General Assembly Proposals
Proposals: Current procedures
(version 1.0)
Definition: A proposal is a yes or no question that needs to be approved by the assembly because it affects and reflects upon the People’s Assembly of Victoria and our movement. In order to be clear and concise, it should include what is being proposed, why it is being proposed, and how it will be carried out.
Proposal workshops:
Proposal writing workshops will be held periodically (for place & time please visit our website events calendar). The intention of these workshops is to assist people in considering the aspects of their proposal, getting feedback, and formulating it into a finished proposal.
Finished proposals:
- have been discussed with other individuals to get a sense of any controversy and support
- allow you to be best heard by the most number of people
- allow people to understand what you are proposing
- minimize the number of clarifying questions and concerns, therefore, allowing your proposal to be addressed in the 20 minutes allotted to it.
In order to form an Agenda before the GA to post it online and make it available to
facilitators, the process working group will be collecting proposals prior to the GA.
Proposal submission:
As is done at other ‘Occupy’ movements, proposals will be collected 24 hours prior to the GA via e-mail. If you cannot submit your proposal via email or do not have it prepared in time, there will be a member of the facilitation team at the GA location 20 minutes before the GA starts to collect additional proposals. The order that proposals are received will be respected and so it is highly encouraged that proposals are submitted at least 24 hours in advance.
E-mail submission: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Agenda formation:
One hour and forty minutes (100 minutes) of the GA agenda are allocated for proposals.
Each proposal is allotted 20 minutes maximum. This means there will normally be time for 5 proposals per GA. If proposals pass quickly, additional proposals from the proposal list may be added to the Agenda. Only proposals received before the start of the GA will be on the current proposal list. Working group proposals needing immediate decisions will be given priority on the Agenda.
Proposal list:
Proposals will be added to the list in the order that they are received. If the proposal list becomes longer than 5 proposals, proposals that are not addressed in the current GA will be carried forward, in order, to the next GA. If the list becomes very long, it is likely that we will need to schedule more GA’s per week. Be aware that if the proposal list is long, even submitting your proposal 24 hours in advance does not guarantee it will be addressed at the first GA.
Tabled proposals:
If the Assembly is not able to come to consensus by the end of the allotted 20 minute period, the proposal will be tabled. It is in the hands of the proposer to re-work their proposal and submit it to be added to the proposal list once again. It will then be brought as a new proposal and it is highly recommended that changes are, in fact, made before trying again for consensus.