[Sosfbay-discuss] Fw: Regional meeting

[fred]

THANKS, Carlone, for the excellent  review/report.  It is a valuable 
service.

Fred
,
Caroline Yacoub wrote:
>
>
> ----- Forwarded Message ----
> *From:* Caroline Yacoub <carolineyacoub at att.net>
> *To:* Santa Clara - San Mateo Communications <sc-sm at lists.sonic.net>
> *Cc:* Caroline Yacoub <carolineyacoub at att.net>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 29, 2009 10:46:56 PM
> *Subject:* Regional meeting
>
>                     Regional Meeting--Jade Palace--September 29, 2009
>  
> In attendance:
> Jim Stauffer--Regional Rep.
> Tian Harter--SCCC
> Warner Blomberg-GPUS delegate
> Don Davis--was on SM board
> Gloria Purcell
> Margaret Pey--Treasurer, SM
> Vi Minh
> Brian Good
> Andrea Dory 3 terms on SCCC
> Caroline Yacoub==SCCC
> Binky Bachelder--SM County Council Chairperson
> Susan--SM
> Cindy
> Dana St. George--SCCC
> Gerry Gras
>  
> Jim suggested we discuss three topics: 1) how are the counties doing? 
> 2) state of the stae party, 3) electing a new regional rep.  Margaret 
> also wanted to discuss the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in 
> December.
>  
> 1)What's going on in the counties?
> Binky said San Mateo has been inactive, but they're trying to pick up. 
> Sanda and others are busy with other things. They_ do_ have money. 
> They are going to look at what they did in the past, mailings for 
> example, and see how effective they were.
> Margaret said that Ray Toby talked to them as a campaign consultant. 
> He knows how to get lists of who voted and when. We could get him to 
> give a talk to both counties.
> Andrea said we should do this this winter.
> Warner said Ray thinks we think too small. We need candidate training.
>  
> Andrea said Santa Clara County is doing outreach. We are trying to get 
> emails rather than doing mailings. We are doing a lot of tabling. We 
> have organic seeds. Warner grew some, and the results were great. We 
> need to go to farmers' markets.
> Caroline suggested having Ray at our next Food 4 Thought in January.
> Tian thought there should be more than one speaker.
>  
> 2) State of the state party, Jim Stauffer
> Our voter registration peaked in 2003. All political parties are 
> losing registrations.
> We have to worry about losing our ballot status. If we keep dropping 
> 8-10% per year, we will be off in 3 years. The Green Party has been an 
> experiment in structure. The state party has a series of standing 
> committees who do the work. Only 2-3 committees are currently 
> functioning. There have been internal problems in the state party. We 
> have no center focus--no one basic issue. We need to sit down and 
> figure out what this focus should be. ((/editorial comment: does the 
> name "Green"  suggest anything?/))
> We should have on-line voting to take care of decision-making that is 
> now being done at the plenary. We need to get our counties organized 
> and energized in order to get the state going.The last thing to be 
> discussed at the upcoming plenary is restructuring. Jim thinks this 
> restructuring is a mess. We should not have more than  half the 
> delegates be elected at large. Gloria asked if restructuring will be 
> brought to a vote on Sunday afternoon. If so, she, and probably 
> others, will leave early, so there wouldn't be a quorum.
> Vi raised the issue of outreach for candidates.
> Warner said that in the state party there have been some small 
> successes in recruiting people to run for statewide offices. So far, 
> the only people he knows of who are running for statewide offices are 
> from southern California.Laura Wells said she would run for 
> Comptroller. The deadline for declaring is in February.
> Susan asked if other state parties were having the same problems as 
> California.
> Gloria said California is so big that it's more like national than 
> other states.
> Cindy (sorry, I didn't get her last name) is from Nebraska. She was in 
> on the start of the Greens there.She worked on Nader's campaign and on 
> two congressional campaigns.
> Brian asked if we could split into northern and southern California 
> parties.
> Warner said no.
> Vi said that before she joined the Green Party she was in the Peace 
> and Freedom party. She said we should make it easier to put Green 
> people on the ballot--not make it sound like such a big deal to 
> run--just get names on the ballot.
> Warner said we should have a candidates' schoool.
> Jim said we don't have a snowball's chance of winning in a partisan 
> election. We need to work on IRV.
> Tian said we need to get people to run for County Council.
> Vi said we should build alliances with other peace groups.
> Gloria said she couldn't get the Sierra Club to endorse her.
> Andrea said we are starting to get into a real working relationship 
> with the Single Payer people.
> Gloria said "Fair Vote" is doing a good job. We have a couple of Green 
> people on their board.
> Jim said people pushing for a constitutional convention onclude Steven 
> Hill and Steve Chessin., who are heavy hitters for IRV. We need to 
> push that in the constitutional convention.
> Andrea said we need to get the word out regarding proportional 
> representation--let people know our democracy is old, creaky, and 
> needs desperately needs fixing.
>  
> 3)Replacing the Regional Rep--Jim Stauffer
> Jim will vacate the office at the end of the year. During this time 
> when the Coordinating Committee is being restructured, it would not be 
> good for our seat to be vacant. The time commitment could be just a 
> few hours per month, but you are expected to do state work. There is a 
> liaison from the CC to each working committee. Jim will send the job 
> description out. We need a competent person.
>  
> Warner said several years ago both counties made a procedure for 
> choosing a rep.  Both counties need to agree and follow the procedure.
>  
> We should also have an alternate to serve when the rep is absent and 
> to help. Gerry and Dana did this together. They felt that the rep 
> needed to be at the general meetings of both counties and the state 
> meetings.
>  
> We need to get candidates. They need to go to both counties. In santa 
> Clara, the rep is selected at the general meeting. In San Mateo, they 
> do it at a county council meeting. They have to agree.
>  
> Warner will contact Jim Doyle to get this item on the agenda for the 
> October 7 meeting.
>  
> 4) Once again Margaret reminded us of the Copenhagen Climate Change 
> Conference. We should google it and find out things we can do.
>  
>  
>
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