Notes of Democafe meeting, 2-4pm on Saturday 12th December 2015
at The Forge, Delancey Street, Camden NW1 7NL

Present: Janos (chair), Sara, Mary (notes).  Apologies: Michael (in France), Trevor

1. MINUTES of the last meeting held on Saturday 5th December 2015.

2.  MATTERS ARISING from the MINUTES:

2.1 Housing Event:  Sara reported that London Quakers have responded positively to her request for a table at the day conference on February 20th 2016, where there would be like-minded people called: Housing and Inequality – what canst THOU do?  This could be a scaled-down version of a presentation, with “house-sales” of an updated DemoCafe position paper on “Housing – a Place to Live”: http://www.londonquakers.org.uk/events/housing-and-inequality-–-what-canst-thou-do – we felt that this would be an opportunity to try out the presentation and get valuable feedback. As Sara plans to be away in Russia at the time of this event, we hope that someone else can carry this forward – email to follow.

2.2 Origins and Mission of DemoCafe: In Michael’s latest Letter from France he recalls that DemoCafe was set up as an initiative of 38-degrees, which Sara endorsed – MichaelMulvey-151210.

3.  UPDATES

3.1 Free Critical Thinking:  Daily Pickings, edited by Clive Menzies:
http://www.freecriticalthinking.org – topics this week included: Money makes the war go round, For whom does the bell toll?, Hidden power and energy, Beyond the fundamental flaws, The ebb and flow of progress, and Hierarchy and the law.

3.2 London Global Open Table: includes a wide variety of “Matters in the Air” and Forthcoming Events: http://globaltable.org.uk/wp/forthcoming-events

4. TOPIC FOR DISCUSSION

We discussed further how to propagate DemoCafe, in response to Mary’s idea that if we send out an agenda, with links to a choice of topics which might stimulate discussion, we could suggest to people to meet in small groups, either in cafes or at home, and send reports back via the Discussion List, which we could also add to the website if appropriate.  This depended on preparing an agenda in advance. It was agreed that this was a reasonable way forward.

5.  NEXT MEETING to be held on Sat 19th December 2015 – we aim to produce a draft agenda in advance and invite all readers to suggest additional items by email to discuss@democafe.uk.  Do let us know about local meetings you have held.  Apologies for the Camden meeting can also be sent to group@democafe.uk.