July 1, 2004

SC Call Notes — July 1, 2004

Participants:
Jo Chamberlain, Jody Haug, Jake Schneider, Gray Newman, Gwen Wages, Greg Gerritt, Peggy Lewis, Marc Sanson, Maya O¹Connor

Facilitators Jo Chamberlain, Gray Newman
Timekeeper Jody Haug
Notes Greg Gerritt

Abbreviations used:
AFT = American Federation of Teachers
AC = Accreditation Committee
ANM, ANMC = Annual National Meeting Committee
BRPP = Bylaws, Rules, Policies and Procedures Committee
BC = Black Caucus
CC = Coordinating Committee
CCC = Coordinated Campaign Committee
CG SC = Campus Greens Steering Committee
DC = Diversity Committee
FC = Fundraising Committee
FEC = Federal Election Commission
GP = Green Party
GW = George Washington University
IC = International Committee
ICA = Institute for Cultural Affairs
LC = Lavender Caucus
LG = Lavender Greens
PEC = Presidential Exploratory Committee
PCSC = Presidential Campaign Support Committee
SC = Steering Committee
[Brackets denote editor’s suggested corrections. Some punctuation corrections done with no content change. -ed.]

Published Agenda
Check in, introductions, take some time to get to know each other. 30 minutes
convention wrap up 15 minutes
Finances 5 minutes
Fundraising 10 minutes
Cobb campaign 10 minutes
Cobb campaign list use
CCC 5 minutes
portfolios 15 minutes
History Project 2 minutes
Website group 5 minutes
SC demographics 3 minutes
Resignation pledge 2 minutes
Retreat 5 minutes
Green Festivals 5 minutes
logo transformation/dissemination 5 minutes
letters 5 minutes

*****
Note: the SC entered Executive Session to discuss personnel matters related to several topics during the evening. There was unanimous consent to enter Executive session. Notes included here do not cover ES periods of the conversation.

Agenda review:
Added Caucuses, a speaker at a Youth meeting, and more time for discussion of fundraising.

All SC members introduced themselves for 90 seconds or so as this was the first meeting of the entire new SC. Spent 15 minutes or so getting acquainted.

Convention Wrap up:
Jody encouraged everyone to write up their thoughts.
Other issues that came up included registration problems, the printing issues, and a need for a volunteer to be assigned to each keep[key?] person as a gofer.

Financial wrap up:
Accountant will produce numbers soon, but essentially convention broke even.

Finances:
Jake reports. Essentially we have about $30,000 after we pay this week’s bills. We spend about $15,000 per month just on basic operations. We have $11,000 a month come in from sustainers and then get other donations. We are not doing well, we need to raise more money. Only reason we are sort of okay is everyone has been very frugal.

Big issue is that we do not have enough money to put into Direct Mail. Fundraising committee will discuss this alot more.

There s an internet fundraising proposal that would cost $3500 up front and $200 per month to operate.

Idea: $5.00 from every one of the 300,000 members.

SC is going to have to think seriously about at what point do we take drastic action like close office or lay off staff. We are not there yet, but given the slowly deteriorating situation, we have to start preparing in case the fundraising does not turn around.

Cobb Campaign:
Greg reported that Cobb Campaign has asked for a liaison with the Steering Committee in an effort to work more closely with the Party. Marc Sanson was chosen by the SC to be the liaison to the Cobb Campaign.

The campaign also asked for a copy of the GPUS mailing list for a one time mailing.

SC agreed to providing the list for a one time use with several conditions. 1. That we send the list to the mailing house, not the campaign. 2. That we coordinate the timing of the mailing so as to not interfere with our own mailings. 3. That the Cobb campaign provide us their donor list at the end of the campaign.

CCC:
There is an open slot on the CCC as only 9 candidates were elected in Milwaukee. The SC will open up nominations very soon and instead of the SC choosing a candidate, the CC shall be asked to elect the newest member of the CCC.

PORTFOLIOS:
Greg opens: When the CC agreed to expand the SC it also included provisions for the dividing up of the SC work into portfolios. The SC had the list of portfolios that the brpp suggested in front of it.

(from the brpp suggested portfolios)

1) Internal Coordinator:

a. Personnel Committee
b. Accreditation Committee
c. Bylaw, Rules, Policies and Procedures (BRPP)
d. Communications Committee
e. Event Planning Committee
2) Outreach Coordinator

a. Media Committee
b. Green Pages
c. Merchandise Committee
3) Electoral Coordinator

a. Coordinated Campaign Committee (CCC)
b. Office Holder network
c. Presidential Exploratory Committee
4) Policy Group Coordinator

a. Platform Committee
b. International Committee
c. Diversity Committee
5) Finance Coordinator

a. Fundraising Committee
b. Finance Committee
SC discussion noted that PEC is now PCSC, that Peace committee could be added to policy portfolio and that Internal portfolio could be modified as Greg is active on the BRPP and the Dispute Resolution Committee could be added there.

With those changes the SC divided up the work by assigning two people to most portfolios with one person assigned to the 5th portfolio.

The current alignment (which could be changed as people start to explore them):

Internal Portfolio Jody Haug, Maya O’Connor
Outreach Portfolio Peggy Lewis
Electoral Portfolio Gray Newman, Jo Chamberlain
Policy Portfolio Gwen Wages, Greg Gerritt
Financial Portfolio Jake Schneider, Marc Sanson

The exact nature of the relationship between the portfolio holders and the committees in the portfolio remains to be worked out and will include a wide range of methodologies ranging from monitoring the list serve to being an active committee member. SC members who are members of committees in other portfolios are in no way being asked to step off of committees.

History Project:
Ben Alpers of OK has asked that we start a project to collect more of our decision making information. SC agreed that this is a good idea and will ask for a more formal proposal to be developed and circulated. Ultimately a CC decision on whether to institutionalize this will be needed.

Website content team:
Greg will step aside as leader of the team with Jody and Maya stepping in. Greg will remain on the team though, at least temporarily.

Resignation Pledge:
Due to the understaffing of the SC over the last year, it has come to our attention that there is a need to institute some sort of process so that if SC members do not shoulder their responsibilities that there is a good way to replace them. The CC has now created a process for interim elections but a missing piece is that if an SC member has not resigned but is just MIA. All current SC members are being asked to sign a voluntary pledge saying that if they are no longer able to perform their duties that they will step aside so that the work can be taken up by those who can do it. The SC will develop an actual written pledge and all will be asked to sign. All members agreed that this was a good thing and that they are intending to sign when the pledge document is prepared. BRPP will be asked to review the documents.

SC retreat:
The SC did not have an in-person meeting over the last year, but it is still believed that an in-person meeting would be useful. We are looking into how we can do this at very low cost. We shall ask Emily Citkowski, Operations Director, to look into the 4H center in DC, a DC location reducing costs for staff and allowing all SC members to see the office.

Green Festivals/ Youth Festival:
Agreed we wanted speakers at all possible venues, local Greens if possible. Peggy will start looking into this with the media committee. Agreed to start looking into a speakers bureau.

Logo:
The merchandise committee has some questions about the logo the CC voted for. SC affirmed support for the CC’s choice and believes it should be widely disseminated.

Outreach Portfolio
Peggy– Gotten on all committee lists. Green Pages is discussing where to hang their webpage. Feeling on SC is that it should be part of party webpage. Merchandising is weak organizationally, needs co chairs. Needs to find a way to complement State parties merchandising, not compete with it. Logo, selling two t shirts for now.

Caucuses:
SC is aware that there are a number of issues relating to bringing caucuses on board with the gpus and with their internal development. Greg and Gwen, in their role as holders of the Policy portfolio, will start discussions with Diversity Committee and the various caucuses to see how this can all be worked out and improved. Noted that improved communications with State Parties and better relationships with State Parties would also be useful and has a similar genesis.

SC agreed to pay the last 3 Diversity Committee requests from their budget for convention travel.

SC agreed to start developing a several month calendar for calls. Jody will develop agenda for the July 15 call, Jo will facilitate. Also agreed that as an addendum to the notes, when they go out to the CC they will include a short synopsis of highlights, maybe in bulleted form. That synopsis will be developed by someone other than the note taker each time.

Adjourned 12:10 AM
Minimally edited and HTML formatted by Charlie Green