# OCF Monthly Community Forum - September 2022

## Agenda
**Intro/Check-In**
*[Who are you? Where are you from? What initiative are you with? What brought you to the forum? What is a cause that you are passionate about and would like others to invest more attention in?]*

* Nii Lee - JeSuisNiiLee Mutual Aid - Extremely passionate about LGBTQ care, nurturing community, chosen family and liberation for queer trans people specifically those of color. Initiating grantmaking program to support those experiencing housing, job, or health insecurity. Hosting a Thanksgiving gathering for those who will not or cannot be able to return home.
* Karen - The Missing Piece - Passionate about shifting the way we talk about mental or emotional health. Normalize all of the different ways we talk about what we are experience and creating spaces for full visibility of neurodivergence.
* Joe - SPEC - Loves coming to the forum to connect with other initiatives. Passionate about sustainability and equality. Empowering people for underserved communities and those underrpresented in technology. Also excited to talk with others about the neurodiversity space and supporting collective members with mental health needs.
* Nan - SPEC - Loves learning more about other collectives and has been away for the summer. Do lots of work addressing diversity issues. Most of the contributors in their journal are from underrpresented communities and topics that are relative to those communities. Also water and environmental issues in the world.
* Cory - JeSuisNiiLee Mutual Aid - Passionate about Black and Brown LGBTQ youth homelessness. Collective addresses this issues and creating programs to address these communities. Also passionate about healing religious trauma syndrome which particularly impacts queer communities.
* Angie - OCF Board Member - Joined the board recently. President/CEO of Center for Cultural Innovation (only serves people not institutions). CCI looks at labor issues and expanding the social contract for individual workers.
* Mike - OCF Program Manager/Kola Nut - Passionate about social/economic/political/organizational citizenship and deepening participation of people in groups or society.
* Reshama - Data Umbrella - Passionate about open source and contributing to open source.
* Roshi - Triple Justice Collective - Passionate about climate justice. Cities Feed Cities mobilizes people to grow food wherever they are and working with a low-income housign building in Oakland to pilot a program.

**Review of [new updates](https://opencollective.com/foundation/updates) from OCF**

* [OCF seeking 1 to 2 new board members](https://www.collectivediaspora.org/)
* [Solidarity School syllabus](https://opencollective.com/foundation/updates/ocf-solidarity-school-syllabus-phase-1-building-on-our-shared-capacity) is still evolving and invites collectives to pitch their own workshop proposals.

**Agile Check-Ins (What are your blockers?)**

**Offers and Needs Market**
*[What does your collective need right now?]*

* Nii Lee - JeSuisNiiLee Mutual Aid - needs financial sponsorship for budding collective
* Karen - The Missing Piece - Balancing the number of administrative tasks (invoicing, accounting, marketing) with programmatic work that are needed within their collective
* Joe - SPEC - needs more participatory and democratic capacity building within collective; also funding is always a value add. Offers interns and research assistants to support other collectives.
* Nan - SPEC - ""
* Cory - JeSuisNiiLee Mutual Aid - needs organizational capacity building for internal structures
* Angie - OCF Board Member - Open board seats for collective members to join whether there are people in this room or others to whom you are connected. Startup/growth mode is current phase which are balanced with standard board tasks. (Mike shares that as a staff he experiences a lot of room for worker self-direction in relationship to the OCF board)
* Mike - OCF Program Manager/Kola Nut - Need skills learning and insight that collective admins are developing to show up for other collectives in containers such as the Forum Spotlight or Solidarity School. Also interested in sharing timebanking as a practice for other city or regional organizing; also willing to share more about Black Abolitionist Solidarity Economy (BASE) Fellowship with others.
* Reshama - Data Umbrella - No asks. Labor day weekend and prioritizing rest.
* Roshi - Triple Justice Collective - Would like others to share information about their Peoples Assembly teach-in.

**Closing**