Spokes Council Proposal for Occupy Wall Street

The atrium at 60 Wall Street is a meeting place for a number of Occupy Wall Street working groups. Yesterday evening intending to go to a facilitators training I blundered into a meeting which included members of the Structure Working Group discussing a Spokes Council Proposal.

A lucky blunder! I got aglimpse of a process that will become history. The gloriously successful OWS has outgrown its original structure. Most decisions are now being made in the General Assembly but with uncounted people in 54 groups doing a heroic amount of work on a dizzying array of tasks the GA is bursting at the seams.

General Assembly October 19, 2011

What’s next?
How to keep the direct democracy, non-hierarchy, transparency, accountability, diversity, anti-oppression, autonomy, cooperation, participation, inclusion, flexibility and mutual respect of OWS and keep on unleashing the revolutionary imagination?

The Structure Working Group has a plan.

“In order to maintain the non-hierarchical and directly democratic nature of OWS, while encouraging more functional, accountable, and transparent processes, we propose that we institute a Spokes Council comprised of all Working Groups and Caucuses…. it is called a spokes council because it is structured like the spokes of a wheel.”

The Structure Working Group plans to introduce the Spokes Council Proposal to the General Assembly tonight.

Just gotta be there. To be continued….

– Eva-Lee Baird
for the Granny Peace Brigade