Minutes from Democafe meeting, Saturday 4th July 2015 held from 2pm to 4pm at The Forge, Delancey Street, Camden NW1 7NL.

Present: James Richmond (chair), Michael Mulvey, Janos Abel, Eddie Farrell, Sara Jolly, Mary Fee. Apologies: Denise Arnold, Alan Spence, Carol McNichol.

Minutes of the meeting held on Saturday 27th June 2015 were accepted.

Matters arising:  Michael reported that Alastair Murray of Housing Justice might attend specific events but didn’t want to be on the mailing list.

Structure of DemoCafe: Michael recommended appointing a principal person to manage the group, with a deputy.  Eddie recalled, at the initial meeting, the agreement that the chair would rotate. Michael felt that the role of “convenor” is more important, to confirm the venue and time of the meeting.  James wondered if convenor and chair could be rolled into one, and Sara Jolly offered to take on the role of Convener, with Eddie as back-up.  It was agreed to appoint the following persons: Sara Jolly – Convener, Mary Fee – Minute-taker, James Richmond – Website gate-keeper.  It was agreed that each of the aforementioned Principals should be assisted by another member of the group to alleviate the burden and stand-in when absent.

Website Management:  Mary explained that regular attendees have access as contributors. Mary, as minute-taker, puts up the initial draft for the chair who then updates, tags and publishes the post.  She also needs a deputy who can help with managing the website, with editor access, and James said he would be willing. This led to a discussion about the effectiveness of Google in finding websites such as this one and the need to include metadata.  It was agreed to update “Our Campaigns” to “Current Thinking” on the top bar, which Mary did in a mini-training session with James and Michael after the meeting.  In due course one option would be a subscriber list managed from the website.

Expanding DemoCafe:  Janos was keen to set up more DemoCafes.  James felt there was a danger of running before walking if we tried to expand too soon, and Michael agreed that we need to be viable here first.  Once we were ready, Mary wondered how additional DemoCafes would be co-ordinated, and mentioned that she had attended an initial meeting of a media campaign group, which included individuals able to do film and radio broadcasting, which would be a way of supporting propagation, i.e. setting an agenda for discussion at other locations, when we are ready, and possibly having a moderated discussion group.

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HOUSING – Policy Paper:  Michael had received a paper from Trevor Griffiths, member of the Green Party, a summary of which he read out, and would like to invite him to address a meeting. Mary had suggested also working with Housing Justice – http://www.housingjustice.org.uk and looking at models for co-operative enterprise in housing investment, e.g. Chris Cook’s ideas: http://opencapital.net.  There was also a small co-op in Tower Hamlets group who were struggling for their survival in the face of the Council’s wish to sell off their flats for development.  Michael would try and produce a position paper before he goes back to France, on 23rd July.

Event:  Eddie had prepared a paper re. preparations for the forthcoming event,  which he read out, and it was felt that September would be a good time for this.
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Next week’s meeting:  It was agreed that everyone should be free to attend the Confederation Rally at Hinde Street 1.30-4.30pm next and that we could meet afterwards from 4.30pm.  Sara would broadcast this message.

Unexamined Items carried over to next meeting:
Health     DCCCT (Alan)
Drugs      DCCCT (Carol)
Media DCCCT (?)
Greens – relations with
Local Press – relations with
AOB Propagating the Democafe idea (Janos)

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