GPUS Conference Call
Sunday, February 4, 2007
8:00 p.m. ET
Jim Coplen, Katey Culver, Echo Steiner, Jody Grage, Budd Dickinson,
Liz Arnone, Rebecca Rotzler, Holly Hart// Brent McMilllan, Emily
Citkowski for the latter part of the call
Observer: Julia Aires, GP-FLA
Other participants: Dave Baker, GPPA (fundraising/national meeting)
Hugh Esco, Nan Garrett, GPGA – GPGA proposals
Jeff Turner, GPHI – finance/fundraising
Facilitator: Echo
Timekeeper: Katey
Abbreviations used:
AC = Accreditation Committee
ANM, ANMC = Annual National Meeting Committee
BAWG = Ballot Access Working Group
BRPP = Bylaws, Rules, Policies and Procedures Committee
BC = Black Caucus
CC = Coordinating Committee
CCC = Coordinated Campaign Committee
CG SC = Campus Greens Steering Committee
ComCom = Communications Committee
DC = Diversity Committee
DIA = Democracy in Action internet service
DRC = Dispute Resolution Committee
FC = Fundraising Committee
FEC = Federal Election Commission
GP = Green Party
IC = International Committee
LC = Lavender Caucus
NPWG = Nominating Process Working Group
NWC = National Women’s Caucus
PEC = Presidential Exploratory Committee
PCSC = Presidential Campaign Support Committee
SC = Steering Committee
SPWG = Strategic Plan Working Group
[Brackets denote editor’s suggested corrections. Some punctuation corrections done with no content change. -ed.]
I. OLD BUSINESS
1) DAC proposal and voting page – Budd
The question was whether voting page can manage proxies or weighted voting. Delegates can be issued more than one id and password.
2) Campus Greens – Echo
Echo spoke with Dave Wilcox, Campus Greens contact. They will be tabling at the Co-op America Festival April 21-22 in ILL. They will touch base and see if GPUS can also table. Echo will talk to Emily about merchandising, the possibility of making money for GPUS and CG. They will have another conference call on Monday. It’s a small group, but moving forward.
3) Forum Manager – Holly A potential volunteer has been contacted and is discussing forum manager duties with current FM’s, James DeBoer and Deanna Taylor.
4) UFPJ – Holly
Holly spoke with UFPJ steering committee member about concerns that GPUS’ name never got placed in their list of endorsing organizations for the January 27th event; and concerns that they may be deliberately rejecting Greens as speakers. This does not appear to be the case. UFPJ has a committee that selects speakers from among oftentimes many submissions, and their contact recommended we try to make sure some Greens are part of that committee. They also select speakers based on what type of event they are planning and what focus they want to create (in the case of January 27th, they were focusing on Congress). The contact suggested, someone might have suggested a veteran who also happened to be a Green. At the mention of Wisconsin Greens’ leading an effort which resulted in a number of Wisconsin cities passing an anti-war ballo initiative, the contact expressed enthusiasm and thought suggesting someone involved in that effort would have been a good suggestion, too.
On GPUS’ end, Holly suggests that we make sure to have someone keep in contact with UFPJ and better communications among GPUS members who need to know activities (media, SC, delegates, etc); and have someone (GPAX seems the most likely place) tasked with trying to think of Greens who would be relevant to the event being planned.
Echo suggested a possible conference cal with GPUS SC, GPAX and someone from UFPJ. George Martin was suggested as a good choice.
Discussion will continue on email.
II. NEW BUSINESS
5) Request from IC – Budd
Endorsement of Iraqi War Crimes report; sent to SC. AGREED to review and make a decision online within a week.
6) Overseas Vote Foundation
Invitation for Emily to go to their event and/or have them stop by DC office. AGREED, and encouraged, that Emily will attend their event and look into having one of their reps visit the national office.
7) “Vote Neither” website
Website is apparently for the purpose of disseminating information about third party and independent candidates. It’s not clear what they may want from us. SC will review this online this week and decide what we want to do with this.
8) GPUS Leadership Council/Think Tank – Liz
Liz suggested an idea to bring GPUS committees together in a central leadership council/think tank. Idea would be to discuss what kind of leadership we have. What functions do we fill? We have SC, committees and staff, but not cohesive. In order to better create a cohesive strategy and carry it out, maybe a leadership council/think tank type of committee – Greens currently serving in public office, subject matter experts at the forefront of their issues, could help put together a strategy. Plan of how the GP should tackle or work this particular situation. Could involve proposals and writings on bills, lobbying Congress, etc. Feels that this piece is missing in our organization.
Some SC members liked the idea, but it was felt that right now our committees are spread, and we don’t have the means or time to do this right now. The Green Institute is doing some of this type of thing. SC will continue discussion on email.
9) VOTING QUEUE – Holly
See separate document for voting queue run-down.
10) Portfolio reports – TABLED
Internal – Katey
Internal – Steve
External – Rebecca
Finance – Liz (anything not to be covered later in the call?)
Outreach – Echo
Electoral – Jim
Policy – Budd
Secretary update – Holly
III. 11) STAFF REPORTS
a. POLITICAL DIRECTOR – Brent
There are 3 more Green candidates currently running for office, and more are being identified.
Brent will be attending a strategic planning retreat in CA. From there, he will travel to Seattle, then San Juan Island. Cynthia McKinney is scheduled to be in CA at the time. Elaine Brown has let him know she intends to seek the GPUS nomination for President in 2008.
b. OPERATIONS – Emily
Emily is working with MerchCom on merchandising plan; 1) tabling, both at events in DC; 2) and working on tabling kit and program to encourage states and locals to table and sell merchandise.
Emily and LaVerne Butler had table at UFPJ rally Jan. 27, which brought in $629. They couldn’t sell sweat- or t-shirts, so most funds were in $1 increments (buttons, stickers). Use of Impeachment Petition was a success in that it brought people to sign: increasing our goal of 100,000 signatures; we also have contact info for interested people, and many checked out lit. and bought something.
Cash flow – merchandise is selling well, but we need to re-stock it. This is difficult in our current cash situation.
MerchCom will promote to state parties a discount for bulk rates for some merchandise (shirts, tote bags).
Richard Scott & Emily are working on an Impeachment Petition template for people to print out and circulate at local events.
New intern started last week, working well.
Two tabling events coming up: 1) next Sunday – Joe Butler Memorial Conference (DC event, African Americans and political process); DCSG has paid to endorse it, and GPUS gets a table, which will be staffed by office and DCSG; 2) applied to table at NCOR conference (organized resistance, activist-based youth oriented conference); haven’t tabled there before; they haven’t decided who they will let table.
From 1/27/07 call: QUESTION on whether Green Pages can accept paid advertising. Has any decision been made on this? ***** Not much interest on Green Pages on pursuing advertising, so it is not something we need to deal with at this point. Rebecca will get more information for SC and FundCom.
c. FUNDRAISING – Brent
On Monday’s Fin/Fun calls, we understood we are in a financial crisis; it’s bad when something like a re-solicitation, which has potential to bring in higher income, is now at risk.
12) TREASURER’S REPORT/FINANCES – Jody $3000 for January state sharing is now in the reserve account. Some states will remit state sharing. Jody has sent out announcements of recent income, remittance of state sharing. She urges people to read the Treasurer’s and Accountant’s reports.
13) Dave Baker, GPPA – fundraising/national meeting Dave worked with Marc Sanson on a new draft budget for the national meeting. GPPA believes that with all expenses included, with volunteer and in-kind contributions, we could actually have a profitable national meeting, even not including concert income. Wants to do a press conference this week, and was advised to contact the Media Committee. Liz may be able to go.
14) Review of 1/31/07 Fin/Fun/SC call, budget, finances, etc. NOTE messages sent by Jody and Brent detailing potential budget cuts, fundraising, ways to involve and mobilize the NC.
Katey gave a brief overview of the call. There were divergent opinions and strategies. It was decided to leave the budget on the voting queue. Katey also stated that we need to step up and do immediate fundraising. Give some assignment to NC, a set of options, etc.
Jody – 1) need for strategic plan, plan for financial footprint; 2) immediate fundraising; 3) would people on this call would be willing to chip in to loan to pay Red Sun bill?
Jeff stated that he believes putting $3000 into reserves for January sharing is a great error, which could backfire. Suggested changing that policy: instead scrape $ together and pay second quarter sharing This is a technique in accounts payable from business. Budd felt that this was a question for FinCom, and the SC didn’t need to take up time for this.
15) Executive Session – 10:23 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.
Personnel
Next Call: Sunday, February 18, 2007, 8:00 p.m. ET
2/5/07
Holly Hart
Secretary, GPUS