Long Island Food Not Bombs Meeting Tonight, 7pm @ Cinema Arts Centre

Tonight at 7pm Long Island Food Not Bombs will be meeting at the Cinema Arts Centre to discuss our collective efforts for the year ahead. This will be one of the Largest Food Not Bombs meetings of the year and we hope you come down and check out what all the hoopla is about. Bring friends, Spread the Word, Food is a Right, Not a Privilege!

For more information about the meeting you can find the agenda bellow.

Contact Information:

Location:

Background:

Long Island Food Not Bombs shares free groceries, clothing, books, toys, seeds, plants and other necessities year round at our weekly food shares in Hempstead, Huntington & Farmingville.

Each week communities of thousands stand in solidarity together united against the social and economic injustices faced by all. It is astounding what Long Island FNB has been able to accomplish but the challenges ahead are even greater and the only way we can take everything to the next level is with your help.

Spread the word, come to our Feb. 17th meeting and bring friends. Your ideas and hope for change are more powerful than you realize. All you need to do is stand up and act.

Agenda:

2010 Community/Planning Meeting

Introductions: (10 minutes)

Brief Explanation of Consensus: (5 minutes)

Brief History of Food Not Bombs Movement: (5 minutes)

Bravado: The Coming Year, Realities, Challenges, & The need for Mutual Support. (5 minutes)

Questions/General Discussion of the coming year: (20 minutes)

• Questions/Discussion: Of current event/ project ideas, new ideas & priorities.

Re-Organizing/Specialization: (20 minutes) Discussion=>Delegation.

• Food Share Point People: 2+ people who oversee the pickups, materials, organization and discussions at individual food shares.
• Specialized Tasks: organizational leaders for Zines, Gardening, Outreach, Events, Food Sources, Clothing, Community Issues at each Food Share, Materials, Media, Tabling, Cooking, Translations, etc… These organizers would lead up online forum discussions, meetings, help recruit volunteers, keep track of participants, etc…
• On call lists: Creating a list of people to help with regular pickups and a list for backups.
• During Food Shares: Creating Checklists, incorporating new people/ideas, conflict reduction, confronting sexual harassment/ gender/ sexuality discrimination. Encouraging people to participate!
• Creating Mutual Support System: Supporting community and participants, preventing burnout and alienation & confronting engrained social issues.

Outreach/Events: (15 minutes) Discussion=>Delegation.

• Outreach Tools: Promote newsletter, facebook, twitter, sms, etc… create buttons, t-shirts, patches, promote diy free events like dumpstering nights, flower bombing, art projects.
• Outreach & Coalition Building: Expand the range of organizations we talk to, outreaching to schools, community groups, bands, businesses, art galleries, etc… (Anything really)
• Events/Benefits: We need mouthy outreach events to bring in money, new volunteers, gain attention (specific focus on Huntington).
• Introduction to Upcoming Events/Projects: (10 minutes)

What’s Probably Coming: Nonprofit work & Nonprofit Coalition Meeting (next mouth), Fundraising for Nonprofit, Benefit Events, Peach Tree Project (March-June), New Chapter (Wyandanch…), 30th Anniversary Boston, 30th Anniversary LI, 30th Anniversary Mexico, Solidarity with people of Huntington/Hempstead (Confronting Weed & Seed), Confronting racism in Farmingville, Anarchist Book Fair. Gorilla gardening, Gorilla Art Projects, Community Gardening, New Zines, etc…

• Delegation: Who’s interested in what? Are there other projects that folks are interested in working on?

Current Tools: (5 minutes)

• Website- How/to: How to use the forums, create content, create accounts.
• Mailing list/Newsletter: LongIslandFNB@googlegroups.com / www.LIFNB.com/newsletter
• Text System/ Hotline Number: Hotline- 631.223.4370/ Text System- Text LIFNB to 41411 to receive updates via text.