This blog was co-authored by the IOPS chapters of Dublin, Melbourne, Missoula, New York City, Salem and Vienna.  It was written for the benefit of IOPS members and was originally published on the IOPS website with a bunch of cool pictures under the title “What Happened” (those who prefer illustrations might want to read the blog here).  It is being republished here at the request of one of the authors.  The title was altered to clarify the blog’s subject matter for the ZBlog community.

What [Ever] Happened [to IOPS?]

“It is not enough to make a plan; we must evaluate the results of that plan.”Marta Harnecker

A few months ago, we wrote of the need for all of us to engage in a reevaluation process.  We have, since then, taken our own advice.  The question we asked ourselves was, as our title indicates, “What happened?”  Yes, we failed to meet the organizing goals we set ourselves, but, to understand the nature of that failure, we needed to know just what our organizing efforts were.  To that end, we set about a process of data-gathering and analysis, and made findings that we share with you now, in the belief that they should inform all our organizing efforts going forward.  But, before we share those findings, we would like to tell you a little bit about the chapters we represent.

IOPS (County) Dublin

IOPS Dublin first got together in September 2012, and, after a few stop and starts, have been meeting monthly. We spent the first year working through the mission and vision, getting to know one another, discussing hopes for IOPS, and other educational work. Only very recently have we begun to get involved in public events. We had a stall at the April 2014 Anarchist bookfair, and one of our members gave a talk on IOPS. We also recently attended the opening of a bridge here in Dublin, in solidarity with other activists around Europe, and in collaboration with IOPS Vienna.  We have never been considered an “active” [– i.e., “working”] chapter, as we do not meet the female quota.  (June 2014.)

IOPS Melbourne

IOPS Melbourne was founded in a pub in February 2013. We’ve generally met fortnightly ever since. The active membership is currently 12 strong, comprising two pre-existing friendship groups and five individuals. Early meetings were spent getting to know each other and developing meeting processes. Actions so far include hosting bi-monthly screening and discussion events, running stalls and workshops, instituting an English language project for refugees and new immigrants, joining a rent collective for the establishment of the West Papuan independence movement’s campaign office, and organising the inaugural protest against the introduction of anti-protest legislation in the state of Victoria.  (June 2014.)

IOPS Missoula

IOPS Missoula is a kind of hybrid organization — of the 19 members that meet monthly as IOPS, 10-16 of those same people meet weekly as a radical “intentional community” for fairly rigorous study, discussion and food.  Membership building to the chapter has thus far been through personal invitation by a core member as we waited to see what became of the “International.”  Our hope is to introduce an anti-capitalist critique and IOPS vision into the local climate movement.  (June 2014.)

IOPS New York City

IOPS NYC began around a tiny kitchen table in 2012 and has grown to bi-weekly meetings. We work in various social movements, including The Participatory Budgeting Project, the Free Chelsea Manning Network, and Justice for Trayvon Martin. We have organized successful events and projects, including music against the TPP, workshops on the IOPS vision at the Left Forum and the NYC anarchist book fair, a contingent at the May 1st March, and production of political music videos. We engage the IOPS platform by discussing Occupy Strategy, and have had an active majority of members of color throughout our history.  (June 2014.)

IOPS Salem

IOPS Salem began meeting regularly in October 2012.  Like IOPS Missoula, we are first and foremost engaged in “mental preparation for social change.” However, many of us have not been involved in activism through the years. We’re older, more ordinary, less certain. We see study and analysis as necessary for us to understand real existing capitalism and today’s social relations. We have attempted to insert ourselves and our critique into existing projects and blogged about our experience, but Salem is the capital of Oregon — a government town of  socially and intellectually conservative people, although many see themselves as progressive. Just engaging in discussion is extremely challenging.  (June 2014.)

IOPS Vienna

We founded IOPS Vienna on 16 February 2012 and met roughly every two weeks  since our first meeting. Issues we addressed were Participatory  Economics, Commons, Global Villages, Universal Basic Income, Economic Democracy, Italian Workerism, Workers Rights, Right to the City, Slums,  Discrimination of Refugees, Participism, Organizing and Care. We  addressed them through demonstrations, a rally, a march, workshops, talks, discussions, a documentary screening, declarations of solidarity,  an open breakfast, reading circles, leaflets, posters and newsletters. Lately we began organizing on a European level together with IOPS Dublin and others. Since very recently however, we no longer satisfy the female quota.  (June 2014.)

IOPS Inter-Chapter Workgroup

Delegates from all of the above, along with a few others, have been working together on IOPS organizational issues since May 2014.  A few months before that, IOPS Vienna and IOPS Dublin began developing a cooperative relationship.  The rest of us came along on the initiative of one of the international admins.  None of us knows “why” we did not make a concerted effort to collaborate earlier, and we can only speculate as to what we might have accomplished had we reached out on our own to other chapters with offers of mutual aid and support in our organizing efforts.  Maybe we thought we “knew” what was happening; we’d seen the blogs and forum discussions claiming that people aren’t joining because the organization isn’t growing fast enough, or not enough is happening, or the website is too “yesterday” or too hard to navigate, or the vision and commitments are not friendly enough, or people are afraid of failing or wasting their time, or they don’t have any time, or they’re too distracted, or too busy trying to make ends meet, or too active elsewhere.  But, even assuming all that were true, it need not have kept us from reaching out to each other.  So, perhaps the best thing to be said about failing to reach our interim goals is that it finally brought us together to share our successes and frustrations and come to understand a little about each other’s circumstances.

Our Process

After due consideration, we decided that the first step to finding out “what happened” would be to determine, as best we could, all the IOPS-focused organizing that occurred between January 2012 and June 2014.  Because the main focus of most of the organizing was the goal of 20 “working chapters,” we needed to understand what that term meant.  So, we went to the ICC’s definition, as set out in poll question #2:

For purposes of Question 3 [How many working chapters should we have in place and operating before the founding convention?], a chapter is a group of members that meets regularly, develops shared commitments, shares experiences, etc., maintains an IOPS chapter web page, and has a membership of at least: [5, as decided by the second poll.]

We noted the absence of any discussion, by anybody, of a quorum requirement.  Thus, participatory societal values aside, a chapter of, say, 100, 30% of whom are women, would satisfy the ICC’s definition of “working,” even if only 10 were meeting regularly.  We also noted that, within a few weeks of the poll’s closing, the definition of “working chapter” was being reinterpreted to omit the “maintains an IOPS chapter web page” aspect, and later, to require that only five members regularly attend meetings, and even later, to require that only 30% of those attending meetings be women.

Next, we ran a bunch of queries of the database.  To a current list of all chapters with chapter page admins, we manually added chapters with five or more members.  To that, we manually added the chapters whose members included a member of the ICC.  Then, we studied the national, regional and local chapter pages of each one on the list and made notes of any sign of organizing activity.  Based on the results of that study, we decided to focus further research on local chapters that had at least one admin and more than five members (our “research criteria”).  Then, we manually divided the list into nine global “areas”:  Nordic Netherlands (Nord-Neth), Northwest Europe (EurNW), United Kingdom and Ireland (UKI), Eastern Europe- Middle- East-Asia (EurE-ME-A) South Africa-Australia-New Zealand (SSAAusNZ), Japan-Western North America (NA-W&J), Mid-North America (NA-M), Northeastern North America (NA-NE), and Southeastern North America (NA-SE) & Central/South America (C/SA).  Note:  the abbreviations appear on tabs at the bottom of the list.  Just select the appropriate tab to examine our data on that area.

With our list in hand, we wrote to select members of the chapters that fit our research criteria, telling them what we were doing and what their chapter pages told us about their organizing activities since inception and asking them for any additional details they might be able to give us.  Many were slow to respond, did not respond, or provided information that was not particularly helpful.  Those who did respond usually responded to follow up questions, but not always.  We are certainly grateful for those who did respond and for their information and insights.  We would have liked to include many more than we had space for.  Letters like this, for instance.

Our findings, below, were/are based on all the information that was available through the above process and sources and on reasonable inferences taken therefrom.  Readers in possession of useful additional, or contrary, information are invited to share it by posting the information as a comment or by personal message to any of the authors.  To give the findings context, particularly for the many members who joined in 2013 and 2014 and those that may join hereafter, we begin with a timeline of what we considered relevant “events.”

Timeline

2008 – Noam Chomsky turned 80

Mid-summer 2011 – IOPS “arose from a poll – yes, a poll – taken by a bit over 4,000 users of the ZNet web site” (See here, here, and here)

Sep 2011 – Occupy Wall Street initiative

Jan 2012 – IOPS website went “live”

Jan-Mar 2012 – international page heavily populated with content from ZNet;  ZNet members importuned to join IOPS if they “feel it would it be wonderful if IOPS grew to…hundreds of thousands and more people”, if they “would love to live in the society it is seeking”, and if they “like its commitment to self management, to mutual aid and respect, to flexibility and dissent” (no mention of any commitment to organizing); members organized and began executing more or less successful website, translation and social media projects

Apr 2012 –  ICC blog on achieving gender balance in the membership and increasing IOPS’s media coverage; popular Study Group on Role of Revolutionary Org project began; membership passed 1,000

Jun 2012 – Local Chapter & Forum Project project initiated

Jul 2012 – about $5,700 raised during a 30-day Fund Raising Appeal and Michael Albert’s European Speaking Tour project began;  site usage policy developed in response to repeated anti-feminist postings

Aug 23 2012 – discussion about reaching interim organizational goals within a deadline began; Michael Albert’s North American Tour project began

Sep 10 2012 – membership exceeded 2,500, prompting push for faster growth

Sep/Oct 2012 – membership was helping get ZSocial started; both tour project organizers encountered difficulties mustering local support;  projects created by 36 members in 13 countries (28 by U.S. members, 6 by members in England) reached a total of 51, of which 38 either never got off the ground, or became inactive not long after creation

Nov 2012 – European tour project ended with many organizers feeling disappointed and demoralized; North American tour project canceled for lack of organizational capacity

Dec 2012 – ICC announced it was divided on questions concerning interim goals or preconditions for a founding convention, and acknowledged that they had no method for making “controversial” but necessary decisions during the interim phase; polling on each individual precondition (vs. campaigns that integrated preconditions) proposed

Jan 2013 – text of a proposed letter to the ICC posted; ICC announced a method for deciding controversial questions and a poll on individual preconditions

Apr 2013 – first poll “Preconditions for the IOPS Founding Convention” closed

Jun 2013 – second poll (“Final Run-off Poll for IOPS Founding Convention Preconditions”) closed, setting as goals a total membership of at least 3500, 30% of whom are women, in 3 continents and 5 nation states, with 20 “working chapters” (see “Our Process”).

Jul 2013 – query “Are you in a working IOPS chapter?” posted to the international page

Aug 2013 – “working chapter” list of 5 posted to international page; two membership targets featured: at least 3,500 members and 20 “working” chapters (but not the overall-membership -30%-women target)

Fall 2013 – 3 chapters added to the list of working chapters; key participants in the Study Group on Role of Revolutionary Org dropped out; international page began to show signs of neglect and website briefly went dark; ZSocial mourned

Winter 2014 – international page admin replaced; membership exceeded 3,500; renewed discussion of IOPS logo; international page began to emphasize organizational issues

May 2014 – membership dropped below target 3,500 as dozens of members deactivated their memberships after receiving a group message deliberately sent to everyone in the international (3,500+); 2 chapters taken off the “working chapter” list; “Live Talks” initiated

Jun 2014 – deadline for reaching interim goals expired with only some goals met; overall membership was less than 30% women and there were fewer than 20 “working” chapters

July — “Poll on IOPS Future”

IOPS (the International)

Metrics

The only measures of diversity available on the international level are 1) members’ self-reported gender, if any, 2) members’ self-reported location, 3) members’ self-reported date of birth, if any, 4) members’ language preference, and 5) the number of members.  So, unless we want to begin systematically collecting demographic data on all members, we must depend on these measures to give us some indication of how diverse we are.  Similarly, the only measure of participation available on the international level at present is website communications.

Diversity

As of July 2014, IOPS had nominal chapters in 110 countries on six continents, based on members’ self-reported residence.  About 93% of the membership were English-speaking, and most of the remainder claimed Italian, Spanish (2% each), French or German (1% each).  In mid-June 2013, IOPS had about 3,065 members, about 17% of whom were women.  A year later, the membership exceeded 3,500, but the proportion of women had increased by less than 1%.  As of July 2014, five national chapters had at least 30% women: IOPS Indonesia, IOPS Croatia, IOPS Switzerland, IOPS Wales and IOPS Philippines.  Of the 113 or so regional chapters with at least 30% women, only 8 had more than 10 members.  Finally, IOPS is probably young, but 58% of members gave no birth date when they registered.  Of those who did give a birth date, 61% claimed to be under the age of 40.  If we assume that those who gave no birth date were under 40, the percentage of younger members is around 75%.

Participation

Between January 6, 2012 (when the website went “live”) and June 2014, about 500 registered- member accounts were deactivated (figure includes ~150 test accounts and fake users) and no more than about 1,600 members communicated through the website — posting 548 blogs, creating 110 projects, commenting, etc. (the count does not include admin activity or voting).  In the year or so prior to June 2014, no more than about 650 members communicated through the website — creating only 16 projects and posting only 181 blogs.  Throughout, most of the blogs and projects were posted to the international (“home”) page, whether or not they concerned the international organization.  About 25% of members voted in the first poll on the preconditions (spring 2013), 22% in the runoff poll, and less than 7% in the July 2014 poll (the first two polls had a quorum requirement).  Twenty-five members who were, at some point, also members of the ICC, posted a blog, joined a project, or voted in the July 2014 poll.

Organizational Capacity

For now, IOPS’s organizational capacity rests primarily in its members and website.  The website and international page are administered by one individual.  Four other individuals have admin authority over the international page and there is an effort under way to revitalize the Website Team project to design a new website.  The cost to host the website is about $85 per month, which fees are drawn from funds recently transferred from PPSUK to IOPS Melbourne (see IOPS Greater London, below).  There is currently about $2,500 in the account.

Nordic-Netherlands

Although there are 2 members of the ICC and 172 other IOPS members in the Nordic-Netherlands area (Scandanavia, Finland and Netherlands), no local or regional chapter has ever claimed “working” chapter status.  In September 2012, four members of IOPS Netherlands attended a meeting arranged by its admin, who later posted a followup blog suggesting the chapter do something “concrete”, and five or so collaborated online to create Dutch translations of basic IOPS documents.  Five members of IOPS Netherlands voted in the July 2014 poll.

IOPS Scandanavia

An early project started by a member of IOPS Oslo envisioned organizing IOPS Scandanavia (Norway, Denmark and Sweden), and setting the stage for cooperative organizing across languages, borders, causes and activist organizations such as Parecon Sverige and Motmakt.  In the spring of 2012, Motmakt made itself “IOPS-compatible,” but chose to remain distinct from IOPS Norway to allow IOPS Norway to develop on its own, which, unfortunately, it did not do, despite the efforts of one member to make contact through personal messages and blogs.  About 10 of the 28 members of IOPS Norway are also members Motmakt and known to be active within that organization.  Not unlike the situation with Motmakt and IOPS Norway, IOPS Sweden began with members of Parecon Sverige, which had its own structure, organization and mission.  Therefore, organizing within or “for” IOPS would have been somewhat redundant.  In their view, IOPS would have better begun as a federation of functioning, IOPS-compatible organizations, rather than relying on members to recruit other members.  Nevertheless, up until August 2013 or so, active efforts were made to organize IOPS Sweden in cooperation with IOPS Norway.  Identified barriers to success include the bad impression given IOPS by “the disastrous debates and discussions [on the international page] that lead to nowhere” and the demoralizing effect of ridiculous “arguments [for example, ‘every member recruits just one member’] and estimates of IOPS growing to have tens of thousands of members in a few years.”  Thirteen members (just over 12%) of IOPS Scandanavia voted in the July 2014 poll.

IOPS Finland

Early on, or maybe even before IOPS Finland was founded, members’ activity was focused on Parecon Finland, a small group with a theoretical/educational focus.  As with IOPS Norway and IOPS Sweden, organizing “for” IOPS would have been redundant.  Nevertheless, one member sent “many messages” and, in the spring of 2012, created a “Beginning IOPS Finland” forum in an attempt to engage members and organize a gathering, with no success.  “Finland is a big country with small population…but more importantly[,] I don’t think anyone was sufficiently aware of what IOPS was (is) that they would have started organising around it.”  And, as in most chapters, resources were limited.

[M]y own time is focused on Parecon Finland, which I hope will one day provide analysis and support to IOPS groups in Finland[.]  I can work as a member in one such group, [b]ut to establish such a group, with very little members and not much enthusiasm is way over my resources, it would mean shutting down our progress with Parecon Finland.  (Emphasis added.)

Two members of IOPS Finland voted in the July 2014 poll.

Northern and Western Europe

Five members of the ICC and 405 members claimed this area as home in July 2014.  Efforts to organize IOPS Madrid appear to be only very recent, with enthusiasm among existing members seeming to be rather on the low side.  At some point, the admin of the IOPS Barcelona page sent emails to the members, but no one responded.  Then, after speaking with a couple of members of other chapters, he began to have doubts about IOPS, and ceased any organizing efforts.  He has since returned to his home country.  In August 2013, a few weeks after IOPS Castellón (then 7 members) had its first meeting, its admin wrote an enthusiastic blog and forum topic on how to become a “working” chapter that received encouraging comments.  However, there is no evidence on the chapter page of subsequent organizing efforts.  Asked for reasons, he stated he did not think IOPS “is giving the answer to the current crisis which is affecting not only the economic sphere but people[‘s] roots [and] identity as well…IOPS is too far from people[‘s] concerns…and there is a tendency to be know-it-all inside the chapters.”  Four members of IOPS Spain voted in the July 2014 poll — one from IOPS Madrid, none from IOPS Barcelona or Castellón.

IOPS Belgium

In May 2012, one member contacted the dozen or so other members by phone, email, and personal message, and organized an informal get-together; five male members attended.  However, except for a couple of email contacts, there was no second meeting.  The member who initiated the meeting contacted a group affiliated with the Christian Democrats in Belgium, hoping to interest some female members.  He came away with a book for the IOPS Belgium library (a project), but no new members.  He also managed to secure for the library the publications of www.cetri.be (covering north-south tensions from a Latino, African and Asian perspective), but no one ever asked to borrow the materials.  In mid-May, two members took part in the Brussels Indignados/12M protest, but, aside from two energetic and engaging blogs about the chapter’s activities and a well-developed project to make Occupy Theory (one of the Fanfare series) available in an audio book format, local organizing activity ceased as the initiating member took on additional IOPS responsibilities, including the Michael Albert European tour project.  Members were invited to participate.  In an excess of optimism, he secured a 120-seat hall and sound equipment at personal expense, and posters went up (late hours, in the rain, only one person assisting).  Of the twelve who attended the talk, four were the organizer’s friends.  Asked to recall his thinking during this time, he wrote:

[I thought,] I can’t do it alone… if [these] people don’t care for the suffering of other people, why can’t I just go on monopolizing skills, earning more, and use those means to directly help people at a much smaller scale, without wasting assets , time and money trying to organise people who don’t give a damn, people who, and I realize this now, are the least affected by what we are trying to fight: academics, political and anarchist pundits, writers … I thought, this is a waste of time…

The experience was so discouraging, in fact, that this individual gave up on IOPS and organizing altogether for more than a year, despite being a member of the ICC.  Although IOPS Belgium has 37 members, it has never been considered a “working” chapter.  However, 12 members voted in the July 2014 poll, and 7 met together in September.

IOPS Paris

IOPS France had 77 members in July 2014, 2 serving on the ICC.  In April 2012, the IOPS Paris admin sent messages to all in the chapter seeking a face-to-face meeting, with no response.  In September 2012, another member of IOPS France started a project to host Michael Albert at a conference at the University of Paris West – Nanterre, however, of the six who joined the project, only one was from IOPS Paris, which at the time had a dozen or so members.  The event took place but was not reported on the chapter web page, and any organizing activity since that time is not evident on the chapter page.  No member of IOPS Paris voted in the most recent poll.

IOPS Vienna

IOPS Vienna is the largest chapter in Austria.  That one of its members participated in testing the IOPS website founded this chapter likely contributed to its early organizing success.  The first meeting took place in a community hall in April 2012.  Although many members came and went over the next several months, a core group of three students formed, and eventually grew to five.  Regular meetings continued for more than two years, with an average attendance of six, most often beginning in the public space at Vienna’s Amerlinghaus, which was popular with leftist causes and organizations, and fostered their mutual cooperation.  The chapter collected dues on a purely voluntary basis, and decisions were made by consensus.  Detailed meeting minutes were kept (in German), but not reported on the chapter page because it was felt they would not be useful and might even compromise the chapter’s activities.  They did post some events, though, and put out a quarterly newsletter, mostly of upcoming events, to about 50 subscribers.  The chapter would have liked to have hosted Michael Albert on his European tour, but ultimately did not, for reasons not exclusive to the chapter. In the fall of 2013, the chapter was placed on the “working” chapter list, and in March 2014, they announced a joint project with IOPS Dublin that called on the other IOPS Europe chapters to join in solidarity.  That those chapters failed to respond to the call, and the silence of the area’s ICC members, was deeply discouraging and caused the chapter members to question the future of IOPS on the international level.  One of the core left IOPS to join the interventionistische Linke (iL), causing the chapter to fall below the requisite 30% registered women members required for “working” chapter status.  After another left Vienna to work in China, and a third moved to Spain, chapter activity all but ceased.  Two members of IOPS Vienna voted in the July 2014 poll.

The United Kingdom and Ireland

Seven members of the ICC and 492 other members lived in the UK and Ireland in July 2014.  The only chapter meeting our research criteria that is not discussed below is IOPS East Sussex, a regional chapter.  Its chapter page shows no sign of organizing activity.  Its admin, who was the only member to vote in the July 2014 poll, reports that there was an early attempt “to organise locally via the website with a meetup arranged but no response at that time.”

IOPS (County) Dublin

IOPS Dublin, then consisting of about 22 members, 4 of them women, in about a dozen local chapters, established itself in September 2012 on the initiative of four members who knew each other.  They organized at the regional (county) level because that was the “most local” level feasible.  Initially, they planned to meet monthly.  The first three meetings went well, with six regulars, (two previously unacquainted), but the group did not have a regular place to meet.  After a four-month interval, they reconvened in April 2013.  Two of the regulars did not return — one because of work commitments, the other because things were moving too slowly — but four more joined. As of this writing, IOPS Dublin has 30 members, 5 women, however, the “online membership in Ireland does not reflect the active members, and despite numerous attempts at making contact most members have never replied.”  The chapter does not have a constitution, and does not collect dues.  Any member may add items to a meeting agenda.  The roles of moderator and secretary are rotated and assigned at the beginning of each meeting, where most decisions are made by consensus.

The core of IOPS Dublin consists of eight members (with roughly six attending meetings regularly) supported by a few that stay in touch and attend occasionally.  Chapter reporting occurred at least quarterly until May 2014, when, as of this writing, the last report was posted.  The motto of IOPS Dublin could be said to be, “If you want to see something happening in your region, you should try to be the person that makes that happen.”  Four members of IOPS Dublin voted in the July 2014 poll.

IOPS Birmingham, West Midlands

Organizing IOPS Birmingham began in April 2012 with the creation of a study group, in the hope that such a project would bring some structure to meetings of the chapter.  Although eight members joined the project, the first meeting did not occur until November 2012.  The three who attended agreed to monthly meetings and to dues of £10 per month.  The same three met again in December, paid their dues, and did so again in January 2013.  Postings about the meetings included summaries of the matters discussed.  For that brief period, those who participated in these meetings “felt like we had the basis for a solid little chapter with the potential to grow.”  However, one of the three moved away, and the other(s) stopped attending, and later-joining members of the chapter did not respond to invitations.  The last of the original three was the only member of IOPS Birmingham to vote in the July 2014 poll.

IOPS Greater London

Although most of the organizing in the Greater London chapter took place on the regional level, IOPS Greater London has never claimed “working” chapter status.  Its page has four admins, two of whom are also international page admins.  Within the Greater London chapter there are 11 local chapters having at least 5 members each (Lambeth [11], Harrow, Ealing, Lewisham [13], Camden [12], Hackney [19], Haringey, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Southwark and Tower Hamlets).  However, only two of those chapter pages has an admin, and none has significant local content, if any.  Why organizing in IOPS Greater London was never localized is unclear, but it might have something to do with its origins in PPSUK.

Before IOPS was founded, there was in the UK an organization called the Project for a Participatory Society – UK.  Some, perhaps all 23, members of the PPSUK London chapter joined IOPS.  Some of the PPSUK members who joined IOPS had been frustrated by the lack of structure in PPSUK and hoped IOPS would be different.  A core group of about ten organizers was formed.  Following Michael Albert’s speaking event in London in the fall of 2012, IOPS Greater London gained about 60 new members.  However, the core group continued to carry primary responsibility for the chapter’s organizing efforts.  Shortly after Michael Albert’s talk, the core group divided into two factions, an ICC member in each faction.  One faction included those who had been frustrated with the lack of structure in PPSUK and were soon frustrated by the lack of structure in IOPS; they viewed the drafting and adoption of a chapter constitution as a priority.  The other group felt structure was no more important than study and relationship-building, refused to prioritize the drafting of a constitution and organized a series of “cross-movement assemblies” with other activist groups.

Between January and April 2013, there were four assemblies, each attended by 30 to 70 people.  The constitution faction reportedly did not attend these meetings, and, for reasons unknown, organizing efforts ceased until April 2014, when two members who had participated in the “cross-movement assemblies” approached another member in London after a talk, and “wanted to know if IOPS could get going again.”  The result of that conversation was an invitation to all 150 London-area members to a May 2014 meeting.  The six members who attended planned more meetings and social gatherings, which, as of this writing, are still ongoing, with anywhere from 4 to 12 attending, most of whom are relatively new to IOPS.

Today, the chapter has a core of about seven members — most new, two or three from the original core of ten.  A project to collect and develop “Best [Organizational] Practices” was started in June, but, it is not active.  Similarly, a July project to create videos never got off the ground.  There has been no activity on the chapter’s Facebook or You Tube pages since 2012, attendance remains steady at just under ten, including guests, and the chapter readily admitted it lacked the capacity to take over the administration of the international IOPS account from PPSUK.   Nineteen from IOPS Greater London voted in the July 2014 poll.

IOPS Kent

Like IOPS Greater London, members of IOPS Kent chose to organize at the regional level, however, IOPS Kent had a much smaller membership.  In July of 2012, one of its members contacted the other five members.  He recalls they got together for the first time later that fall, but no record was kept, and a forum entry he posted in April 2013 enthusiastically describes a recent “first meeting” and plans to hold monthly meetings thereafter.  Whenever the meetings began, there were no more than 12 altogether.  Aside from the April 2013 entry, there were no meeting minutes or chapter reports posted.  Nor was a constitution, procedures, or common purpose statement for the meetings ever developed:

Some thought the main purpose of the meeting was to discuss IOPS theory, i.e. Fanfare, to ensure we understood what we were trying to build. Others wanted to do ‘something’ but no-one could agree just what.

Most of the members were associated with the local university, so, meeting attendance diminished with exams.  By June 2013, IOPS Kent had gained only five more members, and by August, the chapter was “facing certain issues”, including difficulty attracting women:

Those we talk to really want the chapter to be active in contributing something before they participate…[and] we are having trouble finding activities to engage in which current members are interested in working on.

In the fall of 2013, despite these difficulties, IOPS Kent was listed as a “working” chapter, which did not prevent two of the three members who tended to call the meetings from becoming frustrated.  As one became more involved in the People’s Assembly, no one stepped in to organize meetings.  Eventually, the chapter was delisted as “working.”  Two of the three members voted in the July 2014 poll.

Eastern Europe, Middle East, Asia

Two hundred thirty-eight IOPS members, 6 of whom were on the ICC, were spread out over this this large area in July 2014.  None of these chapters met the research criteria.

South Africa-Australia-New Zealand

In July 2014, this area was home to 244 members, including 3 members of the ICC.  The IOPS Johannesburg webpage had two admins but no content, and inquiries received no response.  No member of the IOPS South Africa chapter voted in the July 2014 poll.  In June 2013, a member of IOPS Sydney posted an interesting blog, and, for a few months that fall, IOPS Sydney was listed as a “working” chapter.  However, no one in the chapter responded to inquiries, no one in IOPS Melbourne (the only other Australian chapter to claim “working” status) knows any IOPS Sydney members, and no one from IOPS Sydney voted in the July 2014 poll.  IOPS Adelaide, it seems, “didn’t take off here in Adelaide really at all,” where “Facebook is still a more efficient way of organising around the issues that are core to my communities.”  The only member of IOPS Adelaide to vote in the July 2014 poll joined in February 2014.

IOPS Melbourne

Five members of IOPS Victoria — three of them not previously acquainted — held a face-to-face meeting in February 2013 and determined to meet (mostly) fortnightly.  Two new faces came to the second meeting after seeing the event posting on the IOPS site.  After that, two friends of members joined.  Concerned that members were not receiving meeting invitations through the IOPS website messaging system, some members began searching for alternative ways to contact members, with the result that one more member began regularly attending meetings.  A core group of about seven members established itself.  In May 2013, when IOPS Victoria had about 60 members, one of the regulars started a project called “Active Members” to facilitate messaging through the IOPS website.  Sixteen members of IOPS Victoria joined, mostly from IOPS Melbourne, but also from IOPS Glen Iris, Coburg, Sunshine, and Maribyrnong.  The fortnightly meetings, at which minutes were taken and duly published on the IOPS Victoria page, continued through September 2013, around which time the chapter was listed as “working”, even though it was no more than 20% women.  Thereafter, meetings were less frequent, except for two meetings in February 2014.  A few weeks later, in the process of drafting a constitution, “we concluded that laying claim to the entire state [of Victoria] was a bit much”, and, sometime after the “Annual General Meeting” in May 2014, the group began identifying as IOPS Melbourne, but continued posting to the IOPS Victoria page.  Though attendance has dropped off, and minutes are not being published as frequently as before*, IOPS Melbourne hopes to “stay engaged and keep our existing chapters strong, and encourage/facilitate the growth of more while improving the International organisation to the best of our ability.”  As of November 2014, the chapter had less than 30% women and eight active members.  Five members of IOPS Victoria participated in the July 2014 poll.

*As of this writing, only March, May and July minutes have been published.

Japan & Western North America

This area is home to 488 members of IOPS, one of whom is also a member of the ICC.  Three substantial local chapters in Canada — IOPS Victoria in British Columbia, and IOPS Calgary and IOPS Edmonton in Alberta — have no admins, and made no visible attempt to organize.  There were no substantial local or regional chapters in IOPS Hawaii or IOPS Japan, though some members of IOPS Japan did make attempts to organize locally.

IOPS Vancouver, British Columbia

In April 2012, a couple of members of IOPS Vancouver started trying to organize “meet ups.”  The first meeting in June 2012 was followed by three monthly meetings or socials, with anywhere from 6-14 members attending (no reports were posted).  The group met once or twice in November to consider, among other things, whether the chapter had the capacity to host a Vancouver stop of the North American tour (no).  The next and last called meeting was in June 2013, with only three or so members attending.  Identified barriers to chapter organizing success included lack of focus (despite having 8-9 “strong” members), varied activist-experience levels, and generally feeling “downhearted.”  Six members of the chapter participated in the July 2014 poll.

IOPS Seattle

Three members of IOPS Seattle held a first meeting in May 2012, and agreed to meet twice monthly thereafter.  It appears, however, the next meeting was not until November 2012.  Again, three attended, one who had attended previously, and two who were new.  An additional member and a guest attended the December meeting.  According to the minutes, they continued more or less in this fashion through August 2013, at which point reporting apparently ceased.  The chapter did not develop a constitution or institute a dues requirement.  In September 2013, the chapter was put on the “working” chapter list and remained there for the duration, even though the chapter appears to have had no more than 20% women.  It is assumed that they, like others, believed the 30% requirement applied to those in attendance at meetings, rather than the registered membership.  In any event, by July 2014, the core of five who met regularly were expressing doubt that “carrying the IOPS banner has any relevance” and that IOPS “does much in terms of contributing to our activities and get-togethers,” and they declined to participate in the “working” chapters work group.  Four members of IOPS Seattle voted in the July 2014 poll; none were from the core group.

IOPS Missoula

Missoula is a community of about 60,000 in the Northern Rockies of Montana.  For two and a half years before IOPS Missoula’s first meeting, 15 of its 19 members were meeting weekly as a revolutionary study group.  In November 2012, the group decided to devote one week a month to “IOPS development.”  In May 2013, a member posted a poignant and well-written blog that describes the chapter’s development in more detail than we have space for here, and some may find it instructive.  The meetings are not reported, but they are ongoing.  Ten attend regularly, with lower attendance in summer.  The chapter has been on the list of “working” chapters from the beginning (August 2013), though it would not appear so from its chapter page.  Two members of the chapter voted in the July 2014 poll.

IOPS Salem

As noted in the introduction, Salem is the capital of Oregon.  The community of about 160,000 is mostly “white” and rather conservative, especially when compared with its neighbors Portland (about an hour to the north) and Eugene and Corvallis to the south.  Despite repeated efforts of the Salem chapter’s admin to encourage members of IOPS Portland, IOPS Eugene and IOPS Corvallis to organize, cooperate, or just take on the role of admin of their chapter page, IOPS Salem remains the only “working” chapter on the U.S. “left” coast.  The chapter has a constitution and dues requirements.  They meet every six weeks or so, post reports on the meetings, communicate between meetings, and have reasonably strong personal relationships.  The chapter has been on the list of “working” chapters from the beginning (August 2013). Two members of IOPS Salem voted in the July 2014 poll.  Two others tried, but had difficulty with access.

IOPS (San Francisco) Bay Area

The Bay Area chapters relevant to this discussion are IOPS Berkeley, IOPS Oakland, and IOPS San Francisco.  One of the admins arranged the first meeting of IOPS Berkeley (then 10 members) in May 2012.  He invited IOPS Alameda and IOPS Richmond (1 member each), but he and the other admin were the only ones to attend.  A couple more members came to the second and third events in June.  Reports were posted, as was an insightful blog about one of the admin’s email-outreach efforts that had a good response from the membership.  Then, two of the four who had attended meetings left the country for the summer.  A meeting was planned for September, but only the organizer showed up, so he went home as he was not feeling well.  The next planned event was a study group, to begin in October and meet every two weeks thereafter.   It is unclear what happened with the study group.  We corresponded quite a bit with one of this chapter’s admins around this time, and we experienced him as a responsive, creative, and organized organizer.  He moved to Oakland around September 2012, became admin of IOPS Oakland, and worked hard with us on the Michael Albert tour project before it was canceled in November 2012.  We think he left IOPS not long after.  Aside from the work of this individual, no organizing appears to have taken place in IOPS Oakland.  Two members of IOPS Berkeley and one member of IOPS Oakland voted in the July 2014 poll.  The story of organizing in IOPS San Francisco is a brief one.  One member posted a blog inviting other members to a meeting in August 2012, and another put up a project for the same purpose ten months later.  Each effort elicited three or four responses, but there is no trace of any follow up.  Messages to the members involved received no response, and no members of IOPS San Francisco voted in the July 2014 poll.

IOPS Los Angeles

Shortly after IOPS Los Angeles was founded, one member posted a “starting up” blog.  The chapter was quite small then, and only one member responded.  During the following year, that member worked hard to reach out through the IOPS messaging system to new members in the greater Los Angeles (LA) area.  She felt her effort was made more difficult by the fact that the website subdivided large cities like LA into neighborhoods, and the admins declined her request to post a static message on the member sign-up page suggesting that, to facilitate city-wide communication while IOPS grows, those in metropolitan areas should consider listing the largest city as their residence.  After a year of identifying and welcoming all new members in the LA area, the chapter admin was her only contact.  Undaunted, in April 2013, she created the Greater Los Angeles IOPS Community project, using the list of members she had compiled over the previous year to invite every member in the LA area to join.  Three joined, one promptly, the other two after several months.  Although she posted additional invitations on the IOPS Los Angeles page and continued to send welcome messages to new members in the area inviting them to join the project, no one else asked to join until early 2014.  When she attempted to approve those requests, she found she could not access her account, and could not obtain website support.  By the time her access was restored, she had “moved on,” frustrated “by the limitations of the website” and “most of all — the indifference and apathy of the members.”  Two members of the project voted in the July 2014 poll.

IOPS San Diego

IOPS San Diego had about 10 members when five met for the first time outside Rebecca’s Coffee House in May 2012.  Four of the five were experienced radicals, and the fifth was full of energy and enthusiasm.  They started meeting regularly, posting notes of some meetings, and reading and discussing theory and strategy.  By August, they were using a shared document to develop agendas, assigning roles to facilitate and record meetings, engaging in structured self-education projects, and developing solidarity with local left-activists and causes.  Reports of meetings ceased to be posted to the chapter page in September, when the core group created and began executing a local project to host Michael Albert on tour.  That fall, they continued to meet and discuss.  They developed strategies for dealing with the interim phase — a condition they felt was unduly constraining on their work — but were unable to persuade enough others to agree.  In early 2013, one of the five was deployed out of the country.  Faced with continuing uncertainty as to how to move forward within the constraints of the interim phase, the remaining members decided to form a separate “cadre” organization.  That organization continues today, and some of its members remain members of IOPS, but they have not organized for IOPS since early 2013.  Two members of IOPS San Diego voted in the July 2014 poll.

Middle North America

There were about 380 IOPS members in what we are calling “Middle North America” in July 2014.  Two of them were on the ICC.  There is no sign of organizing on the IOPS Winnipeg page, and inquires to its admin — an individual of some notoriety within IOPS — were not answered.   The same goes for IOPS Cincinnati and IOPS Albuquerque.  Three members of IOPS Boulder had one reported meeting in June 2013, but there is no sign of any organizing after that, and inquiries were not answered.  Only one member of those four chapters voted in the July 2014 poll.  In April 2013, a member of IOPS Ypsilanti, Michigan emailed some or all of the other members, and posted a blog asking about interest in having a meeting in southeast Michigan (Ypsilanti, Detroit, Ann Arbor).  He received three comments, all positive.  However, he only “met one local person. We stay in touch and go to protests with each other but that’s about it” with respect to IOPS.  Two members of IOPS Michigan voted in the July 2014 poll.  In June 2013, one of the two admins of the IOPS Lawrence, Kansas page commented on a three-sentence blog entitled “Is Anybody in Here?”  Three members — two from IOPS Lawrence — responded with comments, and that pretty much covers IOPS Lawrence.

IOPS Chicago

In June 2012, IOPS Chicago had about 17 members when its admin posted a three-sentence blog asking if anyone “in the Chicago area interested in connecting up around” the online discussion of Occupy Theory.  There were no replies.*  Another invitation for members to meet went out in October 2012.  It is not clear what the vehicle for the communication was, and no one we spoke with recalls who initiated the October invitation.  If there was a meeting, it was not reported.  The next meeting, also not reported, took place in March 2014, at the initiative of a member new to the Chicago area.  Other unreported meetings followed, with two or three members and one or two non-members attending — the organizer reports he liked to invite non-members because “they show up”.  There were agendas for about half the meetings, but efforts to develop a constitution and meeting process were not successful, because,

[a]s many meetings are attended by half non-members, and members are not particularly interested in IOPS in itself, the focus of most meetings tends to be on coordinating personal efforts on ongoing projects outside of IOPS.

Consequently, the group could agree only “to work on volunteerism and consensus, overlaid on the concept of self-management.”  It never developed a committed core, or was able to meet the “active” chapter criteria, despite a desire to do so: “I mean I try, and I can bring them in to meet, but not to join IOPS.  I can engage them with others to work together, but not for IOPS.”  Only one member of IOPS Chicago voted in July 2014 poll.

*Note: a blog posting will not reach members unless they have subscribed to the RSS feed or happen to visit the page where it was posted.

IOPS Minnesota

In the spring and summer of 2012, IOPS Minnesota’s admin wrote personal emails to each of the chapter’s 20 members, started a project for those interested in meeting, and wrote multiple emails to the 4 who joined.  He received one response and decided to postpone meeting until there was more interest.  The interest never materialized.  “I got the feeling that the people who had joined didn’t have the intention of participating,” or even checking the website on any regular basis.  So, he tried reaching out to local activists and to personal friends who were not activists and spreading the word where he thought “IOPS would resonate with people, such as on a local chapter of Socialist Action.”  His “posts were deleted and my request[] for the reason was not answered.”  Although he has not given up on IOPS, he feels forward movement will have to come from new members.  No members of IOPS Minnesota voted in the July 2014 poll.

Northeast North America

In July 2014, there were 536 IOPS members in Northeast North America, 22 on the ICC.  IOPS New York City is and has been the only remotely active chapter in the area.  Although IOPS Montreal had 21 members by November 2012, its page has no content, and no admin (the pseudonymous admin of the IOPS Quebec page is in the IOPS Montreal chapter, but does not admin the Montreal page).  The IOPS Quebec page is similarly without content.  No one from IOPS Quebec voted in the July 2014 poll.  Except for a November 2012 “Our First Mtg” blog, which received no response, there is no sign of organizing activity on the IOPS Toronto chapter page.  There are two ICC members in the Toronto chapter, and, in July 2014, there were 46 members, only one of whom voted in the July 2014 poll.  In June 2012, IOPS Ontario’s young admin posted “Ontario Meeting” blog and forum entries, each beginning with the entreaty, “We need to organize.”  No one responded to the blog, two members commented on the forum, and there is no other sign of organizing at the regional level.  A total of five members of IOPS Ontario voted in the July 2014 poll.

Several well-known members of the ICC are members of IOPS Boston or live nearby.  A July 2013 comment on an IOPS New York City blog by an IOPS Fall River member refers to having “stalled here in the Boston area” and observes that, “[i]f there were only one or two others to help out locally, it might work,” but the IOPS Boston chapter page makes no indication what the “stalled” activity might have been and identifies no efforts to move things along.  That member and 2 IOPS Boston members voted in July 2014 poll.

IOPS New York City

In May 2012, there were 42 IOPS members in the New York City area, 11 on the ICC. One member started a project to organize regular informal meetings.  Although 20 others joined the project, the first meeting did not take place until December 2012, when three close friends started meeting once a week.  In April 2013, a member posted a blog asking for help organizing an IOPS panel for the June 2013 Left Forum conference.  Several members responded and put together a panel presentation and workshop.  That success led eventually to IOPS New York City’s first “general meeting” in September 2013, followed shortly thereafter by a second general meeting, where the six members attending agreed “to formally become a chapter.”  They continued meeting, and by mid-November, the chapter was on the “working” chapter list.  In November and December, several members attended the monthly meetings of the local Organization for a Free Society (OFS), followed by regular meetings in February, March, and April 2014.  Around this time, the chapter developed proposals for organizing other local chapters and prepared another IOPS panel discussion for the 2014 Left Forum conference.  As of August 2014, the chapter was continuing to meet once a month, and considered eight on the ICC to be “friends and co-organizers.”  Six IOPS members in the New York City area voted in the July 2014 poll.

Southeast North America, Central America, South America

In July 2014, this area was home to 338 IOPS members: 227 in the Southeast U.S. and 111 in Central and South America.  There were no ICC members in the Southeast U.S., and only one chapter that met research criteria: IOPS Austin, Texas.  There is no sign of organizing activity on the page, and inquiries to its admin received no response.  One member of IOPS Austin voted in the July 2014 poll.

There are seven ICC members in Central and South America.  Although no chapter in that area met the research criteria, we made inquiries about IOPS Buenos Aires (19 members, 2 on the ICC, no admin).  “There wasn’t much real activity at the beginning. [A f]ew people registered on the site, but not much else happened and the chapter became non-active very soon.”  A member of IOPS Venezuela was the only one in this area to vote in the July 2014 poll.

To be Continued…

“An action is not completed before it’s been evaluated.” Kim Keyser

We know that, even though the deadline expired before we reached our interim goals, our action — our undertaking to reach them — is not yet complete; finding out “what happened” was just the first step in the evaluation process.  The question remains, as ICC member Mark Evans put it recently, “why have we failed to meet our targets within the given time scale?  How we answer this question will inform what we think is the best course of action for IOPS post-deadline.”  But, those questions require thoughtful consideration of what happened, and  must await another day.  In closing, this comment by ICC member Vijay Prashad on the importance of pizza:

You know, this reminds me of the pizza sent from Tahrir Square to the protesters in Wisconsin, you know, where somebody called long distance to a pizza house and had pizza delivered. I mean, these are very important gestures of solidarity, because one of the features of politics over the last couple of decades, at least since the Cold War, is the sense of isolation of small protests…Somehow, to feel now that people outside are watching you, are rooting for you, especially when your neighbors are turning their noses up against you, I think is very important. It’s a beautiful thing. The actual strategic impact of this is low, but I think, you know, all politics is not about strategy and victory. Politics is also very much about the feeling that what one is doing is meaningful. And if you feel that it’s meaningful, you’ll do it again tomorrow. And so, I feel like these gestures of human solidarity give us the capacity to keep struggling. I think if you stop struggling because you don’t feel like it’s useful anymore, that’s the end of good politics. So these gestures are very important, not only for themselves, but for the future.

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