“Now that the occupation in Guelph has ended, this is kind of going to be carrying on the momentum of what has happened in Guelph.”

Under the banner of Beyond Occupy, about 75 people met on Friday Nov 18 at 10 Carden Street to discuss the future of the occupation movement in Guelph. When the event was originally planned, organizers Kevin Sutton and James Gordon had no intention of building a group that would supplant the group of demonstrators living in St. George’s square.

“I was really just hoping to provide a space, and put a few tools together in people’s hands for having a conversation that might lead to something, and feel like everyone was heard,” Gordon said. “And felt like acknowledging what was happening here with the occupation movement, and globally, and how we are affected by it, and how we can contribute to it.”

However, with the downtown occupation just newly abandoned, the focus of the meeting shifted to trying to envision a future for the movement in Guelph that actually did go beyond the occupation.

“Now that the occupation in Guelph has ended, this is kind of going to be carrying on the momentum of what has happened in Guelph,”Sutton said.

After a short introduction and video presentation, participants separated into smaller groups to discuss their feelings about the movement and hopes for its future direction. These group discussions were structured with the intention of maximizing the sense that individual messages were heard, rather than to facilitate debate. After each person made their statement, another would volunteer to express, in their own words, what they understood the speaker had been trying to express. If the original speaker assented to the interpretation, the discussion would move on to a new speaker. This tended to move along faster than expected.

After an hour of these small group discussions, the larger group came back together to allow the smaller groups to present their ideas. In notes ranging from traditional bulleted lists to picture covered mind maps, the groups had recorded an array of ideas that pointed more toward a general unease or dissatisfaction with the direction and current state of society, than a unified critique or programme.

In the discussion which followed, attendees’ opinions varied as well on whether this was a strength or a weakness. Some expressed a desire for future meetings to focus on hammering out a clearer message, while many expressed worries that the direction of the meetings could too easily lead to the calcification of the movement into an organization.

“I’m afraid it’s going to be too organizational,” said meeting participant Dale, last name withheld. “People just love organizing things.”

As it stands, the plan for the next meeting sounds like it could be interpreted as a step in either direction.

Sutton says the meeting will take place in a “big room with stations and facilitators at them that deal with core issues, and then people can wander back and forth popcorning ideas in towards creating tangible actual goals, and next steps and strategies.”

“The next steps come from the next meeting.” Sutton continued, “I think that’s kinda how it goes.”

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