Notes from the first California Icarus Regional Organizing Collective (CAIROC) meeting
August 4, 2010

The point of CAIROC is to be a West Coast regional hub for the Icarus Project, to take on some of the responsibility that is held by the national organizing collective (based in NY)

Ultimately, the goal is to find new ways to structure the Icarus Project

Here at CAIROC, we are focusing on the following areas:
1. Fundraising
2. Events
3. Anti-oppression work

1. Fundraising
a. In the immediate term, we want to raise money for the national collective, whose funds are exhausted. Also, we want to provide the monetary basis for the restructuring of the Icarus Project from having one centralized organizing body to having regional organizing bodies.
b. In the longterm, we are looking for alternative ways to fund the Icarus Project, so that we can have money as a regional organizing hub. An example of this is to find a local fiscal sponsor.
c. We are talking about putting together a set of tools for fundraising and outreach, then sharing them with the other local groups. This work can generate funds for Icarus groups, and additionally can outreach to people and build community support. These tools include:
- the friends & family letter, from the Icarus website
- hosting donation-based speakers & events
- using internet-based donation tools, such as the Facebook Causes application and kickstarter.com
d. We brought up the issue of whether or not we should apply for a government grant (“The Innovative Grants Program” through Alameda County), which is a contentious issue because Icarus has never gotten government funding before. We will have more discussion about it, including on a national level, during the national conference call. We set a date for the end of August to have a final decision about applying. The deadline to apply is September 30th.

2. Events
a. We discussed starting a monthly speaker series, featuring big fish in the alternative mental health field, as well as Bay Area-based writers/artists/workers. Specifically, we discussed inviting the following people: Bob Whitakter, Ethan Waters, and Aurora Morales.
b. Ken would like to feature his film, Crooked Beauty, as the headlining event in a mad arts show, which will also be a benefit for the Icarus Project
c. Jacks and Liz are spearheading a series of writing workshops through The Queer Arts Project (but we did not discuss this at the meeting)
d. Jacks wants to put on events specifically about creativity & madness

3. Anti-oppression discussion
a. This discussion came up in the context of Jacks having a friend who wants to get involved with The Icarus Project but feels like Icarus is a very white space and has not been inclusive of people of color
b. This is a discussion that we agreed we need to continue having, and everyone had strong ideas and feelings about these issues. We discussed the following concrete possibilites:
- participating in an anti-oppression training through the Catalyst Project
- Jacks’ friend Kiran has offered to lead an anti-oppression training specifically for our group because she thinks we are worthy of her time, if we are willing
- Somebody suggested the Challengeing White Supremacy series, as part of the Anne Braden Project, as another potential training we could look into
- We could also have a book club, reading White Like Us or other books about challenging white privilege
c. Ultimately, we are committed to making regular space for a race discussion, and writing a vision statement foregrounding anti-oppression work in all of the work we do

We left the meeting with the following tasks:

KEN - going to contact Christin from Madison about getting the list of local group contacts
- going to contact Delphina Paretti re: extended learning circuit at CIIS
- going to be on the national coordinating conference call on Weds, in place of Jacks

EMIKO - will contact CIIS about using the space for our speaker series

DANNI - going to figure out how to invite people to the Facebook cause for Icarus
- going to contact someone in Portland to see if their local group still exists

CHAYA - going to talk to Bob Whitaker about coming to read/speak (as part of our ongoing speaker series)

LIZ - going to talk to Ethan Waters about coming to read/speak about his book, Crazy Like Us

JACKS - going to talk to Aurora Morales about coming to speak
- talk to Kiran about doing an anti-oppression workshop

EVAN and KEN- going to read the fine print on the government grant and talk about it on the national conference call next Sunday

Follow Up
Danni tried to enter credit card information on the Facebook causes site, but couldn't get the donation to go through. This brought up the concern that people might feel more comfortable donating money through the Icarus website, rather than Facebook. But the Facebook page is useful because it shows who supports the cause, whether or not they donate. So, we still encourage folks to invite their friends to join the Icarus Project cause on Facebook, but donate money through the Icarus website.