AFU General Meeting—18 November 2007

Present:

Michael; Angel (facilitating); Christian W (minutes); Darren.

Agenda Items:

1. Course updates. 2. Workshop proposals: Angel; Christian W. 3. TSCI event recap; discussion of further networking with them. 4. info@anarchistu.org position/reform. 5. Workers’ coop workshops.

Course Updates:

Living in Toronto is rumoured to exist. The importance of requiring facilitators to provide contact info is re-emphasized.

[from the facilitator of Living in Toronto:

The course has been going really, really well. We have a class of about 10 - 12 that gets together every Sunday to drink tea, discuss and debate, and learn skills. In the first class, we came up with a list of skills, ideas, and themes we wanted to explore as a group, and, since then, we've been choosing a "topic" for the next week's class at the end of each class. So far, some of the themes of our classes have been "If personal action to create a more positive, just, and sustainable world isn't enough, then what?", canning and preserving foods, greywater systems, sprouting and planting, "Are cities viable", etc. Generally, everyone comes with something to share, but we choose a point person for the topic the week before. In this way, we challenge everyone to take responsibility for their own learning. The course is a bit scattered, I suppose, in the sense that we work on something different every week (though always centred on the question "how can we live lightly in Toronto?"), but we've already agreed to spend the last class wrapping things up with an evening on advocacy and activism based on our collective learnings.]

Horror and Madness going very well. Excellent community being created, though difficult to concentrate focus on one thing long enough to be really productive of new knowledge. Tending more towards literature appreciation, rather than in-depth study.

Working Class Fictions has been completed. Of the two present who were in attendance at that class, the opinion was that the class went very well, had fascinating readings, was attended consistently, produced lively and informative discussion and was genuinely ‘educational’.

Workshop Proposals:

Angel presented his idea of organizing a WIKI workshop to instruct facilitators as to its use. He would issue a formal proposal at the next meeting. He also discussed putting a message board up on the site, and there was some inconclusive debate as to what form it should take.

Christian proposed a series of monthly four-hour workshops on Models of Radical Pedagogy that he and Maggie F. would be giving starting in January. Michael suggested incorporating the Montessori method into one of the workshops. Angel suggested a more international perspective. The proposal was accepted.

TSCI:

The general feeling was, among those who had attended the panel (Christian; Angel), that it went very well and that it was very inspiring to see what other forms of activism are taking place in Toronto. The AFU turnout was excellent, though Christian had a small gripe that our large presence at the panel did not present an accurate reflection of actual AFU involvement and activity, i.e., far more people at the panel than at this very meeting. A desire was expressed to work more closely with the TSCI in the future. The Free Gallery where the panel was held was also suggested as an excellent place for AFU classes and workshops; Christian said he would look into the possibility.

info@anarchistu.org reform:

The position at info@anarchistu.org was declared to be still open. No one took it. Christian suggested reform in the way announcements were posted, by providing password access, rather than leaving it all up to the email administrator.

Worker Coops:

Darren asked that his interest in starting up a series of workshops on how to create and organize worker cooperatives be posted in the minutes.