GPUS Steering Committee Minutes – 10 February 2019
SUMMARY FOR DISTRIBUTION TO STATES AND LOCAL CHAPTERS
1. New Business: International Committee membership verification before holding elections
2. Standing Business: Treasurer’s Report (Treasurer’s Reports to the GNC available at https://gpus.org/treasurers-reports/; Fundraising Report; Fundraising Consultant update, Liaison reports
3. Voting Queue – https://secure.gpus.org/cgi-bin/vote/login
Received for the queue – None
In the queue: Establish Rules of the Banking and Monetary Reform Committee
Online SC Proposals approved since last call and sent to the NC: Proposal for $1,000 (including $200 from Youth Caucus) to renew DoGooder subscription
4. Old Business: 2019 Annual National Meeting, SC ballots update – July and vacancy elections; Strategic Planning Meeting #3; FreshDesk update; Tech issues – voting page, etc.
5. Executive Session: Personnel
The full minutes are available at http://gpus.org/committees/steering/minutes/February-10-2019/
The call recording will be available at 605-475-3273, 776-532-966#, reference 1 and https://gpus.org/steering-committee-recordings
Jody Grage, Secretary
GPUS Steering Committee Minutes – 10 February 2019
AGENDA:
I. CALL SETUP & BACKGROUND – 15 min
a) Facilitator: Charles Sherrouse
b) Roll call: Hillary Kane, Jody Grage, Violet Zitola, Anita Rios, Tony Ndege, Gloria Mattera, Justin Beth, Margaret Flower, Andrea Merida
Observers: David Gerry MA. Holly Hart IO, Tamar Yager VA
c) Agenda revision suggestions
Old Business: Margaret – From Strategic Planning call – Approve process and survey contents – Old Business – consensus; Andrea – Approve IC membership verification before holding committee elections – New Business – consensus
II. NEW BUSINESS
Andrea – International Committee needs to verify membership before holding elections; Gloria – roll call usual before elections; Anita – ask committee to have each member verify status according to state/caucus rules and procedures with documentation sent to the IC by 10 March; Andrea as liaison will set up a spreadsheet to monitor including some members who have current verification and report to the SC
II. STANDING BUSINESS –45 min
a) Treasurer’s report – Hillary Kane – 5 min
Treasurer’s Reports to the GNC available athttps://gpus.org/treasurers-reports/
All accounts – $108,843.98, Operating Reserves/Committees/Caucuses – $97,261.75, Checking – $11,582.23; plus PayPal $3,424.54 – still holding steady; $2400 paid to NY State Workers Compensation Board; December report to NC posted soon
FinCom audit begun with planning call – will include some analysis of beginning and ending of year, FEC reports and bank statements, also spot checks
Conflict of interest statements are coming in
Fundraising Consultant update – Hillary, Gloria – beginning construction with Jennifer of dashboard for better real-time tracking; need review of Case for Support for fundraising brochures, etc.
Fundraising Report – Gloria
1. Nation builder and list issues: NB consultation with Starlene and David Doonan around the email bouncing; Starlene working on warming our list in a more methodical manner with the suggestions from NB; bouncing could be more about open rate than email addresses; Google changed some delivery algorithms and NB has been in convo with Google. Currently we are suppressing those not engaged/donated since before 2017 but recommendation is only sending to most engaged – 5 out of 5 open emails – for next couple of emails – then add recipients with some level of engagement back in to build back gp.org domain reputation; NB recommended setting up gp.org domain with Google Postmaster Tools so we can monitor our own domain reputation and this has now been done.
2.Fundraising Info, February 9 2019
January Income: $13,307.96
December Income: Feb 1-9: $6,497.92 (includes $2700 for ANM)
Donations from website Feb 1 – 9: $230.42
November 2018 Direct Mail Letter: $6,630.75
Eblast: Green New Deal: $991 total – 8 New Sustainers giving $78 per/month; HR-I Petition: $157 total
Our Winter Direct Mail Letter is about to be printed and mailed.
NationBuilder yearly payment due Feb. 28th.
d) Liaison reports – 30 min
DIVERSITY – Anita – DivCom had a call and will schedule calls at more convenient time; Andrea – roster includes members with expired terms and former liaison, quorum and voting depend on accurate membership,. low quorum of five enables members not from oppressed groups to win the vote; Anita – original rules stipulated percentage of members who could be from non-oppressed groups, bylaws do need work; reappointments need to be made; members were vetted two years ago, elections should follow membership and bylaws update; Andrea – questions if DivCom needed now that we have caucuses
FINCOM – Anita – HIllary reported above
GREEN PAGES – Anita – no update
DISPUTE RESOLUTION – Anita – call soon. pending issue being processed, trying to figure out how to proceed when not all parties willing as is currently needed
OUTREACH – Tony – suggests collaboration with other committees and need for website committee or group, perhaps design group also – continue on next Strategic Planning call (plus Anita’s committees)
IV. VOTING QUEUE – Jody – 5 min
https://secure.gpus.org/cgi-bin/vote/login
Received for the queue: None
In the queue – Establish Rules of the Banking and Monetary Reform Committee <https://secure.gpus.org/cgi-bin/vote/propdetail?pid=951>
Online SC Proposals approved since last call and sent to the NC: Proposal to approve $1,000 (including $200 from the Youth Caucus) to renew DoGooder subscription with funds for the $2500 in the IT budget line – approved with 6 yes votes and 3 non-voting
V. OLD BUSINESS – 55min
a)**2019 Annual National Meeting – Margaret*- *20 min
ANM website up – salem.gp.org; application up for diversity stipends with deadline of 30 March, workshop proposal form proposals due 30 March, survey has been posted
SC task list still to do – Violet, Gloria, Justin – Google Doc link will be sent
update on workshops, speakers, etc. – PCSC asking for 2020 campaign strategy presentation
b) SC ballots update – July and vacancy elections – Violet – 5 min
Hugh Esco invited on call – two changes caused disruption – new server and setting up common system for four voting applications – reuniting secret ballots with names done for three and fourth will be done soon; future elections should function, discussion on preventing future difficulties; discussion on GPUS contract – this work volunteer contribution and system administration, did change code on two occasions – call for liaison to set priorities and approve changes – some stable changes ready to deploy but Chris Blankenhorn no longer on SC or liaison – need maintenance window to deploy the work done in 2017, also need plan to engage volunteers to do some of the work and contribute to building and maintaining the code – discussion of hosting on a public site, Chris reportedly willing to assist; liaison could be Violet or Justin or Andrea to be established on the list during the next week; 2019 budget has only $2500 in IT, request proposal from Hugh to install stable code – consensus with request for submission of billing; discussion – changing the way elections are done, using open source, need for detailed list of work to be done with approximate times so priorities can be developed
c) Strategic Planning Meeting #3 on 6 February – report – Gloria and Margaret – 10 min
Jody will get final minutes out, Margaret will get Doodle Poll out for the meeting #4; Andrea will get the survey into a Google Doc; Justin requests future consideration of his post about mission statement/vision statement/strategy; survey approved by consensus
d) FreshDesk update – Justin – 10 min – on next agenda
e) Tech – voting page, etc. – Violet – 10 min – see above
VI. EXECUTIVE SESSION –15 min
On call – Hillary, Jody, Violet, Anita, Tony, Gloria, Justin, Margaret, Andrea
Budget discussion – personnel – No decisions made
TOTAL TIME: 3 hours 45 min
Jody Grage, Secretary