October 27, 2013

GPUS Steering Committee Conference Call Minutes – October 27, 2013

I. CALL SETUP & BACKGROUND
a. Facilitator – David Doonan
b. Roll Call – Budd Dickinson, Tamar Yager, Charles Ostdiek, Jeff Turner, Karen Young, Darryl! Moch, Katey Culver, Starlene Rankin, Jesse Townley
Observer – Jody Grage,

c. Agenda revisions – Floor Manager tutorial at beginning of call, followed by executive session on personnel issue; then recording started; readjusting time limits and 2 minute time limit suggested and approved; do II, III, IV and V and move balance to later agenda. Move budget discussion to end of call.

I. A. Executive Session on personnel – no decisions made.

II. TREASURER’S REPORT & FINANCE ITEMS – Jeff
a. Cash report to date

Report sent – cash balance $9500 as of TH, Red Sun May and insurance liability going out Monday. Estimated receipts through 10/31 would bring the cash balance to approximately $6600, but minus the expenditures approved in c. and d. below reduce the balance to about $3500 cash toward November payroll and rent expenses.

b. Fundraising – One or 2 fundraising e-blasts planned before end of year to help with possible revenue shortfall.

c. Global Greens dues request for $917 – IC voted for it; Charles filled out the formal notice last week. Consensus to pay when bequest check received.

d. CCC Request for disbursal of $2000 for candidate support from CCC budget – selected best five candidates and want to donate $400 to each. CCC is planning to fundraise to replace that expenditure as possible, including calls by Jill Stein. Candidates include women and people of color and women of color – city council plus one for school board, one double budget so two candidates for one of the $400 amounts – suggestion to hold Red Sun Press check to cover candidate support checks for 11/5 elections.

Consensus to pay CCC now and hold Red Sun check, with concern from Katey Culver since FinCom had prioritized paying Red Sun.

III. VOTING QUEUE – Budd
In the queue:

727 – Platform Amendment Process and Timeline for Non-Presidential Nominating Convention Years (Platform Committee). Voting 11/4-10. This is for ongoing process so it needs to be two-thirds threshold; background sentence that it isn’t bylaw change needs to be deleted. Darryl! as floor manager will make those changes. Jan Martell, Platcom co-chair, suggested it may be withdrawn and rewritten. Dates need to be just month and date without year; Darryl will check with Jan Martell on this.

728 – Approval of Audrey Clement VA for membership on the GPUS Finance Committee. Voting 11/4-10.

729 – Expansion of GPUS Volunteer Pool (from the SPWG). Voting 11/4-10.

Mofified version of 729 sent to queue. The new version incorporates several changes from the revised version that BRPP has been informally working on. The main change to the original proposal is that non-state-party volunteers could serve as advisers or observers, but not full members, on committees. Darryl! (floor manager) will update in the queue.

Received for the queue: none.

Budd will change Indiana status.

IV. Web Content Proposals – Karen

a. Add Mission & Operating Procedures to Steering Committee’s Web Content Subcommittee – rewritten with fewer automatic members, etc.
Consensus to approve, Karen will send language to David Doonan for website.

b. Web and Database Control – Elections Database paragraph has been added.
Consensus to approve.

V. Appointment to IT Advisory group and Website advisory group – new people appointed – Sanda Everett CA, David Schwab WI, Bruce Dixon GA; (Bruce also asked to be on web content group). Katey brought up Nation Builder/Salsa issue that IT will be looking at. They could make recommendation to SC which will make decision; Katey recommends movie “Some Conditions May Apply” re: data companies.

VI. 2014 Budget Discussion – FinCom sent budget based on SC members input; Jeff wants line item changes rather than new approach to budget and asks that his proposal to pay off entire state sharing be considered. Karen asked that her revised budget be looked at and said that Dave Sacks had suggested a 2nd tier, $10,000 higher. Jesse had question about committees doing fundraising and there was discussion of that. Darryl! wanted to know what would be needed to provide an operating reserve for one quarter of a year. Tamar is adding SC members’ budget revisions to the original budget spreadsheet for ease of comparison and distributing it to the SC. Jeff responded to questions, including careful spending of the bequest when it is received and only what SC approves. Many SC members have suggested both cuts and additions to expenses in the current Fincom budget draft. No decision was made on request to pay down additional debt in 2013. We decided that at the next meeting we will go line-by-line through the budget.

VII. Committee Liaison Reports – tabled to next call

VIII. Next meeting 11/3 – special budget call.


Budd Dickinson
Secretary