February 5, 2004

SC Call Notes — February 5, 2004

Participants:
SC members: Jo Chamberlain, Jake Schneider, Ben Manski, Greg Gerritt
Staff: Emily Citkowski
Call Functions:
Facilitator Jo
Timekeeper Jake
Note taker Greg

Abbreviations used:
AFT = American Federation of Teachers
AC = Accreditation Committee
ANM, ANMC = Annual National Meeting 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
PCSC = Presidential Campaign Support Committee
SC = Steering Committee
[Brackets denote editor’s suggested corrections. Some punctuation corrections done with no content change. -ed.]

Published Agenda
Agenda Review, set Facilitator, timekeeper

OLD BUSINESS AND REPORTS

Mill around, say hello. 5 minutes
finances 10 minutes
office report 10 minutes
convention 10 minutes
campaigns 5 minutes
email etiquette 10 minutes

voting queue 15 minutes
STRATEGIC PLAN
Floor Manager: Jo Chamberlain
Budget 2004 (Revised)
Floor Manager: Ben Manski
Media Committee Rules
Floor Manager: Greg Gerritt
CREATION of an GREEN OFFICEHOLDERS NETWORK
Floor Manager: Greg Gerritt
Proposal to Restructure the Steering Committee
Floor Manager: Greg Gerritt

AZ bylaw proposal
Voting Machines

NEW BUSINESS
VA situation 5 minutes
Green institute proposal 5 minutes
Nader book on website 2 minutes
other book deal, platform use 3 minutes

Big picture 15 minutes

*****
OLD BUSINESS

Finances
Discussion of invoice to reimburse Vivek A. from IC for trip to Luxembourg conference. IC submitted bill for $316.00 They have been getting reimbursed 41% of costs due to budget cuts and original billing was $753. Discussion about whether this was pre-approved and how much of budget had IC spent. Tentatively approved pending look at budgets and spending once we got notice that it was pre-approved. (after the call Jake sent out info stating that in October $2000 for IC trips to represent us at the various meetings, had been approved but that only $339 of that had been paid out so far, so this will be paid)

Fundraising
Jo: New Fundraising Director Kara Mullen has called all of our previous large donors. Donors are a little down about the state of the party. That effects donations. Ben and Greg noted that with Kara being new she did not have enough good information about all the positive stuff going on to reply back to donors with, so it was agreed that Ben will send her a list of all kinds of good things going on like debates and local candidates and strong committees, and the voting page, and, and, and….. Kara has raised some money recently with her calls, and on her way from CA to DC to take up her work at the national office will meet with major donors as she travels through. She was not on the call as she was meeting with potential donors when the call was going on. Kara should be in the DC office starting Feb 16.

Office Report
Emily C.: New computers have arrived, will be set up in next couple of days, weather permitting. The do need software. SC approved $700 for software purchase.

Convention
Ben: Progress is being made. Discussions with the hotel about rooms etc, but nothing out of the ordinary. Most of the current members of the Annual National Meeting Committee already have taken on tasks so leadership is getting too much stuff to handle. Need more volunteers. Please recruit for them among your state party. Several of the WI Greens will take a tour of the facilities in the next few days.

SC discussed how early they need to arrive to set up and be organized, do media, etc. Looks like SC should plan to arrive on Tuesday.

Discussed Green Institute proposal to organize a few workshops, speakers, presentations prior to the convention. They are not asking for resources from us, just the opportunity to use rooms that are already part of the convention hotel package for workshops. Details can be worked out with the ANMC, so SC approved of the idea and directed the ANMC to discuss how to make it work with Green Institute.

More information about the convention, delegate allocations, etc is going up on the convention website regularly. Ben is providing webmasters with info to post. So far 60 individuals have registered and sent in their fee and 170+state party block registrations have been received from RI and CA and other states. State Parties that can are encouraged to register their delegations even if the individuals are not yet known and will be picked in state convention later on.

Because of this, food details and registration will have a separate place on the website so that a person who is from a State delegation that was registered can separately organize their food plan and sign up for it.

Campaigns
We mentioned that WI has elections going on right now, that about 10 primaries are coming up.

Email etiquette
Jo noted that our new FD Kara was finding the level of professionalism on the list serve somewhat low. Kara believed that this could effect fundraising. Greg pointed out that the Communications Committee is spending a fair amount of time discussing and thinking about how to improve the etiquette without becoming the list police, and that some communications committee members have publicly tried to improve the tone of discussion, but do not want to have to create censorship mechanisms. Ben noted that other parties have worse etiquette, but that that is not an excuse for ours.

We also noted that poor list etiquette usually is correlated with weak state party structure and that as state parties get stronger they elect delegates who are more capable of this type of work rather than taking any volunteers they can get. We also pointed out that poor list practices serve to weaken a person’s influence in CC decisions, damaging their credibility and ability to recruit allies for proposals and projects. We also would like to see a strengthening of the green party culture of etiquette. Learn to disagree without being disagreeable.

SC shall keep this topic on our agenda.

Also believe that it will take more work, something that a strong staff can help with, to keep in better touch with the state parties and discuss with them the how to best be effective in the GPUS. Agreed that the SC would work together and with staff to get a better picture of what is going on in the various states and noted that Ben, Emily, and Greg had already begun on the project.

Voting queue
Budget, list has been quiet. Ben will remind folks to comment.

Strategic plan discussion continues. Jo will contact presenters to see if they are amending the proposal based on feedback. There will be a vote when discussion ends.

Office holders, waiting for the Office Holders internal discussions to reach a conclusion before going back to the CC for approval.

SC restructuring. Discussion is pretty quiet, BRPP has been answering questions. Comes for a vote soon.

Media Committee rules just sort of coasting, should be routine.

New additions
AZ bylaw request on voting percentages to pass resolutions. Will go to queue for 3 weeks discussion, one week vote. Ben will floor manage and recruit an AZ delegate to be the responder.

NY/WI proposal for a strong campaign. To voting queue for 3 weeks discussion one week vote. Jo will manage.

Proposal on voting machines is coming but had not been officially received by the start of the call. The authors seem to be lining up sponsors still.

NEW BUSINESS

VA GP is facing an internal challenge from some long time dissidents who are creating an Independent Green Party of VA. SC member called the VA Board of Elections to get the scoop and found out that with VA party’s non-ballot status, they are subject to groups using similar names, though the splinter group has a long way to go to get on the ballot. SC decided to offer VA GP whatever help we can.

Request to advertise a biography of Nader on the GPUS website. We shall ask them to work with Michael Green who has worked with us before on such things. We did not lean towards giving them free advertising, and there was one flip comment that we will do it if he decides to run as a Green this year.

Request from a publisher to publish excerpts from GPUS platform, properly referenced, in a new textbook. Permission granted, Greg will inform them.

Next meeting we shall look for a report on the Avocado project started by Peter Camejo.

Next Call Feb 19
Minimally edited and HTML formatted by Charlie Green