Monroe County Green Party Meeting - August 22, 2000 Place: Monroe County Public Library (Ellettsville Branch) Meeting Room Ellettsville, Indiana Time: 7:00pm - 9:00pm Attendance: Heather Drake, Peter Dake, Ken Rogers, Jay Mersch, Danna D'Esopo Jackson, Marge Steiner, Michael Berndt, Paul Colbert, Joseph Osborne, Karmyn Guthrie, Marian Shaabon, Jeff Melton Facilitator: Ken Rogers Scribe: Heather Drake The meeting began at 7:05pm with a round of introductions and unanimous approval of the agenda. Minutes for the 4 August 2000 meeting with approved with one correction: Ken plans to write a guest column for the Herald-Times about the Nader campaign as an individual, not as a representative of MCGP. He hopes to share his draft with the group for comments and suggestions, but did *not* "promise to bring [it] to a meeting to solicit comments before submitting it." It was also pointed out that meeting minutes are posted in a file at the btowningreens' egroups web page. * Formation of Committees A suggestion was made to formally create committees in four areas for which coordinators stepped forward last week: Legal, Media, Web, and Email. Concern was expressed that it was important that each committee preserve a coordinator to serve as a contact person and to coordinate the work of committee members. It was also mentioned that committees might not be needed if there are not multiple members in contributing to the project. Discussion concluded with no formal committee establisment, but a consensus that people should feel free to get involved with any project and that coordinators should reach out to get new people involved. * Legal Report Paul shared his plans for a meeting with IU's Student Legal Services later in the week to discuss MCGP's potential non-profit status and filing of the required paperwork. He also plans to investigate the steps for becoming an official party and candidacy issues in the future. * Media Report Jeff reported on a radio interview that he gave on 22 August on WGCL AM 1370. Although the interview was brief, he addressed three main points: 1) Nader's main concern is the corporitization of society. The two traditional parties have been taken over by corporations. 2) Nader is not a spoiler. Indiana isn't likely to go Democratic anyway. 3) Winning 5% of the national vote--and thus becoming eligible for federal matching funds--is important for future Green Party building. Jeff also made contact with a person from WFHB. She expressed interest in organizing a segment of Health Break in which representatives from the Democrats, Republicans, and other parties could talk about the issue of health care. He will post more information about this program to the email list when he receives it. * Web Report Joseph found two potential hosts for the MCGP web page that met the requirements of A) low cost and B) no ads. 1) Hoosiernet. There is a $1 per month cost for 4 MB of space. This host allows CGI. 2) freespeech.org. There is no fee for 25 MB of space. CGI is not allowed. There is a bandwidth limitation of 500 MB per month. If traffic at your web site exceeds this amount, fees kick in. Joseph recommended that we use freespace.org because it is free and offers more space. The group agreed with his recommendation. He will work on creating some draft web pages before the next meeting. Members should contribute content suggestions to the email list over the next week. Joseph will try to mold them into some draft pages and post the URL to the email list so that people can comment on them. * Email Report Peter reported that the email lists were suffering from no technical problems. He reminded people to visit the group web page (www.egroups.com/group/btowningreens) to look at the many features offered by the service. Highlights include a message archive, events calendar, files, and links. Any member can contribute items to several of the areas. * Communication Between Meetings It was pointed out that our group can accomplish only a limited amount of business during a two-hour, biweekly meeting. The group agreed that meetings should not be our only means of communication. In particular, email provides an excellent opportunity for members to discuss various issues and agenda items between face-to-face meetings. Email will also allow members who can't attend meetings to contribute to group decisions. To that end, it was suggested that coordinators post their reports to the email list a few days prior to our meetings for comments and revisions. This should speed up the report portion of future meetings considerably. It was also suggested that we create and post flyers to better advertise our existence, meeting times, and email list. Paul volunteered to create a flyer and post some. Peter has also created a handbill that people can pass out. They will both post their files to the egroups Files section so that other members can print and distribute copies. * Split Email List (Notices and Discussion)? Before opening discussion on the topic of splitting the btowningreens mailing list, Ken described the experience of the Indiana Greens Campaign Committee with the ingreens mailing list. Originally, Ben ran the list as a moderated announcement list. When the petition drive ended, he changed its status to unmoderated. As the email traffic increased, some people unsubscribed. In response to this, the list was returned to a moderated format. Traffic on the list decreased and there was difficulty getting notices posted. As a result the list has been returned to an unmoderated format, but is intended only for announcements. Peter offered a proposal to split the email list. The current list, btowningreens, would become a non-discussion list for time critical announcements. A second list, btowningreens-discuss, would handle all other traffic. Several concerns and issues were raised in consideration of this proposal: 1) Concern was raised that splitting the list would stifle communication and amount to censorship. There was also concern that we could lose members if they are forced to switch lists. Any change would be the minority enforcing its will on the majority who have not voiced complaints about the current list. 1) Can the calendar be used as an announcement list? It was pointed out that this might be a problem for short notice items. 2) If the list is to be split, it should be arranged such that people won't have to subscribe to two lists to get both the announcements and discussion. Peter reported that this was possible. 3) To which list will new members subscribe? It was suggested that new people be informed of both lists. Anyone who subscribes to either list should have complete details on the purpose of *both* lists so that they can participate to the fullest. 4) Who will move if there is a split? It was suggested that the current list be designated the announcements list. Concern was expressed that it was unfair to ask a majority of subscribers to switch lists. The point was also made that people who were interested in discussion would be more willing to deal with the inconvenience of moving than people who wanted to be less deeply involved. 5) Concern was expressed that with two lists, some messages will fall through the cracks. 6) People were reminded of the possibility of reading messages on the egroups message archive rather than receiving individual emails. It was also pointed out that deleting messages doesn't take much time. 7) The question was raised as to whether it might make more sense to split the list along a topic line. One list would include messages relating to the Nader campaign. A second list would include messages relating to MCGP. Since the election deadline is looming, a Nader list would allow a focused, task-oriented exchange. After the deadline, the Nader list would expire. 8) The time critical split was supported as a way to get information to people who were minimally interested in MCGP and the Nader campaign. Discussion on a second list could be even freer as people would not feel obligated to restrain the quantity of their posting. The consensus reached by the group was to have two lists. A new list will be created for discussion. The current list will contain only time critical messages. Details of each list's purpose will be posted clearly and often for the benefit of new subscribers. * Visibility projects -- T-shirts Karmyn reported that she will be able to create t-shirts for free if provided with the shirts and our design. The group agreed that our next step is to create a design. Karmyn agreed to solicit comments for design ideas from the discussion list. Members were encouraged to help out with design ideas! It was also suggested that we be sure to use high-quality shirts in a variety of sizes. It was also suggested that small sizes be avoided because they are difficult to get rid of. Jeff also reported that he has placed a second order with Northern Sun for 12 Nader/LaDuke campaign t-shirts (5 X-Large, 5 Large, 2 Medium). He also ordered 100 bumper stickers and 100 buttons. * Visibility projects -- Yard Signs Heather was not able to get in touch with Kate Bryant in Indianapolis for information on ordering merchandise from the national campaign. Ken mentioned that he had seen links to merchandise on the votenader web site. Heather promised to investigate and post her findings to the discussion list. * Visibility projects -- Farmer's Market Jeff, Heather, and Peter attended the Saturday Market on 19 August. Over the course of three hours they sold 7 t-shirts ($15), 20 buttons ($1), and 20 bumper stickers ($1). Jeff was able to recoup his original investment. They reported that many other political groups, including the Monroe County Democratic Party, a Libertarian candidate for judge, and the League of Women Voters were also at the market. They argued that a continued presence at the market will be good for our visibility. Heather, Peter, Jay, and Michael volunteered to attend the 26 August market. * Nader Campaign - Media Outreach The group brainstormed several different things members can do to increase the media outreach for the Nader campaign. 1) Write letters to the editor. We need to generate more letters from members. The Herald-Times, Bloomington Independent, and Ryder Magazine were mentioned as possible recipients. The Herald-Times circulation is 41,000. 2) WFIU has a guest editorial feature called Speak Your Mind. Community members are allowed two minutes of air time to address an issue. There are a few restrictions on the commentaries--no ads or soliciting--that people can receive if they contact the station. 3) Guest columns in newspapers. 4) Suggest articles to the newspapers and radio stations. People agreed to send other suggestions for media outreach to the discussion list. * Nader Campaign - Debate Work It was pointed out that Jesse Ventura's victory in the Minnesota gubernatorial race demonstrated the importance of getting Nader into the debates. The group agreed that this was one of the most pressing tasks that we must undertake before election day. Ken shared information about the FAIR Open Debates 2000 project. The idea is to get the television networks to host their own debates with empty seats for candidates who choose not to participate. For more information, see the web site at: www.fair.org/debates.html Danna suggested starting petition drives to state officials (e.g. Lugar, Bayh) to encourage them to support Jesse Jackson Jr.'s resolution to reduce the debate participation requirement to 5% in national polls rather than the 15% level currently. There was some concern expressed that multiple petitions would be difficult to coordinate. Again, people agreed to send other suggestions for work to get Nader into the debates to the discussion list. * Nader Campaign - Write-in Campaign Work The first prioirity is to get Nader certified as an official write-in candidate in Indiana. Ken mentioned that the national campaign will probably take care of this formality. He volunteered to send more details on the ballot access project to the discussion list as he learned of them from contacts in the national campaign and with the IGCC. The group concluded that another important task before election day will be educating voters on how to write-in a candidate on Indiana ballots. * Treasurer The group agreed that the appointment of a treasurer was important to facilitate our purchase of merchandise and our acceptance of donations for campaign work. Jay volunteered to serve as treasurer. He will look into various banking options and report his findings to the discussion list. The meeting concluded at 9:00pm. ********************************************************************** The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, September 5, at the Monroe County Public Library in Bloomington. Michael volunteered to serve as facilitator. He will send a tentative agenda to the discussion list several days prior to the meeting date. **********************************************************************