This is an inivtation from our comrades in the US to meet them at their mumble server (suprprise! yes dear there is more than only one mumble server within the movement, there are at least 5 currently working) 

Connection details to Join the Mumble Server are as follows

If you have concerns and questions please feel free to ask :o)

Sol,

T

---------- Forwarded message ----------


Dean Edwards
Occupy Oregon Media
US Media Working Group organizer

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PROPOSAL FOR WEB AND MUMBLE PRESENCE TO COORDINATE, MOVEMENT MEDIA DEVELOPMENT, COLLABORATION, AND OUTREACH

To develop  http://www.occupycoordination.org/  as a site for coordinating Occupy media working groups as they reach out to each other, to various affinity groups and their media people, to both alternative and mainstream media organizations and independent journalists, and to media representatives for various agencies and groups.

This should require using the existing U.S. Mumble server as a platform for discussing media and communications work both domestically and internationally. the purpose does not conflict with any existing Occupy or affinity-movement sites. Occupytalk and tomalaplaza each serve specific movement audiences, and needs. The occasional presence of outside journalists might even be a distraction on those Mumble servers. Occuworld, occupy.com, occupii.org, and other sites provide useful resources for publishing and gathering Occupy and related groups with stories and resources. Interoccupy.net provides intraoccupy communications. Firedoglake.com provides useful support and blog space for local groups and uses Go To Meeting to produce excellent Webinars that inform and train Occupiers. Occupycafe.org is a popular social forum. These action and social-oriented resources will continue to serve the broad purposes for developing actions and relationships movement wide within Occupy and associated movements, such as Los Indignatos and 15 M in Spain, 6 of April in Egypt, and, Yo Soy in Mexico.

TEAMWORK EMPHASIZES COLLABORATION AND COORDINATION

Working Groups and Teams Combine Independence with Decentralized Coordination and Teamwork.
In our Occupy Oregon Media Group, OORMG, we are developing or plan to develop teams for various media and communications purposes. These include:
Arts and Craft, for fine and creative artists and craftspeople.
Audio-Visual, to pool volunteers with skills or train people who want to develop production skills using audio and visual media.
Media Outreach, to communicate with media contacts both within Occupy and its affinity groups and with outside journalists and other groups and agencies who have their own media representatives.
Interoccupy Communications, to direct people to existing resources for Occupy groups and related movements to communicate among their members and to work with interoccupy.net in their efforts.
Information Technology, to pool resources for enhancing communications and information infrastructure, skills,, and Web design and support across our movements.
Media and Communications Training, to help provide training in the various aspects and media needed and available within our movements.
Editorial, to develop, coordinate, and focus on telling our story and coordinating our efforts to serve Occupy and related movements to meet their media and communications needs.

Nationally and within each state or province these can begin slowly and grow as needed. The immediate need is to gather our journalists and technical-support people together so we can communicate among ourselves more effectively and get our stories out. This also involves having a place for outside journalists and groups to come for press briefings and to make inquiries about who and where they can find sources for stories they want to cover and to learn what stories need coverage. Still, ninety percent of our work will focus on developing our own community and citizen journalists and production capabilities and resources. Approximately nine percent will work directly with alternative journalists and editors and a small, but important one percent of our work will focus on mainstream media.

STATE MEDIA AND NATIONAL GROUPS WILL PROMOTE OUR MESSAGE OF DEMOCRACY FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Each country and major subdivision such as a state or province should have their own media-working groups. For example, one proposal currently being discussed is an Occupy California Media Group, OCAMG.  The occupycooperation.com resources can serve both the United States media Working group, USMWG and cooperate with states and other media projects and services such as a possible International Collaborative Media Alliance, ICMA. This complements, rather than detracts from, the occupytalk.org site's work in the UK and internationally for the social, action, and support aspects of our movements in English, and that of the tomalaplaza site in Spain, , primarily for Spanish-speaking audiences. It also will acknowledge recent successes such as those in Iceland and Serbia, Burma, and the growing movement for nonviolent resistance among Palestinians as aggressive alternatives to violent conflict for achieving national aspirations.

MEDIA GROUPS SHOULD CONTRIBUTE TO STATEMENTS DESCRIBING VISION AND GOALS FOR OUR MOVEMENTS

We also will engage our movements as responsible and independent media to develop not only concise vision statements, well developed mission concepts and campaigns, but also to consider what to do after each successful action or campaign. Too often, the work of dedicated activists leads to opportunism by new or potential elites instead of developing genuine democratic alternatives to rule by oligarchies. These are, after all, traditional responsibilities for independent media in free societies.


We have observed increasing attention for refocusing on key values for process--collaborative decision-making/consensus, decentralization, and nonviolence, as well as sustainable approaches for wide variety of solutions to the many crises we face today. Coalition building seems to be rapidly becoming a major organizing principle for Occupy as it matures and redevelops, along with a keen appreciation for vision and mission statements, well considered campaigns, and identification of shared values.
THE MEDIA GROUP AND MEDIA ALLIANCE WILL GROW ORGANICALLY As some begin to refer to Occupy 2.0, these factors will, no doubt, be included in the list of its developing themes and organizing principles.

We will begin with the two types of teams, content and production. Support and production span the technical side of producing effective information and distributing it to the world. They make our communications infrastructure possible. Without their technical skills and abilities to train new volunteers, no movement can sustain itself.

Our content side begins with six regional editors, called "coordinating editors," and another who will focus on national issues.:
Northeast, Southeast, South-Central, North-Central, Southwest, Northwest, and the national-issues coordinating editors. Several European, Canadian, and perhaps other "coordinating editors" will also join the editorial team. In addition, IT and other coordinators from each team will participate in our collaborative-editorial processes.

Initially two distinct types of media work and support tend to arise: content and technical production. From these will evolve the various teams within each media-working group. A Media Group is a coalition of relatively independent teams, each of which has a coordinator, but all members of a team work as team members; real teamwork is the key. Coordinators for the Group and teams are not in charge, only willing to devote more time as moderators and coordinators to encourage the flow and dissemination of communication and our messages.

This horizontal structure with shared responsibilities, rotating key-communicators, and built-in peer review conforms to the initial OWS ideal and explores new models for cooperative work and decision-making. It reaches out to Occupy and related movements, develops our own media, and reaches out to existing media sources and agencies. In addition, it provides opportunities for developing our own independent media to supply media support for the movements and take advantage of legal protections not available to those directly engaged in direct actions, protests, and planning events.

We will also continue to develop relationships with freespeech.org and the Media Alliance and other media agencies to better serve the movement both within the United States and internationally. The Media Consortium regularly moderates the Movement, Weekly, National Press Briefing, an interoccupy.net call, every Thursday at 3 PM Eastern Time.
Communication and cooperation with our media resources is a key factor in the ability of nonviolent movements to achieve their goals and objectives. We have many historical examples of this. It allows both our media and political-action groups to formulate broad visions of where we want to go and general guidelines about what those goals and objectives are. It provides places for us to reach some consensus about how we are going to get there,, how we are going to achieve our goals and objectives. And, once again, as the name of the site implies, it encourages cooperation movement wide as the new global wave for democracy continues to move across our world.