October 10th, 2017 IRC Meeting

Decisions/Endorsements

Mass. Amazon Bid

Amazon wants to build a 2nd headquarters and is entertaining bids from different cities/states. Massachusetts is putting together a secret proposal likely with hefty tax breaks and subsidies. We gave subsidies to GE worth $175 million for 200 jobs, so imagine the price tag for Amazon's 50,000 jobs.

Propose:

• opposing any tax breaks or subsidies to Amazon;
• calling for opening up the terms of the proposal and holding many public hearings on the proposal.

Projects

Planning for 2018 Elections & Organizing

In 2018, towns decide when their elections are held, but most are held in the first half of the year. State & county elections are in November. What offices are up in 2018 is listed here. We have been asked to hold a town election training in Milford this year. Additionally, it would be good to have candidate trainings in Western Mass. (Holyoke?), Worcester, Boston-area.

Nomination papers for federal/state/county elections are available in mid-February. State/county candidates have until the end of May to gather all of their signatures, while federal candidates have until the end of July. The number of signatures needed vary from 150 for State Rep. to 2000 for US House of Representatives.

The electronic election for our officers went well in 2017, and we should consider doing it again. Such a change would allow us to decentralize our yearly conference and hold multiple regional conferences in different parts of the state. We could schedule monthly conferences starting in March or April. We could limit them to about 4-5 hours long, with the first half being training and the second half being discussion. If we want to go this route, we should ask our members soon and see who wants to organize their regional conference.

Digital Right of Repair

Details. Making calls to volunteers and members.

Other To Dos

S.1241 - Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Counterfeiting Act of 2017

Approved our opposition to S.1241. Need statement (Joe)

FOSS Tutorials

Worcester farm group is interested in having some FOSS tutorials. Perhaps:

• how to do basic labels in GIMP,
• work through a few sample spreadsheets related to seed cost and
• similarly applicable real-world situations, depending on the needs of the group

Basically how to do graph design & product management with open source tools. Malt will put together a one paragraph description of what we need and we can mail it out to ask pirates to help.

Tech/Outreach

• Review regular IRC meeting day. Poll sent to email list - Sent (jokeefe)
• email Loomio invite to supporters (jokeefe)
• set up torrents for PirateCon videos (creynolds)
• post remaining audio for PirateCon talks (srevilak)
• finish setup of myBB (jokeefe)
• install mattermost as slack alternative (jokeefe)

Mayfirst is looking at setting up a Discourse instance we could use.

Upcoming Events

• 10/25, 6-9pm, Somerville Cryptoparty, The Sprouts, 339R Summer Street, Somerville
• 11/4, 11am-2pm, South Boston Cryptoparty, South Boston BPL Branch, 646 East Broadway
• 11/8, City Election Day
• 11/11-12, Boston Anarchist Bookfair, Boston University George Sherman Union
• 11/29, 6-9pm, Somerville Cryptoparty, The Sprouts, 339R Summer Street, Somerville
• 12/17, Chelsea Manning's Birthday
• 12/27, 6-9pm, Somerville Cryptoparty, The Sprouts, 339R Summer Street, Somerville

See: 2017 calendar

Participants

Observers

• davidd
• hvxgr
• igel
• papegaai
• Velveeta_Chef