November 20, 2003

SC Call Notes — November 20, 2003

Participants:
SC members: Jake Schneider, Jo Chamberlin, Marnie Glickman, Greg Gerritt
Staff: Emily Citkowski
Call Functions:
Facilitator Jake
Note taker Greg Gerritt

Abbreviations used:
AC = Accreditation 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
SC = Steering Committee
[Brackets denote editor’s suggested corrections. Some punctuation corrections done with no content change. -ed.]

Published Agenda
Agenda Review 5 minutes

OLD BUSINESS AND REPORTS

Finances 15 minutes
CCC replacements 5 minutes
Office Report/check in 10 minutes
Personnel Issues 15 minutes
Accountant, Black Caucus, Fundraiser, South Carolina
Discussions with Nader, Dems, and Sierra Club 15 minutes
Convention 5 minutes
Presidential update 5 minutes

Voting Queue 15 minutes
FTAA
Cuba
DRC
Delegation Accreditation
BRPP rules

NEW BUSINESS
*****
Check in, Agenda Review
Added a report on meetings Jo and Ben will hold in DC, Nov 21,22
Add a report on PCSC
Add a report on meeting of Ben and Marnie with Ralph Nader

OLD BUSINESS

Financial Report
Refer all to Treasurers report from Wednesday. Money is very tight.

Concerns about Black Caucus funding. The Black Caucus was supposed to send corrections to the contract and has not yet done that, and there are concerns that they are over allocated budget already. There are issues related to what was actually passed in DC about how long they would get initial funding and to what extent until the tour starts and becomes self funding. Jo will speak to Michelle and Jason when she is in DC.

Jo will also meet with Mayflower hotel to negotiate on final bill from July meeting.

Jo will also try to meet with landlord of old office to try and get our deposit back.

Discussion of cash flow problems and 2004 budget. Finance committee will send out a note informing all committees of the cash flow crunch and the expected revenues for 2004 so they can think of ways to make budget request cuts. Finance committee is looking into freezing all non essential spending. We are looking at $82,000 being available for committee work in 2004. There are more than $200,000 in requests. The committees are going to be asked to make cuts in their own budgets, and if they do not, Finance Committee will take the lead. Of course the budget will eventually need to go out to the CC for approval, so we are hoping the committees take the lead on their own budgets within the overall organizational constraints.

The Finance committee will hold an open call on Nov 25 and caucus and committee leaders are invited to attend.

CCC replacements
Two candidates applied for the two slots. Rather than hold an uncontested election the Steering Committee is appointing the two, Jeff Cropp and Tom Sevigny to the CCC. Greg will inform the CCC.

Office Report
Emily C. For a first week she reports she is settling in well, needs to learn data bases and get settled short term before figuring out larger picture. She is asked to write a report and send it to the SC each week.

Personnel issues
Reviewing contract for accountant. Jake, Jo and Marnie will review and get back to Greg.

Fundraiser
We have 21 applicants, 8 interviews will be scheduled.
Have 3 proposals for contractor on bulk mailings, being reviewed.

South Carolina GP has been informed that if they wish to overturn SC decision on Uhrich and lists they should formally take it up with the CC.

Meetings with other organizations
Nader has asked that Greens meet with leadership of Democratic party, but it does not seem to be a high priority for anyone. Maybe it will happen, maybe it will not. If it does, Greens will clearly be willing to talk, but not negotiate or make deals. It never hurts to talk to people as long as we are clear about why and that we are not negotiating.

Based on reactions to the Sierra club article trashing the Greens, and some follow up, it seems the Sierra Club is willing to talk to the Green Party. We shall see if this actually comes together.

Convention
Working on get reservation information up on the website.

Presidential campaign
Petitioning to get Mesplay and Cobb on the ballot has begun in RI. CA will hold a debate among candidates on their primary ballot at their Dec 5 to 7 convention. (Cobb, Mesplay, Salzman, Camejo) SC job is to make sure the process is fair and open.

Voting queue
Discussions continue and voting is going along. Two more come to votes starting the 24th and we added PCSC proposal to the voting page for the 24th for discussion to begin.

No Executive session

Call ended at 10:15 PM.
Minimally edited and HTML formatted by Charlie Green