GPUS Steering Committee Meeting Minutes – October 26, 2014
I. CALL SETUP & BACKGROUND
a) Facilitator – Kate Culver
b) Roll Call – Starlene Rankin, Budd Dickinson, Charles Ostdiek, Tamar Yager, Jeff Turner, Audrey Clement, Jesse Townley, Karen Young, Darryl! Moch
Observer – Jody Grage
c) Agenda revisions – Add 10 min for Personnel matter to Executive Session
II. OLD BUSINESS – None
III. STANDING BUSINESS
a) Treasurer’s Report – Jeff
Cash report sent out – $10,800 in bank as of Thursday. Accounts Payable – Macalester owed $10k. Most everything else is up to date.
b)Fundraising Report
David Sacks is working on the next letter; on the fundraising narrative for the budget; and on income projections/actuals for the budget. He is also continuing to work on everything needed for the move to NationBuilder.
c) Finance Items for decision:
Pair will be paid for two months since we are late this month. Also due are rent, NationBuilder and November payroll for a total of $7k by 7 November.
Consensus reconfirms commitments to pay $1500 down payment for redesign of website and approximately $1000 for t-shirts with new logo – with Budd standing aside.
d) VOTING QUEUE – In the queue: None; Received for the Queue: None
e) Liaison Reports
Few liaison reports are available on Wiggio and few have been made on the calls. There is a need to discuss the role of the SC in committees. Some are floundering and some have people heavily involved in campaigns at this time.
Outreach – Karen – Business cards have been designed are being sent to the SC members and staff who have requested them. The committee’s phone banking to NC members has turned up several who will join committees. The phone banking is not yet complete.
Media – There is a celebratory election night show being planned through Google Hangout with candidates and local leaders.
CCC – Candidates to receive funding were chosen. Webinars continue.
PlatCom- Jesse – As before, the 2014 Platform is featured as a downloadable .pdf but not as the main text on the Platform page. The requested replacement of the 2012 Platform with the 2014 Platform will be completed by David Doonan most probably after his campaign work is wrapped up after November 4.
f) 2015 GPUS Budget – 40 min
Working on version 11. Consensus on Brian’s $50 raise per month above increased costs and taxes for health insurance on wife’s policy. Scott being advised on Affordable Care enrollment which may lower the costs. The revenue figures in version 11 are those approved by FundCom and David Sacks.
Whether committee self-fundraising should or should not be included in budget to show what committees can consider to be their overall budget was discussed. In any case, committee fundraising should be coordinated with David Sacks and include attracting new donors. A vote was taken on deleting committee self-fundraising from the budget spreadsheet. The vote was 5 yes (Jeff, Audrey, Charles, Budd and Karen) 2 no (Jesse and Darryl!), and 2 abstain (Tamar and Starlene).
IV. NEW BUSINESS
a) None
V. EXECUTIVE SESSION – Legal Matter
Entered session about 9 p.m.; exited about 10 p.m. ET. Jill Stein joined the call for this. Kate Culver stayed at our request as facilitator.
A proposal was approved by a vote of 6 to 1 to 2 with Audrey voting no and Jeff and Charles abstaining. It starts with: “The Green Party confirms our intention to join the suit being filed by Gary Johnson, the Our America Initiative, and the Libertarian Party against the Commission on Presidential Debates.”
The remainder is sensitive legal information that is not supposed to be reported in these minutes.
Personnel Matter – no decisions made.
VI. Next Call – Special budget call next Sunday, 11/2.
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Budd Dickinson
Secretary