Open General Membership Meeting: Sun 25 Nov 07

Hmmm... I've been a little distracted and unwell this week, and I notice... no OGMM announcement, no more Activity Outlines, and I've not got round to the Second Shit enhancements I intend to make. Ah, well, I'm not giving up on the CPSL THAT easily! So...

All Party members are invited and encouraged to attend our OGMM from 11:00am (to 13:00 PST at the latest) which is 19:00 to 21:00 GMT, on Sun 25 Nov 07, in our CPSL HQ Garden Campfire Gathering Area:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vigdorova/37/204/74

I have been writing up a recommendation called "Structured Agenda for our OGMMs – A Proposal", but it still needs polishing up, so I'm afraid it's unlikely to be posted before this forthcoming OGMM. Nevertheless, I'll aim to arrive with a structured agenda, and a willingness to chair the meeting.

What would be a great help to us all is if YOU, dear CPSL comrade reader, could decide which one or more of these meeting roles you'd like to do, and be ready to jump right in at agenda item number...

2. Meeting Roles – Quick Saying Round – Anybody who wants to volunteer
We need volunteers for these roles at this meeting:
• Chairperson – to facilitate this meeting (that'll me be, unless we've another comrade champing at the bit)
• Minutesperson – to create this meeting's minutes notecard from its 'Near Me' chat log, and publish it
• Time Keeper – to remind us of timing issues, including as we approach end-of-meeting time
• Greeter – to greet new folks as they arrive, clarifying their speaking rights if necessary; and bid folks who need to leave farewell

Other items will include 'What Are We Going To Do Now?' (™ Spike Milligan's estate, 6.1 below), 'Supporting the Lag4Peace "Don't Iraq Iran" Day of Protest' next Sat 01 Dec (on which note there's an Action Planning meeting on Sun 25 Nov 07, 10:00am at Commonwealth 3 - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Commonwealth%203/15/26/22 ), and...

5. Items for Decision
• For items already discussed at the previous OGMM, or appearing at Second Shift before the previous Fri, 11:00am PST (19:00 GMT)
5.1 CPSL Pakistan Solidarity Actions – Contributions Round – Everybody
CPSL Solidarity Actions with our sister and brother comrades in Pakistan? – Lupe Matova

6. Items for Discussion (and Decision where required)
• For items not already discussed at a previous OGMM (or not already discussed enough), or appearing at Second Shift after the previous Fri, 11:00am PST (19:00 GMT)
6.1 Future CPSL Activities – Contributions Round – Everybody
On choosing 'Future CPSL Activities' – do we continue to urge comrades to post written Activity Outlines to Second Shift (to: http://cpsl-ss.blogspot.com/2007/11/future-cpsl-activities.htm ) for discussion and selection at OGMMs? – Dalinian Bing

6.2 CPSL Meeting Types – Contributions Round – Everybody
On determining 'CPSL Meeting Types – Definitions & Speaking Rights' (see: http://cpsl-ss.blogspot.com/2007/11/cpsl-meeting-types-definitions-speaking.html – needs updating to cover Voting Rights; update will be notified by GN) – for discussion in general, and decision in particular: how will we conduct our OGMMs? – Dalinian Bing

Given the relative lateness of this posting, I'd not be surprised by a lack of "I'll be there, and I'll volunteer for [meeting role]" or "Sorry, can't come but have a good one" comments below. AND three of the former would be MOST EXCELLENT!

In Solidarity

Dalinian Bing

Open General Membership Meeting: Sun 18 Nov 07

All Party members are invited and encouraged to attend our OGMM at 11:00am PST (19:00 GMT) on Sun 18 Nov 07, in our CPSL HQ Garden Campfire Gathering Area:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vigdorova/37/204/74

To make our CPSL a vibrant organisation again, we want to encourage the active participation of as many Party members as possible. At our OGMM on Sun 11 Nov 07, there was consensus agreement on holding weekly OGMMs at 11:00am PST in our CPSL HQ Garden Campfire Gathering Area. So if you use an electronic diary, you can set a recurring weekly entry for that date, time and place; and/or do something similar with a pen and paper diary.

On Sun 18 Nov we'll be discussing ideas and suggestions for 'Future CPSL Activities' – from the Activity Outlines added as comments to the post of that name below. So assuming you have an idea of what our Party's next step should be, please sketch it out in an Activity Outline and add it as a comment on the 'Future CPSL Activities' post – for more details and how to do so, please see the post 'Future CPSL Activities' below.

As part of the rejuvenation of our CPSL as an active political party, we need to encourage and support each other's participation – because being an active communist means being involved in a social activity, not an individual pursuit. So we need to help each other to build a Party culture that engenders the creation of "a vibrant 'political club'-idea", as Smoke put it, and Enferinel concurred. One part of this culture is tackling tasks socially – so if any of us needs help or support or encouragement, we should be able to feel free to ask for what we need from our Party comrades, at an OGMM, in Group IM Chat, by one-to-one IM or by notecard message. Another part is making an advance commitment to carry through with a Party task – from attending a meeting, via putting something down in writing, to helping organise an event.

So let's agree this foundation to our Party culture: to help us build our weekly OGMMs, we use a Second Shift post like this one as a 'Sign Up Sheet' – you register that you WILL be attending the forthcoming meeting by adding a comment to this post (or giving your apologies for non-attendance in advance, so we know you want to come but won't be able to make it). And do please do feel free to call your comrades by IM, to ask them to sign up for attendance here, and to attend this and future regular weekly OGMMs.

Hope to see you on Sunday,

In Solidarity,

Dalinian Bing

Speeding Communications with Abbreviations

Most folks talk faster than they can type, so text chat in one-to-one IM, Group IM Chat, and at meetings can seem slow by comparison. One good way of speeding text chat up is by using abbreviations and acronyms – short hand ways to say something that would otherwise take significantly longer to type in, which can improve speed and accuracy. Such use is socially determined by the setting in which it occurs, and this usage can be off-putting to people who are new to that setting. So to help bring these benefits to communication between comrades and at our Party meetings, I've assembled a quick list of the commonly used abbreviations and acronyms we're most likely to use, drawn from the chat transcripts of our first two OGGMs – hope you find it useful.

AFAIK    As Far As I Know
AFAIR    As Far As I Recall
AFK      Away From Keyboard
AR       Abuse Report, or the SL Abuse Reporting and
         arbitrary 'justice' system
ATM      At The Moment
BRB      Be Right Back
BTW      By The Way
CPSL     Communist Party of Second Life
CPSL HQ  Communist Party of Second Life Headquarters:
         http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vigdorova/37/204/74
FYI      For Yor Information
GN       Group Notice
HUD      Head Up Device – in Second Life usage, usually a gadget
         that you attach to one of your Viewer's eight HUD points
IM       Instant Message, the chat channels used to talk to
         individuals and Groups
IMHO     In My Humble Opinion
IMO      In My Opinion
IRL      In Real Life
ISL      In Second Life
LOL      Laugh Out Loud
OGMM     Open General Membership Meeting – in CPSL usage; currently
         every Sunday at 11:00am PST (=19:00 GMT) at CPSL HQ
RL       Real Life
SL       Second Life
SLURL    Second Life Uniform Resource Locator, providing direct
         teleport links to locations in Second Life
         More info: http://slurl.com
TY       Thank You
WB       Welcome Back

Note: although the left hand column shows CAPITALS, in chat the lower case is sometimes used to further speed up text chat.

In Membership Meetings
Comrade's initials, eg AA = Alys Abruzzo, are much quicker and easier to type than typing their first name in full.

Time References

GMT      Greenwich Mean Time
PDT      Pacific Daylight Time
PST      Pacific Standard Time (Note that during summer daylight saving
         time/summer time is observed, and PDT is used instead)
SLT      Second Life Time, ie: PST in winter, PDT in summer (in the
         Northern hemisphere, & vise versa in the Southern hemisphere)

http://www.timeanddate.com
...is he best website I've found for keeping track of world time, from taking account of daylight saving times, via setting up a 'Personal World Clock', to finding out when a future event will occur in your time-zone with the 'Fixed Time World Clock', and many other time related tasks.

Please add a comment below with your suggestion(s) for additions, and I'll add them to the list above.

In Solidarity,

Dalinian Bing

CPSL Meeting Types – Definitions & Speaking Rights

I'm aware that this may provoke some controversy, but I think we need to begin considering how to best manage our time together in meetings that our CPSL sets up. Although in my experience so far, we have only held Open General Membership Meetings (OGMMs), I think we need to define the different categories of meetings we are likely to convene in the short to medium term, and consider how we conduct those meetings so that everybody who attends knows what to expect. So here's my first stab at doing so: three categories, ranged in the order of most public to most private.

Open Public Gathering – OPG – on a specific topic, eg: "Military Dictatorships – What Good is Solidarity?"
> Attendees – Open to all residents of Second Life interested in discussing the subject at hand.
> Frequency – Indeterminate; a matter on which we need to decide.
> Publicity – Announced by a post on Second Shift, listed in SL Events, promoted by comrades through groups to which they belong, via Group Notice and Group IMs, and any other channels we feel are appropriate.
> Agenda – Determined in advance; the title of the OPG will be part of the advanced publicity.
> Speakers – Introductory speakers determined in advance; in the following discussion, everybody gets an equal right to talk uninterrupted for an equal amount of time, provided we all stick to addressing the issue at hand; we set the boundaries of the discussion in advance, and reserve the right to re-focus a speaker who wanders too far outside those boundaries, but we rely on there being sufficient communists willing to speak to fly the red flag for our communist ideas, rather than get 'the fix' in by a biased chairperson choosing to favour 'our comrades' over 'that other lot'.
> Identification – Before we arrive at the meeting, we make our current active group either Communist Party or Communist Group, so the appropriate group title shows above our names.
> Introduction – As the meeting begins, we remind everyone of our OPG protocol, and ask them to choose to activate a group to which they belong, and with which they'd like others at the gathering to associate them.


Open General Membership Meeting – OGMM
> Attendees – Open to the membership of the Communist Party and the Communist Group, with other folks welcome to attend.
> Frequency – Currently happening weekly at 11:00am PST (19:00 GMT) in the CPSL HQ Garden Campfire Gathering Area.
> Publicity – Announced by a post on Second Shift, with comrades encouraged to use the announcement post as a 'Sign Up Sheet' – you register that you WILL be attending the forthcoming meeting by adding a comment to that post (or giving your apologies for non-attendance in advance, so we know you want to come but won't be able to make it).
> Agenda – No rigidly defined agenda, unless agreed in advance at a previous OGMM.
> Speakers – Speaking rights for folks who arrive as members of the of the Communist Party or the Communist Group; other folks welcome to listen in as observers, and to join in any post-meeting discussions.
> Identification – Before we arrive at the meeting, we make our current active group either Communist Party or Communist Group, so the appropriate group title shows above our names.
> Introduction – As the meeting begins, we remind everyone of our OGMM protocol.


Closed Internal Party Meeting – CIPM
> Attendees – Open only to members of the Communist Party; this would be the only category of meeting where we would consider using the technical restrictions of land access permissions to only permit Communist Party members to attend.
> Frequency – Indeterminate; a matter on which we need to decide.
> Publicity – Announced by Group Notice to the Communist Party.
> Agenda – Indeterminate; a matter on which we need to decide.
> Speakers – All Communist Party members present may speak.
> Identification – Before we arrive at the meeting, we make our current active group the Communist Party.
> Introduction – As the meeting begins, we remind everyone of our CIPM protocol.


This is my no means an attempt to 'set in stone' a procedural dogma. Rather it's the starting point for a discussion about this issue, on which I hope we'll hear plenty of opinions, and arrive at some point at an initial agreement on how we conduct our meetings. And since such agreements are not procedural dogma either, I hope and trust we will revisit this issue and revise our agreements in the light of our collective experience, as and when necessary. Such agreements are not of indefinite duration, but a flexible democratic process that we can change over time to best suit the needs of our Party.

So if you're outraged at such formalism, disagree with some or all of the above, moved to join in this discussion or determined to express yourself for any other reason, then do add a comment below this post.

In Solidarity,

Dalinian Bing

Open General Membership Meeting: Sun 11 Nov 07

All Party members are invited and encouraged to attend at 11:00am PST, which is 19:00 GMT, on Sun 11 Nov 07, in the CPSL HQ Garden Campfire Gathering Area:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vigdorova/37/204/74

We want to encourage the active participation of as many Party members as possible, so as to make CPSL a vibrant organisation again. Here's how you can begin your active participation.

> Step 1: Register that you WILL be attending the forthcoming meeting by leaving a comment to this post (or give your apologies for non-attendance in advance, so we know you want to come but won't be able to make it).
> Step 2: Please do feel free to call your comrades by IM, to ask them to sign up for attendance here, and to attend this and future regular weekly open general membership meetings.
> Step 3: Give some thought to the future activities you would like to see our CPSL initiate, and post your ideas and suggestions here -- for more details and how to do so, please see the post 'Future CPSL Activities' below.

On Sun 11 Nov we'll be...

> Hearing report-backs from people who volunteered to take responsibilities arising from issues raised in the previous meeting on Sun 04 Nov 07 (minutes of which are available from our Group Notices Archive & a notecard giver at CPSL HQ)
> Discussing ideas and suggestions for 'Future CPSL Activities' -- from the post of that name below, and from those that arise from comrades at the meeting

Hope to see you there,

In Solidarity,

Dalinian Bing

Future CPSL Activities

At our previous open general membership meeting on Sun 04 Nov 07 (minutes of which are available from our Group Notices Archive & a notecard giver at CPSL HQ), there was consensus approval for this Proposal:

A Beginning of Activity: for 2 weeks we have general meeting, and all us and all comrades expose in this meeting their ideas about activities.

So at the next two general meetings on Sun 11 and Sun 18 Nov 07 we'll be discussing and possibly voting on which activity/activities our Party will focus its efforts in the near future.

I agreed to develop and publicise a way for comrades to publish their outlines of suitable activities for CPSL's next step, in advance of our regular Sunday open general meetings. Doing it this way has at least four distinct advantages...
> 1. Our minds are focused in advance on what we would like to see our CPSL doing in the near future
> 2. We take the time to make our idea(s) concrete by writing it/them down in outline form
> 3. Those written idea(s) outlines are published in an easily accessible place, so we can read each others outlines in advance of discussing them
> 4. At the following regular Sunday meeting, we can have an informed discussion about our outlines, rather than just arriving relatively unprepared

The easiest method is to share your idea(s) outline on future CPSL activities right here in Second Shift, by adding them as a comment to this post. So just click on the comments link below, and enter your outline. You may find it useful to write your idea(s) outline in a word processor (free examples: TextEdit on OS X, WordPad on Windows, or Google Docs in your web browser) then copy-and-paste it into a comment here. And do please remember to include a title and your name within your outline, so can accurately refer to it in the discussion meetings, for instance: Enferinel's 'Recruitment Drive' idea.

In Solidarity,

Dalinian Bing