Next ECA in Madrid?

Hello,
Sorry I guess we never really reported back in this thread what was discussed in the governance call regarding agreeing on another Assembly, possibly in Madrid. Basically, and this is also reflected in the charter that is under development, we discussed that it probably not helpful to think of it is as' the 2nd ECA', and everyone has to agree on it.
Instead, we can have different ECA MOMENTS some larger than others. Its a matter of a group of people having the energy, the plan, when its in line with some basic principles, and there is no great objection, its a mater of just doing it. 'Doocracy' apparently this is called. (i think its a hacker term :) )

In the case of Madrid, I think its indeed important to have1. a bit of a developed plan among the people who are excited about this, and 2. some clarity about the local partners. I am not sure we should aim for Ahora Madrid as main local partner, as this gets us to entangled with political parties. Maybe we can check with Media Lab Prado, pr maybe @Stacco you have suggestions. or Zemos might.

Other ECA moments discussed are a festival in June in Athens, London in 2018, and possible Scotland in 2018 as well.
Hope this helps, I think we can start developing the idea of the Athens plan with the people in this thread, and see how it works with Fred & Gaelle;s plan on workshops with local governments, and in the meanwhile we can also finalise the governance charter which will make then make things clearer.

What do people think?

Sophie

Thanks Sophie and @daphnebuellesbach for the update on this thread. Just fyi, here is the loomio link where we have been talking about governance: https://www.loomio.org/d/kodMYJE5/eca-governance-infrastructure-organising

The plan now is that I will look at some comments on the charter and synthesize them and then invite people that have expressed interest to a second skype call, probably next week.

Daphne, could you clarify for me then what the nominal connection of the ECA with the TransEuropa festival would then be then? Would it be, as Sophie says, a moment, something like "ECA gathers at the Transeuropa Festival in Madrid".... or, how would we describe it in words? I'm just trying to advance this conversation here alongside the governance talks so that we have a clear idea on the nature of the collaboration when we try to make the decision with the larger membership of the ECA.

sorry I meant Madrid plan not 'Athens Plan' :)

Hi all,

I agree about the 2nd ECA versus moments of the ECA.
But this still leave us we the need for some arbitrage between proposals, as we will have to reach for money to implement them, and possibly not enough money to implement all the proposals… But that's an issue for the next call on governance…

The proposal of Madrid could work well with the idead we shared with Fred. I think it should be possible to plan activities with people from Ahora Madrid, but not be all tied up to them, and not have anly activities with them. Especially as there is the festival. It sounds really exciting to be able to have people from the municipality and the local social movements together discussing with commoners from elsewhere in Europe what they are trying to do and/or what they could try to do as far as commons are concerned.

Thanks all,
We do have a good start in Madrid, given the TransEuropa festival and the Re-Build Refuge Europe project which is feeding into it with projects from across Europe. We (as a part of the project led by European Alternatives-EA) are planning a newspaper, exhibitions, a possible concert and so on. So this provides a healthy environment which the ECA can 'live in', but not necessarily be directly associated with.

One of the people we got to know better while in Madrid was Flavia Introzzi, who was also part of the meetings organised by EA. She seems to know quite a lot - not only about the local groups in art and politics (she was at Matadero and now works for hablarenarte.com) but also the general feeling in town. She explained that some activists now have withdrawn a little from the municipal government initiatives (which are very progressive) and are organising and meeting in the non-central parts of town.

Perhaps I will invite her to join us here, if she is open to that..

Best,

Ivor

Dear all,

It is not totally clear to me what is our process at this point to talk about future plans. But we said there was a deadline this week to develop short proposals of projects. So I took the initiative to draft something, starting with the idea of the flying ECA and incorporating people comments on the loomio’s pages. It’s certainly imperfect but it’s a base to discuss. See below.

I would be great to be able to discuss the different proposals people would like to implement, as soon as possible. To be able to see what is feasible, what kind of funding with need, etc.

Best,

Gaelle
PS: I also agree with Ruby, we should also discuss ECA sessions to take place as part of european/regional events.

Flying ECA meeting

What:
100 commoners from the ECA gather in a city where particularly interesting politics and policies (from the point of view of the commons) are developed. The scale of the city is ideally big enough to interact with 100 commoners, but not too big… Let say between 50 000 and 3 millions inhabitants.
During several days (3 days?) they will:
- Interact with people from the place (social movements, municipality leaders):
- learn about what is being done, how the commons were integrated in the local policies/politics,
- share experiences and proposals that could make sense in the context of the city,
- Exchange and work among themselves will the help of people from the place who are interested to join the discussions.
- Augment the "tool box" of the ECA by registering policies/initiatives/actions based on the exchanges with the people from the city.

Where:
Madrid is clearly a serious options.
It could also be La Coruña or Barcelona – we have contacts in both cities.
Or cities in Italy, or the UK possibly.

When:
If it is in Madrid, it could take place during the European Alternatives' Transeuropa Festival (festival of European alternatives, a cultural, political and artistic event seeking a transnational debate and exchange on the future of our European (common) space), probably Oct 23-29. 2017.
If not in Madrid during the festival, set another time.

What would be required :
• Funds for traveling for around 70 people (we can imagine that some of our people will be able to get their organization to pay for their trip). (17 500 €)
• Local lodging (camping?). Some sort of camp would be ideal. Maybe a cheap option can be negotiated with the municipalities (max 10 000 €)
• Preparation of interesting actions/initiatives/policies to share in various domains.

People interested from ECA:
Gaelle, Fred, Ivor, Martin, Stacco, Sophie, Daphne, Ruby, etc.

Local contacts:
Contacts with Ahora Madrid, Flavia Introzzi, Medialab Prado, Goteo (Carmen Lozano), Platoniq, etc. (also contacts in other cities in Galicia, Barcelona, etc who could contribute), etc.

Hi Everyone,
I was just in Madrid for a few days and took the opportunity to make some contacts and explore the idea of having an ECA in Madrid in collaboration with the TransEuropafestival. Daphne is there for a while preparing for the festival and Lucas of Zemos stopped over for a day so that was perfect. Generally, I got a very good feeling. People are very interested in ECA, Madrid is full of commons based initiatives and collectives and the thinking is very evolved.

We met with de director of Media Lab Prado, Marcos, how is very keen on hosting an ECA, so that is very cool. They know all about the ECA event in Brussels, and are very keen on being part. Also met with Ahora Madrid,Intermediae Matadero- another public cultural institute also very active on commons initiatives and keen to cooperate, Carmen of Goteo, Stacco & AnnMarie and others.
I can share some longer notes soon. These were all just exploratory meetings to learn about what is the local context and what is possible. Basically it totally exceeded my expectations in terms of people's interest, the richness of the commons ecosystem in Madrid and possible locations. But maybe we can have a call soon with people interested to make some concrete plans, and Daphne and I can share our experiences and ideas.
Very best! sophie

Hi @sophie40 !

Wonderful. Did you visit any of the 'new' spaces of protest and organising outside of the city centre? A lot of activists seem to be moving to these banlieu, after realising that even with a leftist city administration, work needs to be continued and strengthened from the 'ground up'.

We will be back there again in June to prepare the festival with Daphne and co, and we are all very positive about the ECA.

Longer notes would be welcome - or just a chat in Berlin :)

Ivor

Hi there @ivorstodolsky and others. Sharing my notes but happy to have a coffee when we are both in Berlin (!). I did not get to see these new spaces outside city centre, but I am sure Daphne will have a chance. Matadero, with the Intermediae space (see notes), is outside city centre, and a beautiful huge complex with lots of space outside as well, but is more public and not self organised. ciao!

Notes madrid- Ideas for collaborations ECA moment