July 24 – July 26, 2009
Durham, North Carolina
Thanks for NC hosts, especially Wayne Turner and Ed King; very nice campus and meeting spaces, hosts, very good cafeteria, excellent transportation and other planning! Thanks to AnmCom, especially Hillary Kane and Theresa El-Amin, and thanks to staff, especially Tamar Yager, for great work with aarrangements and logistics. Thanks to media team (both on and off-site) for making a live stream and interactive chat available, and bringing in Cynthia McKinney via live stream.
Reports and proofread notes will be posted in the near future on the website. Some of the video recordings of the oral reports will also, we hope, be
FRIDAY, JULY 24, 2009
1:30 – 5:00 p.m.
Facilitators: George Martin, Budd Dickinson
1:30 – 1:50p
George Martin called the meeting to order at all 1:47 p.m.
Call to ACTION
Greetings by AnmCom co-chairs Matt Abel and Hillary Kane, with local co-chair Wayne Turner. Thanks to hosts, Triangle Greens.
Greetings from Wayne Turner on behalf of Triangle and NC Greens, and GPUS Black Caucus, George Friday, co-coordinator, Ed King, transportation Czar. Dick P/ helped put things together (copies, packets), Marcia Everette, Nick Triplett – web master.
Hilary presented Wayne with a gift certificate for $75 worth of GP merchandise.
Roll call; Introduce Facilitators
32 (eventually 33) states and caucuses represented; Ca. 90 – 100 delegates and observers attending.
AR – 1d
AZ – 2d
CA – 7d
CT – 1d (2 more arrived later)
DE – 1d
DC – 1d
FLA – 4d
GA –
IN – 1d
ILL – 3d
IA – 1o
LA – 1
MD – 2d
MI – 3d
ME – 4d
MO – (1 arrived later)
NJ – 1d
NY – 3d
NC – 2d, more o
SC – 2d, more o
PA – 3 (later 4)d
TN – 2d
VA – 1d
WVA – 1d
WA – 1d
OK – 1d
TX – 1d (?2d?), more o
WI – 2d
MN 1d
Lavender – 1d
Black – 1d
Women – 1d
1:50 – 2:40p – Reports from Staff, SC
Brent McMillan, Executive Director
more extensive report is included in delegate packet (will be posted online). In February, SC held a strategic planning retreat; Brent brought along the packet used.
We have a new office. Landlord canceled lease because they wanted to change the zoning (more funds).
Database: A couple of years ago, we decided to go with CivcCRM; turned out for the worse. Lost reporting capacity, it is difficult to interact with. SC decided to switch to Democracy in Action. (Both are open source.) We are already paying for DiA for online fundraising, and they have an active support service.
National office often represents GP to international community. One interesting meeting last year was with a rep from the Pakstani GP.
Candidate recruitment is going very well this year. Typically, in an off-election, not as many Brent has built as extensive database for recruitment. We currently have 132 at the end of June; compared with 97 at the end of June in 2007 and 116 at the end of June in 2005. After the last election, Brent contacted officeholders to find out who was still in office, who was planning to run again, letting them know our appreciation. Had state parties then do the same. 18 out of 64 races for a win rate of 28%. Started year with 156 officeholders, now 160, a slight gain.
Dave Doonan, web master, is working with Brent on creating an interactive, searchable officeholders database.
Major donor program is going reasonably well in this economy.
Brian Bittner, office manager
thanks to Emily Citkowski, who recently stepped down to go to law school. Brian took the job this Spring, andf has sjust worked through his first ANM as office manager.
Steering Committee reports
Budd Dickinson
presented an outline of what the SC does; also, a position paper on energy
Phil Huckelberry
referenced Vaclav Have referencing Eugene O’Neill – “we fought so long against small things, we became small ourselves.” A good assessment of national committee mindset. General interest from delegates:
More focus on party-building, electoral work, candidate recruitment and support
Less focus on minutia and procedural issues
Less email
More info on positive happening, state and local level
NC wants SC to focus more on strategy, fundraising, party-building
Get away from negativity on listservs
Get involved in fundraising and electoral
NC used to be called the Coordinating Committee. Coordinated were efforts of state parties; essentially sharing information back and forth.
Must be willing to evolve, change, caught up in reactionism. Welcome new people.
Secretary, Holly Hart
brief report about what secretary does. Anyone interested in running for this position should contact her/me.
Tamar Yager, Fundraising Manager, presented an extensive power point report, “Piece of the Puzzle,” explanation of fundraising, funding sources, etc. Took # of delegates each state has, and other statistics (total $ raised in past couple years from non-major donors), average donation amount. Information on Empmower tele-fundraising; and online fundraising, noting “click through” rate on various messages. Direct mail is not bringing in as much as it used to; staff are re-thiniking things, going to more web-based fundraising, encouraging sustainers, and soliciting larger donations from Green Party card-holders.
*Tamar can create a personal donations page – two people have done this for their birthdays.
Goal for fundraising outreach: 1 email, 1 greenline, 1 action alert, 1 “other” a month.
Treasurer’s Report
Jody handed out a report. She exhorted people to look at her finance reports, ask questions. Financial problem stems mostly from debt incurred on 2008 Chicago convention. Loan (proposal for up to $25,000 for non-interest paying loan) has about $13,000 ? Finance Committee can use members.
Bill Kreml (IL) recently Joined the FinCom, gave a couple minutes’ energizing talk on fundraising, and our position in the US political mileu. All political systems in the world are multiparty systems, except the US. All the great ideas have some form outside of the two-party system. Not something new, it’s been in our backyard for generations and has made disproportionate contribution to the big box parties. In 1975, there was a stuctural change in Congress, more susceptible to influence from large donors. Dems have de-regulated (Carter, Clinton) – arguments about how our system has been changed. Be a fundraiser for 100 days.
Phil Huckelberry
challenge for sustainers to double sustaning donations; goal of $10,000 monthly in sustained donations.
BREAK
3:30 – 5:00p
SPECIAL EVENT: SINGLE-PAYER PANEL