Sent in from OBBC #1 member Nic:

Our first Beer Committee meeting was a great success and a solid first step to creating a stronger Occupy Movement. There were eight of us who came together last Wednesday night to discuss the issues surrounding the movement that were on our minds. We talk on specific topics like the Occupy Berkeley camp and about more personal broad issues like why we support the movement. It was a fantastic conversation and we had several new and quite intriguing ideas come to light.

As we hoped, the first meeting brought together people with a variety of ideas and visions for the movement. We even had the pleasure of having a visitor from Great Britain share his thoughts for the organization. Some members were interested in instigating change on a local level and others were interested in national policy change. Some had specific skills they wanted to use to further the Occupy cause and others were more geared toward planning projects and actions. For example, one idea that was shared was that of using the Transition Town Movement as a model for Occupy to build off of. Another member would like to see the movement become more politically involved by communicating with local progressive leaders. We even had some progress on the notion of using the Grassroots House in Berkeley to assist us with office space if we grew to need it.

The meeting went for about two hours and was beautiful representation of the possibility of the Occupy movement. The discussion was cordial and had the potential to really incite social change through inspiration and vision planning. We hope that it grows in the coming weeks and we continue to give our community an outlet to discuss and act on the change that each of us want to see in our society.

List of visions and topics that were brought up at the meeting:

1. Engaging city officials about local change and the city’s relationship with Occupy
2. Creating a more grassroots and community level projects for a sustainable future
3. A push for creating a multi-party democratic system in the nation
4. Rethinking of capitalism as the foundation for our economic system
5. Moving the location of the camp to in front of old city hall
6. Desire to improve health food accessibility and acceptance in our culture
7. Solidifying the movement around getting money out of politics
8. Producing a video or television segment that will really help to market our vision for change.
9. Actively supporting the Occupy Berkeley camp and providing more services
10. Looking to the Transition Towns to get ideas for projects and organization ideas
11. Partnering with the Green Party to use their office in the Grassroots House
12. Supporting local and individual agriculture projects