OWS Medic Meeting, 12/20/11¶

Attendence:¶

Feather Hat, Elizabeth aka Sherlock, Bugz, Dave the medic, Embi (facilitator), Jose, Grace, Justin, Shirley, Elan, Ed, Acadia

Report Back¶

• Farm
  Liz: The farm in the Catskills want a medic. There is also a traveling group that wants a medic.
  Dave: We may be able to train their own people to be medics.
  Elan: May be going to the Catskills

• Grace, Red and Shirley are working on a “Housing Wellness Worker” training that will focus on First Aid, horizontal organization, referrals, sleep, stress, what to pack in a first aid kit and motivational interviewing. This will take place at SPSA this Thursday at 9am.

• Bugz is working on a bridge training

• Ed has connected with “Concerned Medical Professionals”. They want to volunteer with OWS and would like us to help them as well. there will be a meeting this Thursday at 9am. CCMP 1542 Remson Ave (corner of M) Canarsie Brooklyn, if interested, contact Ed (onlyed) via celli

• Dave got the budget approved for $1,100.00/week by the GA. We will need to resubmit the budget for approval 4 weeks from the date of approval if we want to continue to be funded.

• Dave and Shirley are the financial point people at this time.

• D17 – 4 medics went to jail. Elan reports that there were people in jail who were beaten by the police. Elan commented that whenever there is a suspected head injury we should get a full history from the patient. Acadia stated that if a person asks enough times for an EMT, they will get to see an EMT. There will be a meeting on 12/21 at 7:30pm to debrief from D17.

• Jose met with the “Medical Clinic”, Maria, Rene and Mary, they want to have a closer relationship and to do skill sharing with us. They are going to have a new point person. Charlotte’s place is open Monday – Friday 1pm – 6pm. Mary the Chaplin now works there. They are going to be staffed by RNs, they may want an herbalist, we may be able to stock our supplies there.

• Feather Hat reports that the Street Medic traiing in MD went well.

• Park Slope needs more medics. Rumor is there was a doctor there last night.

AGENDA¶

1. Proposal to reimburse Solo for WFR training¶

A proposal was already sent in and rejected. Jose has reworded the proposal for the past tense. We are aksing for $750.00 to pay for the instructors, $350.00 for the instructor’s travel expenses and $650.00 for the rent at 56 Walker Street, for a total of $1,355.00.

There is a consensus that this proposal will go forward.

2. Scheduling Bonanza¶

RISEUP

Justin is working on a a scheduling program affiliated with riseup, all communication is pretty secure and we can control who information is shared with. Everyone will need to sign up. This site has polls for prioritizing. Justin is working on a calendar. Other groups will be able to send us messages. Profile types can be Group, Public or Private. Dave and Justn will be the admins and it should be up and running by Sunday. We must be mindful not to put other people’s info into public domain.

MEDIC SCHEDULING

Ideally, we would like to have budy pairs of medics at 3 locations every night. We will table this agenda item until the system is up and ready to use.

3. Training Bonanza¶

Acadia would like to have weekly skill drills / discussions, which will be 3 hours long; one hour will be an orientation for new medics, one hour will be on a medical topic and one hour will be to discuss topics such as hierarchy and consent.

Acadia also suggested having tactical games, such as doing eye flushes on wall street where all the tourists can come and take our photos.

Grace has worked with training groups in the past and feels that they work best when they are short, focused and limited to existing medics.

People should speak with Acadia after the meeting if they are interested

Banshee an EMS based organization will work with us to do training, Wednesdays in January

Many trainings are coming up:

Shirley Red and Grace will be doing the Housing Wellness to train people in the churches to care for themselves.

Upcoming trainings include Herbalism (the 2nd week in Jan), Bridge training (in January), Jail Support Wellnss Workers, and Affinity Group Medic traning.

The Institue Society for Democracy (or something along those lines) will have a training on anarchy which is open to everyone.

There is an OWS training cluster that has levels of training: 101, 201, and 301 re: direct democracy, OWS and Consent.

There will be a 20 hours street medic training in Ithica this February.

Bugz will be meeting with Brian Dominick and Chris Schramm re: future trainings

The Ethical Cultural Society has offered to let us use a space that can hold ~120 people for our trainings.

We ended our meeting with High and Low points of the week (not all were captured)¶

HI

Embi: personal learning opportunity, Dave: the dancing in Duarte park, Shirley: Street Medic Training, Grace: Working on the upcoming training with Shirley and Spending time with a family member. Ed: people cheering for him re: his OWS involvement, Jose: walking in the East Village with his pack and having a street person say to him “go gettum!”, Acadia: going home to see family.

LOW

Embi: having to learn about herself, Dave: working for 20 hours on D17, Shirley: feeling lonely, Grace: attending an annoying meeting (we hope she wasn’t referring to this meeting!) Elan: having an argument with a friend’s girlfriend who was “pro-cop” the day after D17. Ed: Hearing a young girl ask her father if he was a terrorist, not hearing the answer and see them both skirt around him walking apace. Jose: feeling the low energy at 52 Broadway that was eminating around finances. Liz: ran into a pole.

4. Basic Medic Requirements¶

Basic Requirements to be a medic

It is agreed by most that:

Following the code of conduct and knowing one’s level of expertise is more important than having a certain set of skills. Knowing basic first aid is more important than being certified New people can pair with more experienced people, and people with different skill sets should work together. Deescalation skills are important We should follow the accountability process

There was some disagreement as to weather one should always run with a buddy or if it was okay to run alone. Justin reported that he didn’t like the idea of running alone as he has had some bad experiences in his past. We could have a red and black cross code that we always run with a buddy.

Grace said that during actions there is a history of people identifying by their qualifications, for example, “I am a nurse” “I am a doctor” or “I know some firstaid”

If we are sending a medic to a specific site we should evaluate what skill level is needed for that event.

5. New financial point person¶

Dave will be stepping down in 2 weeks and Liz will be stepping up at that time to work with Shirley, it is planned that Embi will replace Shirley.

The finance person should know how to use a spread sheet, add up large columns of numbers, and be well organized.

6. Bugz’s Place¶

There is a plethora of crap left at Bugz’s place. Dave will be making a quick stop at the pawn shop, after that people can work on getting their belongings back.

There was a work trade agreement for those who stayed with Bugz. The remediation of mold is planned for the Wed after Christmas from ~ 11am – 6pm.