That was a weekday, too. Yeah.
It was getting dark. Sorry, I'm not talking to Mike. I think we did about six last time, but it was getting dark.
Was that a Saturday?
Do you remember crimson at Thursday? It was a Thursday.
So I had to have been a little later than because I've finished my day at at five. So maybe it was six.
Like six or seven?
Yeah, like I think it was six or seven.
Um,
well, more importantly, when are we all available?
Yeah. Oh, that's this Sunday
no thoughts? Yeah.
I shouldn't be available whenever the consensus is I think.
Yeah, I feel like the canvassing. I'll definitely be there. I feel like I probably will do six to eight. I don't know if I can stay the whole time, but we can canvass. Are we canvassing the first hour of our wargame night? Are we canvassing the hour before?
It would be before whatever? Gotcha that for an hour. So it's either four to five or five to six for canvassing,
like five to six is probably a better time if we're trying to actually talk to people.
Yeah, I can go with that. Any Okay.
All right. I think we can put it up to a vote of six. Okay, so we're voting Those in favor of the board game, night being six to eight with canvassing five to six. raise a hand. Oh, I met. I really, I was really trying to make sure I didn't forget about those things. And I did. Okay, so we're gonna motion to put this up for a vote.
I second. Okay. Thank you.
And then now we're going to vote for those in favor of six to eight board game time. So hands on hands on those. Alright, so we've got hold on. went okay. It looks like every all hands. Any oppose. Okay. All right. Six, eight. It looks like we have Whitney on. Hi. Feel free yourself. We just
were just doing some in bookkeeping, basically. Oh,
I don't usually use Zoom on my phone. So I'm usually more skilled than this. But I'm here with my my animals. Hey, I'm Whitney. I'm the Interim Chair of North Central Valley dsa. We were Stanislaus DSA. But we kept getting a lot of interest outside the county. And it kept becoming more and more clear to us that the North Central Valley is really its own region. So it made more sense from an organizing perspective to expand to all three counties. So now we're San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Merced. Um, I've been talking to Harpreet, because we got some funding for the UPS strike. And given the strength of the contract that they were offered, they're not striking. So we have a little bit of funding leftover, and we can use it on other organizing that it has to be labor. So I've always wanted to develop an Ewok was a long term goal, kind of a long term plan. But it looks like it's more possible now than I realized. So we're really excited to potentially be working with you all get to know you all get to know San Joaquin County better. Oh, my gosh, tangled yourself and your leash, and just do some really great organizing in the valley.
Awesome, thank you for jumping into our meeting. I don't know. Are there any questions people?
Sure. I think because we had talked about having one position in the committee. But since there's a drop out, we were wondering if like we could fill in this missing spot for PSL.
Yeah. So originally, I don't know how much you guys have talked about already. So just feel free to interrupt me if you know all of this. But originally, we wanted to have North Central Valley DSA why DSA Merced which is actually like a really well organized very left very successful why DSA chapter. And then we also wanted to include PSL and you all um, PSL is great met with them a few times. Faraz was really interested in participating but he is moving to Arizona. Um, so to me, that kind of means. That's like a DSA thing, and we really want you to participate. We really want working class unity to be a part of it. At the same time, I would totally understand if you're like we don't want to do DSA work. That would make perfect sense to me. But I think that a way we can balance that is rather than having like One person from each of these organizations, if you guys are able to commit to people to the Ewok, that would be, I think, ideal. And then we'd have to figure out we're supposed to have a minimum of five on the steering committee. I don't know if that's absolutely required. But then we'd have to figure out, we'd have four people one from wind, DSA, maybe just me from DSA, two of you all, and then where to put that fifth person? My question for all of you, though, is that the steering committee of the Ewok does have to go to some zoom trainings has to meet kind of like monthly, I think, do you have two people who can make that kind of commitment?
I think we're at Yeah, we may have that is kind of what it's looking at. But we we are showing an interest in at least two potentials. So we're still working on identifying them. But we're hoping to have that commitment.
Is to enough for you? Or would you want me to talk to folks about having three spaces for you all? It's a balance of how much labor we're taking from you for this project versus how I want everyone to feel like they're participating equally. Do you have three people?
I don't think we have the capacity for three. Yeah. Yeah, at least not right now. So.
Okay, um, I think that's great. That's fine.
If it's like a big barrier, I can talk to some folks who are like, not in WC right now. Like their interest may be in joining because of Ewok. And we can get like a third that way. But yeah, that's, you know, if we need five I think the DSA resolution said we'd like you need a five people committee. See me? Yeah, we always flexible.
Do Sorry, I'm just my dogs are very active. So I'm just trying to stay aware of all the other dogs and trucks and stuff that are out in this field. So I am paying attention. I'm like, looking around. Um, yeah, I think two people is just fine. I think that's perfectly fine. I think that'd be great. Rather than trying to bring somebody in. I think it'd be better if we just started with five core people. And then we can decide based on how it's developing, if we want to create a situation where people rotate through those positions, if you want to expand that steering, I guess it's a steering committee, that kind of core group. But I think just starting with a small group of people would probably be the most effective way to build the project. So if it's okay with you, I think that our general tomorrow, I might ask if we have another person who wants to take one of the seats from DSA and or if why DSA has two people. I just didn't I don't want you guys to feel like you have a minority opinion. Because it's, it'd be three DSA people and to working class unity. But I'm not I'm not sure what our alternative would be. What do you think?
Yeah, I think, well, I guess for a better understanding of what Ewok would look like, the way I've been describing it is, like the steering committee would meet once a month, at least, you know, maybe it's just canvassing, maybe you meet on another time to like, actually just talk. And then we like rotate positions, through I guess, the different counties. And then, you know, we figured for Santa Kane, like we could pick where the canvassing would happen, but it would be happening like, you know, once every three months, so we could rotate between TSA y DSA and WC. And the committee could just hop from place to place. But then it gets real questions where like, if someone in Merced decides, hey, we want to start a union like are there any obligations for like WC, mem, WC EU members to like have to go down there? Or is it just you know, it'd be nice if you can, but otherwise if someone decides to like unionize in your, quote unquote area. Like if someone in Lodi decides to unionize, then you know, we'd mainly be like, we could take on the responsibility but you guys wouldn't have to come all the way up to Lodi. Like every time we have a Michael we're standing with them while they're striking or something.
Yeah, I mean all of that. comes, comes Thank you. All of that is up to us to decide for sure. Something to know about me in terms of working with me as an organizer, I feel very strongly that I am no one's boss, I am not in charge. I'm not the volunteer director of a nonprofit. Nobody like reports to me. We're all doing this because we want to dedicate time to building the power of the working class. So to answer your question, actually why DSA already has a potential case for us they are planning. And this has already been in the works to unionize their pavilion workers on campus. So we don't have to take that case on. But I think it's a really good opportunity for us to test out working together. Because that campaign is not starting from scratch. We could go down there and canvass those workers, we could try to figure out how we want to work together. And that all that being said, No, nobody's obligated to drive to Merced. If people were unionizing up in San Joaquin, I would want to come up there, I would definitely want to be there in person. But there's lots of ways that we can support workers that doesn't have to be in person. And that's just something we have to figure out by starting to organize together and see what our capacity is, what our interests are, what our priorities are. Just to start building more unions in our area and more like not, you know, it's a specific kind of union, right. It's not a business union. It's supposed to be a union that helps people practice for the socialist economy to come to be democratic to be fighting and militant from the beginning. So I am not the I don't have a strategy, a preformed strategy about how to do that. I want to come up with that plan together as a committee.
And sounds good. Like.
Yeah, that that I mean, that's useful information, I think, for us in general, and then that you said the meeting is tomorrow, the PSA meeting?
Yeah, we have our general tomorrow. Well, will you stop it? Come? Come here. Come here. Thank you. We do have a
multitask. Nothing know about me as an organizer. I'm obviously not very good at multitasking. But yes, we have our general meeting tomorrow. You all are welcome to come. I think. A couple I think some people might be DSA members, if I'm not mistaken. Just kind of eyeballing the list. We have some people up in San Joaquin County. I don't know if that's the case. Yeah, you're all welcome to come, I will pray if you don't have the meeting information. I'll send it to you this evening. I completely invite you to do a vibe check. We had a massive overhaul in our leadership that moved us from some pretty centrist positions to further left. So I really invite you to come see what we're talking about and how and what we're like to try to figure out you know, what you want to do moving forward? I think I probably have to start heading. Heading in in a second. But if it's not too much trouble, I would like to know everyone's name would you mind?
Yeah, my name is Adri. Right here. Hi.
Oh, hi, Wendy.
My name is Paulo. Hi. I'm Joanna.
Harpreet great. My name is Chris. I'm Riley.
What's your dog's name? Yeah.
I was just about to say oh my gosh, Bella. Hold on. One of them escaped. She can come with me to come get her Bella Princess Bella Luna sparkle puffs. He does not have recall. This is my Pyrenees who her territory is as far as she can wander. And then the other one step. This is Sir Walter sparks wildly he is well trained and he does listen. But these are my two enormous hounds. I spent a lot of time entertaining them.
Awesome.
Yeah. Well, I do have to head in because we have a bit of a we will have to show you guys where we walk. We walk out here. This is where we live. This beautiful part of the valley in Merced. Merced city Merced County. Yeah, I mean, I wish i i wish that my first impression that I'm giving you all is not a frazzled version of me trying to control a dog running away and my problem is that They'll make a better more professional and reliable impression tomorrow evening at our, our general I hope you all can come. But we'll be in touch and I'm really excited about working with you all and hopefully we can start building something soon.
Great, perfect. Thank you for joining us. Thank you
for letting me have a good meeting yeah
I almost did the YouTube thing. I'm like
okay, you can upload I was like what do I say?
That is one of the issues with having like a with having a national organization behind you. She just is gonna always expect more good preparedness I think whereas we're I think we're gonna end up being like the the scrappy underdogs in this organization.
They were very professional. Okay, look at our hybrid meeting. Yeah. Well, it's working alright as
so I will say that so I don't know if you guys want to comment on what we just heard a little bit so what I'm so okay, it since PSL dropped out right. There is going to be five members. We'll have two of them. Why DSA we'll have one North North Valley we'll have one or two to
back to. Okay. But DSA and DSA are like the same thing.
So and so for the Ewok. There's, for us to get like DSA is help with it. Basically, we would have to send our two representatives or delegates or whatever to training, right. Do you want training?
Yes. Three weeks one hour trainings?
Three single days or three? Three days? Yes. Three days. Okay.
When I read Yeah. And they're pretty basic. Like I don't like you don't have to take down notes or anything. If you've like done basic union organizing. It's basically that.
Okay. Yeah, I mean, I so the, the benefit, obviously, the benefit of it being of us like the, like having, I don't know if she's offering three because she wants us to feel more involved or it. I don't really know how to have a good feeling for how big North Valley is. Go to the meeting and find out. Yeah, that's all right. Well, shit. Boom. Yeah, wait heartbeat whenever you if you get the information. I definitely, if I can go, I definitely will ever look
at it. I'm like, Well, I'm still a DSA member. So they emailed me.
Well, yeah, what time is meeting then?
I don't know. I think sometime around same time. Like now. Okay.
I can try to do check it out. Or
tried to check. Yeah, let's show up and out number. Yeah.
That would be that would be such a power move.
Like plot twist.
But they're so big now. Like with three counties? I can't? No, there's no way. Yeah, a big chunk of people.
Do you know they have a good representation from someone King, though?
I don't think so. Like I know, there are a lot of paper members in Santa Kane who haven't been active. So like, because there used to be. Remember, you found the link there was like a committee to make a DSA chapter here. And those people may still be paper members. But like, I know them, and they won't even come here. So I don't know that go to that even. They seem pretty checked out. Yeah.
So it's Yeah, I mean, because the counties are big, but like,
right, three. So they have some big territory. Yeah.
So they have the same problem that every DSA chapter has basically, it and I imagine it's probably like, more pronounced here. I wonder I'm curious. I want to know.
Should we speed run through the rest? We're like, Yeah, we're
sorry. You, you, oh, wait, WC tasks.
I can present this one. Okay. So we've been, we went back and forth on how to do like a task setup for us. And we came up with no good solutions. And so we've got
mine. My suggestions didn't work.
So the apps were all like, paid or, you know, you have to make new accounts. And it's just
Do you had to pay per account was the big thing.
Most of them are like that? Yeah, you have to pay per account as like a team member. And so we could either do like a Google sheet, but we thought, there's really zero notifications with that. And while the web while the forum shoddily does notification, sometimes, it's silly sometimes. And so we now have a, another section on the website called the VCU tasks. The, you know, you can tag each other in it, you can tag like the type. So you know, if you select tenant unions, it'll filter out only tenant union tasks. And as we add more, as long as we tag it properly, you can filter what kind of tasks you have to work on. So if you look into this, we have two tasks in there right now. The tenant handbook development is we went through lot twos handbook, me Riley and power. And we highlighted yellow all the stuff we thought applies Sampson County, because it's California wide. And in green, all the stuff that we thought was, we got to research more. And we're just asking folks to go like download the PDF. If you're going to research a section, just leave a comment saying I'm working on this. And then reply once you actually have the information. And for researching landlords, it's a document that we already had prepared on, like the kind of info to get and kind of where to get it. So if you want to take on like a portion of it to see the name of the app, like which offers the contact info and stuff for like deeds, and for complaints, etc. Just reply and say, like, I'm gonna look into this. And that way you can take it on. If anyone else has any tasks that you want someone else like that we need to work on, just make a category, like make a thread here, and leave it here. And then eventually, we'll figure out the notification problem. But until then, this seemed like the cheapest course of action. And plus, we can connect it to like our meeting notes and stuff. So it's kind of everything's in one spot, instead of being like in various apps and stuff.
Plus, we can always, like, if we also want to keep separate, like Google Docs, we can still just post them here. And it'll be effectively the same thing. So we'll get twice as much goodness.
Yeah. And and the worry with Google taking over and like maybe, like displaying all our stuff, at least with this. It's open source, we own the data. And so we can just like download the entire forum and host it somewhere else. And there's no worry of us having to lose, like all of our work. Okay, that was it. Okay.
So what was the the campaign? Okay.
Yeah, so these are just the updates on the dates. canvassing, Cavalia was this Sunday, so we set the time for it. The 21st is the is another committee meeting on at 6pm. Online, and then tenant canvassing. This is the final Thursday. We can either return to Cavalia, I'm guessing we will have to return to Cavalia. So just assume that cover letter but that's kind of the you know, as the tenant union campaign manager so far, the dates we're setting for that. Yeah. And then you want to present this part? Sorry, I know you're just reading it for the first Yeah,
no, that's fine. Improv, always help practice that. So canvassing for the tenant union. Some pointers, reminders for people. So don't forget, when canvassing for a tenant union of like political canvassing focuses on directly influencing influencing our relationships within the community. I think that's a good point. Also, we aim to enhance collective action and transform how we interact with each other rather than mediating these relationships through politicians or policies. And this direct approach to community improvement is a distinctive aspect of our canvassing efforts.
Yeah, my main point was trying to distinguish this from normal canvassing for politicians or for policy. Like a which sucks Yeah, like faith in the valley, which launched their own Stockton tenant unit.
Did you get to look into that? I did.
Did you watch the video? Okay, I didn't I skim through it. And they were ready, just talking about legislation and they held another event where a lot of community members didn't show up. But they were taking pledges for like, I support AB blah blah blah, which was like some, like pieces. close relation. I mean, the legislation is always nice, but you know, it's it's lobbying, which is not what we're trying to do. So I just wanted to, if anyone asks us, like, what are you doing different? Because they may have heard it, they were even on the radio, watching their thing. And so if anyone asks what's different? I think people will be very receptive to the fact that if we say we're not lobbying politicians, we just want tenants to work together. And, you know, use our collective ability to push back on our landlord instead.
Can we just have faith in the valley do any marketing for us? Maybe in the future? It seems like they are able to get a lot of people never. Okay, yeah. Not not a serious inquiry. Okay. Good. Yeah, definitely important. Yes.
Holy. Yeah. Okay.
I just think it's a holy. So I'm, I remember these from the last time, we talked about canvassing getting people involved or in conversation. So just pointers, the acronym, a hui. And making sure to ask, agitate and anchors, ask them questions, identifying the issues and tap into righteous anger. But then also directing the anger into hope, sharing your plan to win or examples of success, and then letting people know the level of urgency. Now is the time to act on these things. And then asking them, can we count on you for those things?
Yeah, this is just kind of the steps to remember when we're out canvassing.
Okay, are we sorry, really quick? Are we doing the survey? Yeah. Okay. Just Just checking. I know, we talked about a little bit, but I wasn't sure. Oh.
Well, are we just taking the Cleveland one?
Cleveland, but whatever it was, yeah. Or law two or whatever? Yeah. Okay.
All right. Yeah. It's different types of questions you can ask. First, starting with introducing yourself and identifying yourself as being a member of working class unity tenant union, involving volunteers, asking neighbors in the area to complete a quick survey. And that we want to know if there were any issues with pessimal to repair or other concerns that they have, and then lead into agitation questions and polarizing questions.
Yeah, just the expand because I did not do a good job on the slide. Sorry. So this would be kind of the script for this weekend, you know, introducing ourselves as members of WC, you tenant union. And clarifying that we're volunteers from all across San Joaquin County. And then you know, you can say I'm a tenant from whatever part of Stockton Lodi you're from. And we start with, we can start with a survey, like we're asking our neighbors in this area to complete this quick survey about living conditions? Like would you be interested in doing that? And most likely, they will turn you down. And so you can just leave that into Oh, well, we're just we just wanted to know, if there were any issues with, you know, mold repairs or pets. And that's what the survey asks anyways, the survey is really kind of a way to get an in to get them to talk to us about the issues. And then after that, you know, you can go over the previous slide, I know it's running late. So I think we should just kind of fast forward to them. But we had talked about how to agitate. So if someone says like, oh, there's like a pest problem, you know, how long it's been going on? Like, don't you think the landlord should taking care of this? Etc, etc. And then polarizing, like, who should be fixing it? You know, it shouldn't be our responsibility to fix this stuff, right? It should be landlords, etc. I mean, happy to like, we'll go over this again, one more time before we canvass. Or if you want to DM me, you can. But we also, like outlined this in the last meeting as well. And the PowerPoint from that, from that meeting has a lot of comments in the speaker notes section. So you can also read over that. We'll have more information. All right.
Next slide. Okay, and this just elaborates over the other stuff.
Yeah. So just to finish real quick. So the plan, you know, they say, okay, yeah, I'm upset. I'm mad, like, What the fuck do you want me to do? You know, we can present our solution with like, you know, from what we've seen, the best way to address this, is tenants get together and talk about the issue and you know, we find a collective solution to it. Because usually, you know, you're not gonna be only on one. If you're canvassing already and people talk to us, you can say, hey, some other neighbor was having some other problem, too. So the apps would be, we're gonna be holding a tenant meeting here like early next month. Would you be interested in joining like, we haven't set a time for it, but I'm assuming it will take us a couple of weeks of canvassing to actually hit everyone up and see if there's an issue that we should even have a meeting for once we can get that done. If they are like reluctant to join, you can say, hey, some other neighbor was having some other issue. Like I think it's really important to get everyone together. And then if they say yes or no, you can just say, you know, well, either we can just get your phone number, maybe you'll change your mind and just jot down their contact information. And then if they seem really enthused, remind them, we're coming back on the 28th. Would you like to join us and like, help us knock on some doors because you probably know some people in this area more than we do. So that's kind of the play. You know, we'll print out our survey. And hopefully, we'll have some flyers for WSU. But any questions about that?
No. for me. Okay. Cool. All right.
Okay, we're gonna adjourn the meeting. Motion.
Second.
All those in favor of a journey
all right. Beautiful. All those opposed. No.
I don't know why. I don't know why I open my mouth and say all this will be done in an hour.
We have it on
what's it called? Was it
Is it because you're an eternal optimist? Is that why? All right. All right. Motion passes.
All right. Beautiful. Thank you. Everyone. dropped the mic, Brian.
I guess Okay. i Well, I feel like I was overruled, but I still want the meeting to go on for the next 10 years this just continuously
yes, we're not going to Paris.
meetings been going
we cannot leave
I don't know. I do. Remember hopping on.
No. Okay. Yeah, no problem. I I got here as soon as I could. Work just doesn't want to let me go.
Nothing. We start at 620. So yeah, really? We're only like 10 minutes late to so yes. Okay, great. So don't include the
time I forgot I had to leave the meeting. So but yeah, um, until next time, bye.
