April 24th Steering Committee Minutes

PTO Toronto Steering Committee Meeting April 24th 2009

Present: chris, Sarah, Adam, Brendan, Emily, Simon, Fiona, Corvin
Regrets: Robyn, Stephen, jes, Matt, Bonnie, Hartley, Jenny, Margo

1.Travel to PTO 2009

-Duncan looked into travel and driving only makes sense if 5 of more are going.
-Duncan and Simon will be flying from Buffalo on the 19th at a cost of ~$150
-People can contact Duncan for flight info if they want to fly
-Right now only Duncan, Simon and Corvin are going for sure.
-Corvin will coordinate a “What's Happening”-type workshop for people at this years conference
-chris suggests that as many of us as possible become members of PTO regardless of whether we are going this year.

2.Space

-Adam has confirmed with Daniel that we can book space for the weekend of June 17th 2010.
-We should book 2,3,4,5th floors, the auditorium and the Peace Lounge.
-Simon suggests that if we find other spaces we can always scale back our OISE space
-some space ideas include Transac, Taragon, Inest, 519, St. Chris.
-space committee will examine other space options
-brendan suggests that the space committee focus on an auditorium space for performances 'cause anything is better than the OISE auditorium

3.Budget

-chris will prepare a draft budget for the next steering committee meeting based on the TCDI budget.
-Mixed Company has been looking into funding grants for Jokers' Symposium
-chris suggests that a coordinator position would be useful and suggested an Artist in Residence -grant from the Toronto Arts Council might be able to be used for this.
-possibly a GA position could be used for coordinator; budget committee will research GAships with contacts at FES York, OISE and UofT.
-Margo has offered assistance in applying for grants
-chris asks that people email him all funding deadlines and he will coordinate grant writing schedule

4.Theme

-Still have not received a list of past themes from PTO board
-Fiona suggests the theme “Resisting Precarious Times”
-Email with theme brainstorm has been circulated
-there was discussion of having a theme before PTO 2009
-theme debate will continue

5.Program

-the Programming committee is strongly encouraged to meet

6.Pre Conference Event

-Mixed Company has sent out a call for proposals to around 1000 people worldwide for a Jokers' Symposium
-Simon will be talking to Julian in Minneapolis about participating
-other Jokers could include: Sanjay from Sanskriti; David Diamond from Headlines; Michel from Stage Left; Format Amsterdam; Robert Macinni from Italy
-The Symposium would run June 14, 15, 16th
-Mixed Company has been looking in to space; Transac wants $5000 for 5 days
-Symposium could include shows and facilitated discussions
-Some theme ideas include “best practices”, Western Jokers in developing regions
-event would bring together Canadian Pop Theatre groups for the first time in many years
-highlight the diversity of practice in Pop Theatre (not just TO)

7.Post Conference Event

-Emily suggests having a post-conference Open Space event
-Build a schedule during the conference and provide space after
-Brendan mentioned that Stephen has hoped to incorporate Open Space and that feedback from past conferences had called for its use
-some concern about whether this would draw enough interest for post-conference event
-suggested that a Pop Ed post event might balance out Jokers' Symosium

8.Anti-Colonial Organizing

-Hussan wanted to know if group was committed to incorporating anti-colonial analysis into every meeting.
-people were in strong support of doing this but some wondered if we needed a “training”
-group acknowledged our whiteness and our so far unsuccessful attempts to do outreach to other communities in the city doing PTO stuff
-chris pointed out that we are “still on the ground floor” and that the problem will only become more acute as planning continues
-Brendan will talk to Hussan

9.Date of Next Meeting

- The next meeting was set as Friday, May 8th 3:30-5:30pm at OISE Peace Lounge

Minutes from Steering Committee, March 20, 2009

March 20, 2009 – OISE Peace Lounge 3:30 – 5:30

Attending: Hartley, jes, Emily, Brendan, Matt, Duncan, Bonnie,

Regrets: Deborah, Jenni, Robyn, Simon, Margo

1. Steering Committee Commuication

• Google Groups doesn’t seem to be working consistently for everybody; this could be because some people’s e-mails are awaiting moderator confirmation
• look into Google Groups and who’s receiving info; jes will talk to Robyn about this

2. Meeting with Warren

• Brendan had a quick meeting with Warren
• Warren is willing to work with us on a proposal: vision, theme
• Re: coming to PTO Warren recommended that as many as possible attend
• They could possibly waive conference fee as well as arrange billets
• Warren suggested that some come early and “shadow” Minneapolis organizers

3. Attending PTO Minneapolis

• who’s definitely almost possibly going: Simon, Duncan, Steven, Deb Barndt
• wants to / maybe: Jes, Matt, chris, Emily, Brendan (and Kai), Adam L, Hartley
• can’t: Robyn, Bonnie,
• look into memberships – perhaps create membership fund to support
• Brendan will talk to Warren about financial constraints

4. Conference Date:

• last weekend of June 2010 is G8 in Huntsville
• Corvin suggestions: OISE is okay; alternatively an OISE prof could book space at UofT; Judy Rebick & Ryerson
• Moved and agreed that we take OISE as space for last weeks of June: 18, 19, 20
• confirm G8 dates; confirm pre or post and this opens up possibility for pre-G8 events
• Mixed Company – Jokers Symposium – we support Mixed Company in organizing their symposium as a pre or post event
• Adam will contact Daniel to confirm acceptance of OISE

5. Conference Theme Brainstorm:

• We’re not gonna take it
• whose gonna take it: not us
• connecting to other 2010 things happening
• migration
• colonialism
• something fun and light
• who are our heroes
• what is a heroes
• role of heroes
• twisted sister and The Who
• Qui Bono – Who Benefits
• What is Peace
• Carnival – circus
• tie into Joker Symposium
• Batman Begins
• The Joker’s Not Dead
• Seize the Moment
• Repeat the Moment
• Make the Moment
• Borders
• Crossing Borders
• Breaking borders
• Defining Borders
• Drawing Borders
• Erasing Borders
• Jokering borders
• Remembering Borders
• Mapping Borders
• History of Oppression
• Remembering our History
• Resistance and Rebellion
• Global Problems, Local Solutions
• When is Enough Enough
• G8 is Enough
• Be the Change
• Holding Ourselves Accountable
• Responsibility
• Troubling the Waters
• Patti Lather’s new book
• Re: Public
• Re: framing

• send out e-mail for continued discussion and decision at pre-Minneapolis meeting
• chris will spawn an e-mail on theme brainstorm on Google Groups

6. Hussan’s offer to do some anti-colonial education with the steering ctte

• Brendan confirming Hussan’s interest

7. Outreach to groups we should have at the table

• check community mapping report
• Regent Park Focus – Adonis Huggins
• Children’s Peace Theatre – Karen Emerson, artistic director
• Sketch – Phyllis Novak, Rudy Ruttiman
• Native Earth – Jes can do outreach
• COBA – Collection of Black Artists
• Artists Mentoring Youth (AMY) – Claire Calnan
• Supporting Our Youth – Clare Nobbs
• 519 Church – jes has contacts
• Montreal – University of the Streets, Concordia Institute
• Jumblies – Ruth Howard
• PARC – Bob Rose
• Jack Pierpont – Inclusion Press
• No One Is Illegal
• KWIC

• chris will spawn e-mail on google groups about this
• everyone asked to add, and also inform whether contact as been made to avoice doubling up on people

8. Reports from Subcommittees

• Matt apologizes
• add Margo to Finance & Fundraising

Hospitality:

• decided to split up hotels, hostels and university residences research
• one hostel in Toronto won award
• suggestion of asking $25 for billeting for entire weekend which is given as subsidy to billeter to reduce conference fee
• suggestion to stay at Unionized hotels – e.g. Sheraton…
• check number of “accessible” rooms at hotels
• check services etc
• create ‘zine/map of our own of downtown Toronto
• think about storytelling event on Toronto Islands – history of Islands (talk to Shadowlands); Native Bus Tour; etc…

Funding Ctte:

• check out Tourism Toronto support
• research transportation discounts – Greyhound
• Laura Copeland’s advice
• Mixed Company interested in being connected to coordinate grant applications

• All subcommittees urged (STRONGLY) to meet before next steering ctte meeting
• Brendan will e-mail everyone ctte lists and e-mails

9. Looking Ahead:

• Friday, APRIL 24th – 3:30 – 5:30
• Friday, MAY 8TH – 3:30 – 5:30

• Matt to confirm Minute taking
• chris to facilitate

Report from Feb. 26th Steering Committee Meeting

So attendance at the last meeting was pretty slim - just Emily, Sara, Hartley Bonnie and I. We felt that we lacked quorum to make any decisions of a substantial nature.

We propose that we have the next meeting Friday, March 20th, 3:30pm at the OISE Peace Lounge. If it's ok with chris, he and Hartley will get their chance to facilitate and take minutes.

We are starting to get to the point where some serious decisions need to be made. The five of us spent the time this past Thursday assembling an outline for an agenda for the 20th. Feel free to add to this...


1. Set a date for the conference.

2. Decide on a (or some) place(s) to hold the conference.

3. Choosing a theme for the conference - Brendan will contact the PTO Board and get a list of all past themes (to be distributed by email).

5. Report from meeting with Warren Linds and discuss the creation of a "conference proposal" in conjunction with Warren, Ellie and Alejandra (Liaison committee from PTO)

6. Discuss Hussan's offer to do some anti-colonial education with the steering committee.

7. Reports from the sub-committees.

Minutes for January 23rd Meeting

Minutes for January 23rd Meeting
Peace Lounge at OISE, 3-5pm
Facilitators: Adam & Sara
Minute-taker: Robyn
Time-keeper: Emily

1. Sara (IF Theatre), Robyn, Hartley (McMaster/York), Jana (York), chris (catalyst/York), Bonnie (SPIKE), Matt (catalyst), Laura (York), jes, Emily, Brendan, Kye, Adam (IF Theatre), Corvin (catalyst)
Regrets: Jenny, Stephen, Simon

2. Change Agenda item 9 to “Structure of Conference Sessions”
Add “Attending PTO 2009 Conference” as Agenda item 10.

3. Report from Meeting with Ellie Frieland: chris & Brendan
Sonia from Minneapolis and Ellie from the Board compiled a handout for our organizing committee
--note from president
--background
--budget 2007
--PTO conference timeline
--more documents (evaluation sheets, etc.)
--notes from evaluation meeting with conference participants 08.
No history of formal process with formal vote in deciding where conferences will be held; Ellie is enthused that we want to take the conference on in 2010. They recognize us as the organizing group for PTO 2010. Casual meeting with advice, conversations about the history of PTO
Dates: last 2 weeks of April (non-starter for American participation – hinders participation).
Or end of June (which might not be out of the question – might become more accessible for public school teachers)
PTO has a mandate to work with groups to get their proposals to an acceptable level. 99.9% of proposals are accepted for the conference – but this might be something we want to reevaluate. Our local committee nominates speakers and PTO board invites them. PTO board has $500 budget for speakers. Boal workshops in past have funded part of the rest of the conference.

4. Committees: Written Brainstorming Exercise
-Actions Needed: accommodation, fundraising, billeting, interpretation, making the program, food, coordination between/across communities, childcare, contacting presenters, phone tree, website/blog, budget, registration/database tracking
-Committee Headings: Space/Accessibility, Communication/Outreach, Programming, Hospitality/Housing, Fundraising/Finance, Making it to PTO 2009, Steering Committee
--Communication/Outreach: Matt, Brendan, Robyn, jes (youth advisory), Hartley, Corvin
--Programming: Matt, Sara, adam, chris, Stephen
--Fundraising/Finance: chris, Laura
--Hospitality/Housing: Brendan, Emily, Sara
--Space/Accessibility: Laura, Bonnie, Adam, Corvin
--Volunteer Coordination: Laura, chris
--Attending PTO 2009: jes, Robyn, chris
--Anti-Colonial Committee:
--Executive/Admin Committee (Committee of the Whole)

BREAK
-Committee signup and contact information exchange (committees are provisional)

5. Decision-making
Can committees make decisions or do decisions having to go through organizing? How will decisions me made? How will the steering committee be formed? How big should steering committee be? How do we start now with a steering committee?
--Informal (but rigorous) consensus – with capacity for anyone to invoke formal consensus
--Group autonomy (task policy), but no large decision made without consulting with committee of the whole
--Less structure as it emerges
--Conference has not been pulled off in this way (democratic) before

6. Are we using OISE?
--Food? Cafeteria has been closed, but there should be storage room
--Available for free
--Most presenters request A/V – making it difficult/expensive for non-campus conference space; we cannot get it for free at OISE, but free space might ameliorate the cost
--Bahn Centre: UofT (St. George just above College) – new, lecture hall and lots of room
--housing/space committee should have a chance to look around
--OISE as a hub – jumping off point for self-organizing
--get a deadline from Daniel for booking OISE space
--Corvin: getting a campus group to sponsor for space at U of T

7. Outreach – Building on Community Mapping
--How can we diversify our core group?
--Making concerted effort to get out of academia – get out of communities that are predominately white, academic
--Laura will do outreach with film fest she is helping to organizing
--Recruiting through community centres sustainable participation
--TCDI: solidarity and communication with that group
--Should we think about how to market this conference to community groups?.
--Conduct analysis of why this group is so white?
--How did each of us come to know about/be invited to this group?

8. Communication
--We have no one way of communicating, and that’s confusing
--Have we been losing people by our lack of/mis-communication
--Phone tree and email – prioritize communication methods (ex. for a meeting cancellation, we should use the phone)
--Listserv: use Google group we already have in place (subscribe people rather than inviting them to subscribe)

9. Structure of Conference Sessions
--Comments by Stephen (see comments to the Tuesday, January 20, 2009 post)
--Matching issues/community organizers with the programming of the conference
--Delegate these comments to programming and outreach
--Fringe approach: invite people to host sessions
--We don’t need to wait until 2010 to do something (ie, we could program events in the fall – PTO events as well as outreach and networking opportunities)
--Open Space Technology: meeting is decided at time of meeting; agenda drawn up democratically. Have sessions in the program where agenda is decided upon people showing up to the session (which happened at PTO 2007)
--Stephen: bringing in fieldworkers or taking visits around Toronto visiting communities
--How can outreach and programming engage with each other (because they need to constantly be in touch
--Coming up with theme for conference sooner than later (delegate this task to every committee)

10. Next Meeting and Task Review
Next Meeting:
7:30PM Thursday February 26th (Tentative location: OISE Peace Lounge)
Facilitator: Hartley Jafine
Minute-taker: chris cavanagh

Resources From the PTO Board and Past Organizers

Here are some documents given to us from the PTO Board and past conference organizers...

"Standard Features" was created by the PTO Board to help us and future organizers know what has to happen at a PTO conference and some traditional elements of the conference.

Standard Features of a PTO Conference

These three documents are the compilations of participant feedback forms from the 2007 (Minneapolis-St.Paul) and 2008 (Omaha) conferences.

Evaluations from 2007
"Final Report" from 2007
Evaluations from 2008

These two documents were created by long-time popular educator and PTO member Larry Olds.

Larry Olds' Ideas on Making a Better Conference
Larry Olds' Ideas on Conference Programing

The "One Year Time Line" document is from the organizers of the PTO conference in 2006 (Chapel Hill). The budget is from the 2007 conference.

One Year Timeline of a PTO Conference
Final Budget of the 2007 PTO Conference

Agenda for January 23rd Meeting

PTO-Toronto Organizers' Meeting
January 23rd, 2009
3pm - 5pm @ The Peace Lounge (OISE)

Convener:
Minutes: Robyn Letson

1. (re)Introductions
2. Review Minutes from Last Meeting
3. Report from Meeting with Ellie Friedland (PTO Board Member).
4. Committees and Decision-making
5. Location(s) of Conference (OISE needs to know)
6. Outreach - Building On Community Mapping
7. Stephen's comments on structure of conference sessions (matching issues with fieldworkers) and on open space technology (as a form of decision making)
8. Communication: how we're failing and ways to improve
9. Next Meeting and Task Review

November 28th Meeting Minutes

PTO Toronto Organizing Meeting
Friday November 28th, 2008

Convene and Welcome
Welcome to the TLC Peace Lounge
Quick explanation of Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed in Toronto

Introduction

People at the Meeting: chris, jes, Emily, Adam, Robyn; Brendan; Hartley (Theatre @ York); Laura (Environmental Studies @ York U); Leah (Environmental Studies @ York), Jenny (Aiding Dramatic Change in Development); Stephen (Aiding Dramatic Change in Development), Hannah (Environmental Studies @ York); Stephanie (Drama @ University of Guelph); Katherine (Environmental Studies @ York); Jana (Environmental Studies @ York); Ainsley (Mixed Company Theatre); Simone (Mixed Company Theatre); Margo (evaluating community arts practices); Bonnie (homeless and disability issues); Hussan (No One is Illegal - Toronto); Ravi (OISE/UT?)


Background to PTO and their Board

Brendan gave a brief background to what the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Organization is and what the conference series has looked like in the past.
He also explained the shift from Omaha to Minneapolis and the attempt being made to produce a more “community-based” conference and possibilities for a lasting network.


Community Mapping: Who’s involved, who should be involved?

Hannah gave an introduction to community mapping and explained the process.

The group used this process to reflect on who is involved at this point and who is not involved but should be. The results of the process are available in a separate document prepared by Hannah.

Issues raised in debriefing:
Do people have personal contacts with the organizations mentioned?
Heavily represent the Toronto/Southern Ontario region.
Very few Francophone and/or Québécois organizations
Some of the ideas are very general (e.g. “Aboriginal communities of North America”)


Initial Funding Ideas for Conference 2010

Informal brainstorm of possible sources of funding (see “Funding Brainstorm” posted on blog)
Issues raised in debriefing:

Should this be a consideration so early?
Ideological/ethical implications of funding
Need to know more about what the conference will look like before funding proposals can be drafted.


Structure of the Toronto Group: How do we organize ourselves and make decisions?

Robyn and jes presented the group with some ideas for possible committees. People were asked to sign up for a committee if they desired or give their email address to be invited to the organizing blog.

What will this thing actually look like? .

Organizing committee ultimately needs to be accountable for decisions made.

The organization of the Toronto group will need to be an on-going debate (occurring on the blog) and we will hopefully have some structure that can be approved at the meeting in January.

Last Thoughts and Discussion

How long will the conference be?
Keep this downtown – exclusionary?
Working for years for one conference seems like a lot.
2010 organizing offers possibilities for solidarity/support
- Year of resistance
- 10 000 – 20 000 organizers coming for G8
- Free Schools organized by resistance 2010

What does this mean for organizing popular theatre in Canada?
Why did Canadian Popular Theatre Alliance die?
How do we address issues of the past in the future?

Next Steps, Next Meeting, and Closing

What will happen before next meeting?
People invited to join organizers blog to discuss themes for the conference, agenda for next meeting, organizing models, etc.
Meeting with Ellie Friedland at chris’ place between Dec 26th and Jan 3rd.

Next Meeting

Chris suggested the 16th or the 23rd of January at the same time and place. A ‘straw pole’ of the meeting set the date as the 16th



Next meeting will take place Jan 16th, 3pm in the Peace Lounge at OISE
Simone will convene.
Robyn will take minutes.