Forest BB

A productive meeting was held .. the mass crowd of 10 turned up. The plan for break out groups was thrown away and we just sat round a table in the cafe and chatted. Noone took proper minutes. I should have ensured this happened. Bad me.

But from the meeting:

A barred book will be started and kept in the kitchen. Existing knowledge and photos will be pasted in.
AP Ryan, probably with the help of Martin M.

More training for NM's is needed. Emily had no idea what the red light in the kitchen meant, James had no idea the emergency bat-signal was actually a real thing and not a joke ... NM's need to know they can and can't do when it comes to throwing out (ie. They need reassuring that they can). As well as mundane shit like how to actually make a good cup of coffee.
AP Ryan to organise monthly training sessions.
AP EVS vollies are already working on a new NM introduction

As well as this, some knowledge on tranquillity team/non violent technique type things would be good.
We hear the Peace and Justice centre do this.
AP James to try arrange a workshop for our vollies.

Often people are asked to be on watch ... Emily has many times given Pitor a cup of coffee and asked him to sit by the door to keep an eye out for a trouble maker who has just been thrown out. Sam said he would be up for such a shift because its not really work, and volunteering in the kitchen has always put him of because he doesn't like kitchens (general point: think about way we can make it clear to people that kitchen stuff isn't the only way to vollie).
Make this more formal. Have a bouncer type position - someone to just walk the floor, check up on people, and know that it is their responsibility to check up on anything dodgy looking.
AP Katie to write up a duties sheet and take to Ryan, put up a rota.

CCTV ......
We are going for a system that is normally turned OFF, and can be turned on by a very easy to use and reliable method in the kitchen (and maybe elsewhere like upstairs?).
Two cameras will cover both doors, facing in.
Third camera will be upstairs covering balcony stair as this is a favourite place for WF's. Try to turn on automatically with the sensor?
Idea is: when trouble starts, turn cameras on, deal with it, eject people and in the process get them on camera. Then turn cameras off again.
AP James to talk to other techie people and come up with recommendations.
AP Meghan to draft a poster explaining all this - we don't want to pretend they are always on.

I can do some work on this at the weekend, making posters and stuff, if needed. I'll be at the NM training Friday night so we can talk about it then,

There seem to be lots of people around who don't want to volunteer in the kitchen, but would be happy to be in the space doing this Tranquility thing. They just didn't know it was needed. I think a rota for this is a good idea, and I see Katie and Ryan are AP'ed for this. It would be good to have people in the cafe whose names are on a rota, and who introduce themselves to the volunteers so they know who the tranquility people are. Sounds very good. Do we also need a poster and flyers to let people know about this? If people think yes I can make some this weekend.

The tranquility thing is important from a cultural point of view, that we make an effort to deal with this problem in a community way instead of just installing a camera and relying on that to solve it for us. Tranquility and CCTV are not mutually exclusive, but I feel it's important to make an effort to encourage Tranquility whether or not we have CCTV. I had thought that the people who were against CCTV were against it because CCTV is an evil technology, which I thought was misguided, but actually, I think it's more that they see tranquility as a more positive community way of dealing with the problem, which is a good point.

I heard it said that we want a resurgence of old, experienced NMs to do some shifts to bring order and show people how it works. Communication is important. I am telling every past NM who I know about this, because often they are willing but just don't realise they're needed. A poster also?

Sorry to miss the meeting and then comment on it, but...

Barred Book -- definitely good. But I feel that a dedicated polaroid barred camera is necessary also, so that photos of repeat offenders can be easily taken and stuck into the book. I'm not saying that every time someone starts an argument or fight that you have to get this camera and take a snap of their face. That would likely escalate the situation. But for the repeat offenders who come in drunk and sleep, hang around upstairs, that sort of thing, we should take any opportunity for an easy shot just so other people can recognise them and communicate about them via the book and we can put up a united front.

I feel I'm on my own here. Does anybody else agree with me about the polaroid? Should I get one?

The red light in the kitchen -- does it really mean anything? Or has it become more of a joke really? I don't think, if there's a problem, that turning on that light to alert people is the best idea. Just shout.

Training for NMs -- about how to deescalate potentially bad situations. Would be good, it's confidence building. Yasmin tells me that there is someone who can do this training and she has been contacted. I don't know the details. Perhaps this is what James is arranging?

I like the idea of monthly NM trainings with Ryan. If this is happening, I will come to them, and will NM more.

CCTV -- it was suggested to me to keep a video camera behind the kitchen and get it out when there is trouble. Maybe it could work, but I feel this would probably escalate things.

Implementation wise, I feel we should keep it simple and either go with no CCTV at all or have it on on all the time. I am not sure it is a good idea to have it turning on and off. Does this make it even less likely to get snaps of people? Particularly when something has been stolen, or if some trouble happens behind the NM's back, there's no point in turning the camera on afterwards. Also for the camera upstairs, if it is turning itself on with a sensor then it's going to shoot everyone that passes any way, so why not just leave it on all the time? Ethically it is the same and technically probably easier. But I guess the point is to reduce the overall amount of footage we have to deal with?

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I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...
Ha! I have a real laser absolutely positioned in my hand!

Re Polaroid - i took my old one back, but am now wanting to offload it again. It still says barred cam on it. You want it back in Kitchen?

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Our big brother's got no heart,
when I get my chance I'm going to punch him in the nose, in the nose, in the nose

Polaroid is the ideal barred cam. Take photo, put in book. Everything else is a faff.

We should stock up on polaroid film though, it's going out of production.

you are dead right, comba-womba

yes. the idea is that we will not have footage that can be asked for from, say, the police if people were here doing things WE like but THEY don't.

r

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www.ryanvanwinkle.com

Is it a genuine worry that the police can ask for any footage (they deem necessary) in order to investigate trouble? If we store the pictures on a computer, then it is easy to find the frames which show the trouble and not let the police see the frames where there is nothing to see here move along.

Having an always on system is much easier. Can't we just say that we only turn it on when needed?

Another option is to have a rolling loop of say 10 minutes footage. If something's just happened, you hit a button and the last few minutes are saved for reference. If you don't, they're lost forever...

the meeting decided it would not be on all the time. if you want to have another meeting to discuss / ammend this ---- that's fine but we should stick to what we agreed. martin's thesis could be fine as well but i think people truly want to have it OFF.

r

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www.ryanvanwinkle.com

Right the fuck on.

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Pep Up The Turmoil

Okay. I have the webcam that I bought already as requested by the last FWG meeting. Shall I bring that in and plug it into the kitchen machine and start testing things?

maybe. but how good is it? we need, of course, really high resoloution and it needs speed.

hmmmm....

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www.ryanvanwinkle.com

It's 640x480, 30fps. Gets motion blur in low light. But we'd need to spend Actual Money for better.

i think we should spend actual money to have a very good camera. we have a problem.

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www.ryanvanwinkle.com

Okay, how do we choose what to buy?

is there an expert in the hiz-ouse?

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www.ryanvanwinkle.com

Thoughts:

Purpose-built CCTV systems will be expensive, and designed for always-on and record-everything, probably hard to adapt to what we want. Also frankly the quality is shit and this is continuously reflected in court cases where they're not up to scratch as evidence.

I think we're best off with either high-end webcams, video-capable digicams or camcorders.

i think ccctv is the wrong approach to the problerm. other solutions:

stop byob for a while.
go hard core ¡ have door stewards for two weeks, we all take turns - zero tolerence approach on entrance.. might be fun.
form a barred crew, emergency phone numbers etc...

xxxxxxxx missing you all... xxxxxx

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Maybe it could work? But it will be a kaleidoscopic blend of mysterious shadows and rainbow hued-dreams seen through compassionate tears.

Martin, I don't think its true the quality is always shit. Some certainly, and we should make this a point we check up on, but we shouldn't rule out commercial systems entirely.

Heres something to start the discussion with ...
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?Mod ... 4#overview
http://www.cctvdirect.net/p410739/Start ... ystem.html

Have also made contact with Janet from Peace & Justice, will be phoning her this afternoon.

While its certainly an argument that should be had about how effective and practical it is to be turning a camera on/off, bear in mind the point is nothing to do with how much footage we store and everything to do with not having a camera on all the time which many people intensely dislike.

For the camera upstairs, DVR's I've been randomly browsing seem to have "motion sensor" facilities so they only record when something is happening anyway.

oh wait, think i misread you post. sorry. but my point about what the point of the argument is about still stands.(if that point makes any point)

bit of an open goal, really.
'The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.'
George Orwell

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Pep Up The Turmoil

its true, plaza de george orwell is one of my favourite squares (its more of a triangle actually) in barcelona, and it does now have cctv..

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Maybe it could work? But it will be a kaleidoscopic blend of mysterious shadows and rainbow hued-dreams seen through compassionate tears.