SC Call Notes — 11 March 2005
Participants:
SC: Gwen Wages, Jo Chamberlain, Jody Haug, Greg Gerritt, Maya O’Connor, Peggy Lewis, Marc Sanson, Jake Schneider
Staff: Brent McMillan, Emily Citkowski
Note taker – Greg
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.]
Published Agenda
2 hrs 15 min so far…
5 min – facilitator, timer, note taker (Greg); agenda review
10 min – approval of minutes; changing of call date/time
20 min – staff reports
Brent – PD/CCC/BAWG-PCSC/MO/etc.
Emily
30 min – FINANCE Portfolio (Jake, Marc): Finance, FundCom Communication Consultant (Jake), Green Card (Emily, Jody)
10 min – Voting Queue – OK affiliation from AC, IC proposal, CO proposal (Greg)
how to handle nomenclature suggestions
5 min – Work Groups follow up (Marc)
5 min – Request for letter of recommendation & use of letterhead (Jo)
20 min – (8:30 Eastern) NWC/AC
Portfolio reports:
5 min – ELECTORAL (Gray, Jo): CCC, Office Holder Network, PCSC, Legal Team
Caleb Kleppner – contacting Dean re IRV
5 min – POLICY (Greg, Gwen): Platform, Peace, Intnl, DC, Strategic Plan
10 min – OUTREACH (Peggy): Media, Green Pages, Merchandise, Campus Greens
5 min – INTERNAL (Maya): Personnel, Dispute Resolution; (Greg): BRPP
10 min – INTERNAL (Jody): Accreditation, ComCom, Event Planning
ANM – Tulsa – weekend of 23-24 July – dorms available, plenary F&S?, Wed-Sun?
Agenda Review, Added NY proposal to voting queue discussion and question from MO Progressive Party.
Changing the day of the week of the calls? At this point nothing other than Friday’s work, and that only marginally.
Staff reports
Brent:
And discussion. Campaign schools coming right up.
April 1 in Seattle. Ross Mirkirimi and Brent McMilan will both attend.
April 23 at Howard U in DC. CT may have one in May, while Toledo OH and Chicago are looking at the fall.
Setting up a call to do a campaign recap with David Cobb and Pat LaMarche. Try to do in April. Do a separate call with Nader/Camejo.
BAWG: There is a suggestion that BAWG become a full fledged committee. Ballot access is a big thing, should be a major party priority. This is an issue that donors may want to directly donate to as well.
Brent spoke at the Howard University forum on politics as March 9. It went very well. DCSGP, MD GP, and Black Caucus all had tables as well. Though partly sponsored by the Washington Post and with a moderator from the Post, the post did very little coverage of the event, possibly because of how well the Greens were represented.
COFOE is meeting on April 3 in Lancaster PA, while Brent will be in Seattle. SC is looking into who should represent us there instead of Brent. Best person would be someone very familiar with Ballot Access issues, a BAWG member most likely.
Noted that Cobb will be speaking in Nashville at Gathering to Save Democracy.
January Direct Mail has been profitable and we are still getting returns. Feb just went out. Have lists in preparation for March, April, and May.
Sustainer program needs some work.
GPUS affiliate the Progressive Party of MO has asked us to remove St Louis Green candidate for Mayor Willie Marshall from the data base. This is because of the divisions between gpusa St Louis group and the Progressive Party. Noted that a settlement was negotiated in 2000, but seems to have broken down since. Noted that Progressive Party did not work on Presidential ballot access in 2004. SC decided it needed more information before ruling on this and was informed that the AC will eventually look into this.
Emily:
Interns are doing well in the office, and a DCSGP member is now volunteering several days a week. We have received a used computer donation that will be set up as a backup for all office data and run on Linux to ease the transition towards open source in the office.
The GPUS is trying to define a new position of on line fundraiser and outreach coordinator. Emily is working with the web manager to help design what the position ought to do and look like. Once the position is properly defined, after some shake out time, then the party may be ready to advertise the position. Some of the allocation for this work is being used to pay the webmanager for the additional time over and above his website management that this work entails.
One task that needs to be part of this is integrating on line fundraising with direct mail campaigns.
Peace flags are now in the office and ready to be shipped as orders come in.
Need to improve sustainer program and set up a phone call system for those who are about to phase out of the program asking them to re-up.
Portfolio review
Finance Portfolio
Jake: On the main GPUS fundraising page it is now possible for a donor to designate up to 50% of their donation to a specific caucus or committee or state party. GPUS will also allow committee/caucus/state party pages to be set up for donations directly to the committee/caucus/ state party with up to 50% being designated to the gpus if the donor so chooses.
We are working on how to take on line donations from people with no credit cards.
Green Card design will use Earth flower and should be printed in next week or so. Donations are already coming in. GPUS also needs to prepare materials for sending to card holders.
When Tier one budget allocation is approved, then proposals will go to SC and Fin Comm for final approval and funding.
Voting Queue:
5 proposals in voting right now.
New proposals. From IC Jody will floor manage. By law change from NY Marc will floor manage. Bylaw change form CO Jo will floor manage. All for 3 weeks discussion. OK accreditation application. Greg will manage 2 weeks discussion.
Changing nomenclature from Coordinating Committee to National Committee. Annual National Meeting to Annual Meeting of National Committee. Both suggestions will be referred to BRPP and SC will ask BRPP to go through the bylaws to make these changes where appropriate and come back to the CC/NC with the language changes for a vote. Not really changing any substance, just nomenclature.
Working Groups:
Brent reports on Strategic Planing WG. Developing a survey, looking into asking those who have not been participating to leave, developing an outreach plan.
Presidential Nominating Process WG Greg reports. Tone of discussion is more civilized. Some progress being made, have elected co facilitators.
Jo noted that she has been asked to send a letter of recommendation to a school on behalf of a Green applying, and asked to do it as co chair of GPUS on letterhead. SC agreed that this was appropriate, not only in this case, but more generally. SC was asked to inform the office of their needs for letterhead, and to post to the SC list a copy of each letter of recommendation they write.
Annual meeting. The only application to host seems to be coming from Tulsa OK. Looks like the best weekend is July 23,24. Host committee and ANMC asked for some ideas on scheduling, and SC tapped their memories about previous schedules. Likely to be committee meetings on Thursday with CC meeting Friday late in the day Saturday and Sunday AM. When Tulsa application is finished CC will review and vote on it.
Portfolio review (continued)
Electoral Portfolio
CCC
CCC has already reported via Brent. Office holders are continuing to evolve. Ballot access is the big issue for 2005 in BAWG. There is some talk of holding a conversation with Howard Dean about IRV/Ranked Choice voting. Brent will draft a letter to Dean for review by the SC.
Discussion with members of Accreditation Committee and National Women’s Caucus about the final approval of the NWC. NWC members Katie Culver, Sanda Everett, Nan Garrett, Holly Hart, and Morgen D’Arc join the call as well as AC members Roger Snyder and Grace Ross. The crux of the issue appears to be that the AC asked the NWC to make some rule changes in the name of democracy/transparency and the NWC made the changes asked for but put them in their policies and procedures rather than bylaws. AC would prefer they be in bylaws. NWC does not believe this is the proper place for them.
There was a long discussion with more heat than light.
SC agreed to ask BRPP to help define the differences between bylaws and policy and procedure documents more fully.
SC also had a general sense that NWC has been acting properly, but encourages both the AC and the NWC to prepare reports to the CC. Maya will ask the NWC to prepare a report, while Jody will be the conduit to inform the AC to prepare a report. Greg will ask the BRPP to prepare a report more clearly defining what should be a bylaw and what a procedure.
Policy Portfolio
Peace committee continues to work towards March 19 events and has peace flags available. IC has sent a resolution and been discussing situation in Peru where a prominent Green was threatened.
Outreach Portfolio
Merchandise committee has 3 new members vetted by states. Green Pages has been talking with NY about Ms Wilder. Also working on a process to take over Greenlines and vet each issue. Climate Change meeting in NY on April 8, NY and NJ Greens will represent GPUS.
Internal portfolio
Personnel committee disappeared when they were sent draft personnel manual to review. SC will review the draft. DRC has not received any complaints to help mediate. SC requested that the complaint forms for AC and DRC be added to the delegate manual. BRPP has a subcommittee exploring the removal process. AC is forwarding out OK application for accreditation. MT is next
SC vacancies
Gray Newman has resigned so the Secretary will put out a call for nominations. With the vote on Maya position almost over, Secretary will wait until that vote is completed before sending out the call so he will know whether to tell the cc that there are one or two vacancies.
Adjourned 9:34 EST
Minimally edited and HTML formatted by Charlie Green