[Sosfbay-discuss] Proposal: green fest steering committee planning date - Sept 18th @ SJ Peace Center

[JamBoi at Greens.org]

Fred's idea for some kind of green fest that would highlight not only the
Green Party but allied green organizations and include green technology
and vendors was enthusiastically picked up not only by the North Valley
Local (where Fred pitched it with vigor at the June meeting) but also by
the East Valley Local.  So rather than take more time at the Local or
General County meetings with it, it looks like the next step is for all
who are interested to come together to form a steering committee to design
and carry out such an idea.

WHEN: Sept 18th, 7P San Jose Peace Center, 48 S 7th St. San Jose
http://sanjosepeace.org


Below's a briefing on how the idea's progressed to date.  Please send your
ideas to the list for further discussion...


Green is Communitarian!

Drew

EAST VALLEY LOCAL DISCUSSION:
Iliad, Kaisha, Cameron, and I met on Tuesday and a prominent part of the
discussion was revolved around the concept of a green festival.  The group
wanted to think really big and try to see if we could persuade the people
that put on the big Green Festivals in SF to come do one down in San Jose.
 Iliad has some friends that do event promotion and he thought it would be
very doable to approach someone like that and essentially hire them to
carry out such a thing.  Iliad and Kaisha were both strong supporters of
the idea and got very animated in brainstorming about it.

NORTH VALLEY LOCAL SUPPORT FOR GREEN FEST AND FESTIVAL-LIKE IDEAS:
Fred wasn't there, and naturally since it was his idea originally it makes
a difference in energy level when he's not there.  The previous meeting he
promoted it quite energetically and got an interested, if slightly
reserved response.  This time he wasn't there and we talked about it with
interest and in some depth but there was not a spark plug type person
there to really rev it up and cheerlead for it.

The thing that got more focus in the end was sort of a warm up for the
Green Valley Fest that the North Valley local would carry out on its own. 
The idea was that the Local would start tabling once a month at one of the
Farmers Markets (MV, PA, SV and LA were all discussed, but MV received the
most attention) in conjunction with a different organization or green
business (the example of a solar energy businessperson, Bruce Karney was
given).  This got solid support.

Its seemed to me that people were quite open to the idea of a large scale
festival but that it seemed a bit overwhelming of an enterprise to them. 
People did point out that we had done some large events in the past so it
is reasonable to think about creating such an event.

SUGGESTION - SCALE UP STEP BY STEP & GREEN PARTY MUST BE SHOWCASED
Maybe the way to proceed is in the way I'd suggested - one smaller one in
the PA/MV area in the spring to give some practice and confidence to the
group followed with a big one in SJ in Sept/Oct in time for our candidates
to be able to be presented before the 08 election.  As Cameron pointed out
we are a political party and where we spend our energy needs to provide
opportunities for promoting/attracting Green Party activity per se.

'GREEN' COLLECTIVIST STRUCTURE NEEDED - A STEERING COMMITTEE
Decentralization is one of our 10 Key Values - where single individual
person has overly much sway on a project.  We work as a collective.
In order to fit the Green 10 Key Values I don't think it would work to
simply hire an event producer to just go off and do the whole thing.  It
wouldn't work to assume that an event producer would do things in a way we
as a party would feel comfortable with.  But it could work to have a
steering committee oversee such an effort.  That would be a more 'Green'
way to do it.

-- 

JamBoi
http://www.greencommons.org/blog/63
"Peaceable: the ability to interact peacefully.  A skill set similar to
social or emotional intelligence that is unfortunately rare in America,
but can be developed by all.  The Green Parties need to lead the way in
Peaceableness."