SC Minutes — September 4, 2003
Participants:
Jo Chamberlin, Alan Kobrin, Jake Schneider, Ben Manski, Anita Rios, Marnie Glickman, Greg Gerritt, Jack Uhrich, Dean Myerson
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
Intros, Minutes, Meeting Process, etc. (5 minutes)
OLD BUSINESS
Reports, discussion on reports
Fundraising 15 min
Finance 15 min Including how we make budget allocations based on whatever the current situation is or calls for
***Whether the decision by the CC to accept the Black Caucus Proposal in DC directly amended the 2003 budget.
***If it did, then we need to decide how we are going to balance the competing financial requests from the Black Caucus, CCC, the international committee and media committee.
***If it didn¹t, then we need to make sure that the expenditures are included in the revised 2003 budget and that it is voted on ASAP.
webmaster process update and then decide on how to deal with competing requests.
Diversity 10 min, specifically new caucus and Women’s Caucus mediation
Voting Queue 5 minutes
War profiteers
Budget
Camejo update 2 minutes Strict!!!
New Business
Personnel issues 1 hr including Executive Session
Very quick update on where policies are. (contracting, leave, others)
Black Caucus, after the budgetary discussion, following personnel policies. Health Insurance ES??
Webmaster circulating job description, next need a hiring plan, discussion of incumbent in ES
Operations director ES
Check out
Check in, Agenda Review
Added agenda items:
added review of Merchandise committee
Convention 2004
FTAA
Staff Retreat
OLD BUSINESS
Fundrasing committee:
Marnie asked that we review/discuss info rather than be a report.
Discussed meetup.com
Learned about costs ($2500 per month) and features we could get including how to collect voluntarily shared information from those who want to know about the Greens/our candidates. Meetup does not allow anyone to get at their lists, and has real guarantees of that, but has a feature for people to actually sign up with groups that are interesting to them.
SC wants this further explored and a full blow proposal developed for analysis before anyone even thinks about asking that money be spent on this.
Discussed the issue of whether or not a vote by the CC at the annual meeting to allocate money for a project such as the Black Caucus hiring an organizer for the Tour that was approved, actually changes the budget or if that needs another vote. We all agreed that the vote to approve the proposal, as it came with a fiscal note attached, amends the budget. We also agreed that as their are fiscal constraints that we should watch how we spend such money carefully.
Therefore the SC agreed to pay out $800 for one half of a Sept Salary (which seemed reasonable as the hiring process is just beginning and is unlikely to result in a person hired within a less than a week).
NOTE: There has been further correspondence with the Black Caucus noting that as it will take more than a month to pull the tour together, that the only way this can be done is to guarantee the employment of the organizer for several months. People are trying to work out the kinks as soon as possible.
Also asked the Finance Committee to develop a process for this type of project and how to provide the financial resources in timely fashion.
Jo then noted that the revised 2003 budget for the rest of the fiscal year is being prepared and will be sent to the CC soon.
This lead in to the larger discussion of how to balance competing financial requests during times of slower cash flows, or at least times when cash flows are not growing as fast as we would like to see and therefore our growing activities are constrained by our ability to pay for all the new projects while at the same time paying for current projects and expenses.
Need proper processes for committees to request money, to request money in timely fashion, to maintain a schedule of the requests from the various committees, a disbursement schedule.
It was noted that the Finance committee has just recently sent out to the committees a request that they provide a budget for the next few months and for next year, which will provide some of this information. Then it was noted that some committees wish they had more info such as budgets and what they have spent so far from their budgets this year. The it was noted that budgets are available on the website.
Discussion of large new expenditures that we believe create a cash flow problem for us. Requests are to take on the CCC organizer, the Black Caucus Tour organizer, the Media committee request for the new news service, the bill to send the IC delegation to Cancun for the WTO meeting, and settling with the hotel from the July meeting.
Discussed what is in the reserve account and current cash flows. Weekly report from the Treasurer always has those numbers. Need to pay in the next few weeks approximately $30,000 and there is currently $13,000 in the current account, though it is added to nearly daily, as much as $3000 a day, but usually less.
SC agreed that the current bills and cash flow require us to take $5000 from reserve and then pay our bills and take on the new obligations including hiring the organizers for the CCC and BC.
SC consensed on moving $5000 from reserve to current accounts. Things to be paid right off are paper order, Verizon, first month of CCC organizer, up front expenditures for the Black Caucus tour project, the news service change, and to pay the hotel some of what we owe them while we continue to negotiate and review the bill.
Also agreed that we would not count the return of the security deposit from the old office until we actually see the money.
Discussed issues in the Lavender Caucus and the group that appears to be splitting off to form a new related Caucus. Anita has been attempting to mediate within the Caucus, but has not had a great deal of success yet. We would like to see a very experienced mediator brought into this rather than Anita having to do that herself. Anita also noted that the Caucus rules contain a non compete clause which says that there shall not be two caucuses that represent the same group of people, sort of like not having two parties in one state.
Recommendations for a mediator are being sent to Anita.
Women’s Caucus is going through a similar problem in which disaffected individuals are being divisive though they would always characterize the dispute as being about substance and principles. Women’s Caucus is proceeding to take action to resolve the dispute.
It is clear that a more complete set of rules would be helpful
Diversity committee will be sending in a request for financial assistance for phone calls.
Merchandising Committee
Concerns about this as an ad hoc committee, and how to regularize the functioning. It was noted that there are other committees as well that have been created by the SC, rather than the CC, and there needs to be a process to regularize their functions. The best way to do that would be for these committees to actually prepare organizational documents and submit them to the CC for approval. One thing that would do is make it much easier for people to actually join them, as state parties would know they were allowed to forward members to them.
Agreed that Merchandising should become a standing committee and asked that they prepare a proposal and documents for the CC. Ben agreed to watch over this.
FTAA
Alan Kobrin reported on some of what is happening in Florida. SC noted that most of what he was asking us really more properly should be decided by the folks on the ground as they were logistical. It was noted that financial support for the effort to create a Green presence at the FTAA meeting this fall might be in order, and the SC asked that a formal proposal be prepared.
Voting queue
Noted that voting is occurring for War Profiteers resolution.
Credit Card proposal is in discussion phase and Finance Committee would answer the questions it has been asked before moving to a vote. Amendment stating that credit card bill would be paid off monthly is going into the proposal before voting as requested.
2003 Budget is almost ready to go to discussion phase. Jo will mange the discussion/vote process on the list.
Jo reported on the Camejo campaign and noted the recent success at the debate.
Jo also reported that a NY radio station needs someone to do a phone interview and Ben was going to try to take take care of that.
NEW BUSINESS
Discussed CC discussion about an Open list. Decided that good rules on lists would be useful. Noted that the Internal Communication Committee is working on this topic.
Convention 2004
Ben is committee convener and just returned from a trip. We have in hand proposals from two hotels. Ben will follow up on further negotiations and convene the Convention Committee with representation from the Milwaukee organizing committee and the Accreditation Committee as well as others.
Health Insurance for staff
Agreed to switch to a plan that provides better coverage for less money for out of town (DC) staff.
Hiring process
Agreed that Personnel Committee would offer assistance and drafts of the procedures they are working on the the Black Caucus. Noted that Jake would work with the Caucus and other groups in the position of hiring in times of tight cash flows and that proper procedures should be developed.
Dean noted that we are already running about 10 days behind in the hiring of the Operations Director and that he really is leaving when he said he would and that he would like to be able to train the new person. He also wanted it noted that he does have leave time coming and that we needed to be aware of that.
Discussed having an SC retreat. Tentatively scheduled for Oct 31 to Nov 1,2. There were concerns over cost and whether it was truly needed. Also the importance of bringing at least some SC members to DC to meet with the new Operations Director after they got their feet wet in the job rather than any time before that.
10:38 PM entered Executive Session. Discussed candidates for webmaster and Operations Director and how to proceed. Felt Executive Session was needed when discussed particular candidates.
Ended Executive Session at 11:11PM and adjourned for the night.
Minimally edited and HTML formatted by Charlie Green