[GPCA Updates] SF Bay Area Event for Green Party Activists

[Green Party of California Updates]

GREEN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA GOALS AND STRATEGIES FOR LONG-TERM PLANNING

                   A Participatory Exercise


WHEN: Sunday, March 20th - 1 to 5 pm

WHO:  Bay Area Greens
San Mateo and Santa Clara Greens recently met to discuss Goals and
Strategies.  The information sent out to them in advance of their
meeting appears below.  This meeting is being hosted by San Francisco
and Alameda Greens.  Greens in all other parts of the Bay Area or the
state are welcome to attend.  Please forward to your Green lists.  The
results from this meeting will be brought before the GPCA spring plenary.

WHERE: The Women's Building, 3543 18th Street, San Francisco - Audre
Lorde room
Between Valencia and Guerrero. Public transit within 4 Blocks - 16th
Street BART station, #14, 22, 33 and 49 busses and the J-Church street car.

WHY:  GPCA needs to hear from you.  What are your concerns?  What would
you like to see the Green Party accomplish in the coming years? What are
you willing to do to make that happen?

This room will seat up to 80 people.

NEEDS: Some drinks and snacks would be nice. Please respond to
barry at hermansons.com  if you can bring something.

Contact Barry (barry at hermansons.com  or 415-664-7754) with any questions
or comments.
------------------------------


The following text was written by Jim Stauffer.  When you have a moment,
it is worth reading.  For me, it is an exciting time to be a Green.
Corporate America is spending tens of millions of dollars trying to
convince everyone that they are green.  Everyone wants to be green.  How
can we take advantage of that?

Dear Greens:

The state party would like to engage county Locals in an exercise to
help establish long-term goals for the party. By agreeing on a set
of goals, we give the party definition and purpose. From those
goals we develop strategies for their implementation. This creates
projects for our Working Groups and Standing Committees, and it
helps attract volunteers and donations.

It?s important to be realistic when setting goals. Brainstorming
exercises encourage free-thinking with no critique or analysis of
suggested issues. Goal setting is different; it's intended to
derive projects that are achievable, not just desirable. We all have
a list of favorite issues and a wish-list of what we?d like the
party to be. But we must focus on what we can actually accomplish...
realistic goals.

Locals are encourage to get together with neighboring counties for
this exercise. Gathering into a group from a few counties helps the
thought process. It gets us outside of our normal monthly meeting
crowd and provides the synergy of a larger group.



PROCESS

Take notes of the goals discussed and rank or categorize them by the
level of agreement or support.

There is wiki that is (ostensibly) for posting comments. It's not
designed too well, but it can be used for submitting our comments.
http://wiki.cagreens.org/index.php/GPCA_Strategic_Action_Plan

DISCUSSION

The state party wants to hear what Locals think our long-term goals
should be. This requires some degree of open discussion, but the
exercise must remain moderated by the theme of realistic goals. For
every suggested goal, the presenter should have some idea of a
strategy to implement that goal.

Basically, the question to answer is, "What should the GPCA
accomplish in five years and in ten years?"

Some organizing may help the discussion:

-Political Goals-
Partisan and non-partisan candidates
Campaigns and ballot proposition
Election reforms

-Internal / Party Goals-
Voter registration
Developing county Locals
Fund raising
Internal structure and process

REFERENCES

State committee and working group people have been discussing this
subject and have come up with their list of issues. These are being
provided here just as a reference, they should not be used as
guidance for your discussions. Its purpose is to provide input as
to what volunteers at the state level see as our long-term issues.

1. Given the current recession and its detrimental effect on
fundraising, should GPCA and its locals adopt a 'survival plan'
until recovery is tangible (e.g. unemployment below 8%)? How would
this affect all goals and strategies?

2. What are realistic voter registration goals? What attracts people
to a small party? What caused the California Green registration
decline of the past six years, can it be reversed?

3. Given that we have less than 1% of registered voters, what are
realistic electoral strategies for a party of our size? Do we
continue attempts in partisan races or focus on non-partisan races?
Is there a realistic strategy for winning partisan races?

4. How do we recruit/develop electable candidates for non-partisan
offices?

5. Does Prop 14 provide any potential to us?

6. Should we make a real, concerted effort to promote ranked-choice
voting (i.e. Instant Runoff Voting and proportional representation)?

7. The GPCA?s decentralized structure and consensus-seeking decision
process is an experiment that we've carried on for 20 years. Is it
working well enough? Is there a good balance of responsibilities
between the state party and the county parties? Should we examine
giving more authority over internal business to the state party?

8. Is continuing to rely solely on volunteer labor a viable plan for
growth?

9. What factors have created viable, stable Locals? What factors
have caused Locals to deteriorate?

10. What resources do Locals need from the state party? What
resources does the state party need from Locals?