1st Annual Retreat of the Monroe County Green Party Held at the Drake's house at 429 S. Madison St. Attendance: Steps, Heather, Isabel, Kevin, Peter, Dan, Jeff (Willsey), Jeff (Melton), Julie, Chris, Jo Ellen, George We began around 10:18am I.) Membership issues A) Canvassing 1) Julie is the canvassing coordinator, and Peter and Chris agreed to help out on the canvassing committee. Julie is ready to start next week, and plans to begin with those precincts that were heavy Nader-supporters. 2) On Monday morning, Julie, Chris, and Peter will meet to acquire a) precinct maps (from the Public Works Dept.) b) lists of registered voters c) supplies necessary for canvassing (later in the day, the group voted to allot a maximum of $50 for the initial purchase of supplies.) 3) Julie is still finalizing the rap structure (what will be said to the public). The group agreed that although money was important, the main focus of the canvassing should be obtaining new members, be they supporting or full members. We want to get people to come to meetings, pay their dues to be a full member, and precluding all of that, at least make a donation to our party. B) Other means of increasing our membership 1) Monroe County Fair Heather agreed to contact the Fair Board and make sure that we have a table lined up for the County Fair. 2) Possible Labor Day picnic/parade II.) Fourth of July Parade A) Julie is doing much of the organizing for our entry in this year's parade, but will need as much help as she can get. At the very least we plan to have marchers wielding banners, but if we can get enough people involved, Julie has some great ideas for street theatre. One "fat cat", representing the corporations, will reside in a wagon, pulled by numerous slaves. The "Will of the American people," probably played by Julie, is drugged and follows the fat cat. As the Green Party wakes up the "Will" they begin to fight against the corporations, and force the fat cat to help pull the cart. Gradually the cat begins to take advantage of the other slaves and eventually climbs back in the cart. B) If you are interested in helping out with this, PLEASE email Julie. Chris agreed to send an email to the iugreens listserv to request some campus help. III.) Legal Issues of being a Political Party A) Money issues 1) The group generated the following questions: a) What are we allowed to do to raise money? b) How much can we raise per person per year? c) How do we record/report contributions? d) From whom will we (can we) accept money? Dan agreed to research the first three questions, and the group decided that we will only allow contributions from individuals. Even local businesses will not be permitted to contribute, although certainly their owners can contribute individually. B) Other legal issues 1) Again, the group generated a couple of key questions: a) How do we file for candidacy? b) What are the rules for the process of nominating candidates? Steps, who has already done a lot of research into all of these questions, will work with Dan to first answer them more completely, then complie the information into a guidebook that Green Party members can use for future reference. IV) Election Strategy 1) Heather will compile a list of positions in the city and county governments, along with the ends of their terms, the current tenants of these positions. V) Policy Discussion A) First Peter updated the group regarding SB329, the newly-passed state election bill that moves the deadline for third parties to submit ballot-access petitions forward two weeks, making it more difficult for third parties to get on the ballot. He is going to an ICFEL (Indiana Coalition for Fair-Election Laws) meeting this Saturday with Marge Steiner, where they will figure out how to repeal this bill. B) The group agreed that we need a better system of self-education. We will begin four working groups, one for each of the four main pillars of the Green Party. Each group will investigate how one particular local issue relates to their pillar. They will host a forum on this issue that will be open to the public, as well as a subsequent presentation to the Green Party with more of a focus on how we should act on the issue. C) The four pillars and their first round of related issues are: 1) Ecological Wisdom -- Urban Sprawl Isabel is the chair of this working group Julie, Jeff, and Chris are also in this group The target date for the forum is mid-September The target date for the presentation is October. 2) Social Justice -- Affordable housing/Living Wage George will chair this working group, but needs some help, so if you're interested, contact him. Forum target date: Early January Presentation target date: Late January, early February 3) Grassroots Democracy -- Election Reform Heather and Peter are on this working group, but could probably use some help; contact them if you want to. Forum target date: mid-April Presentation target date: mid-May 4) Nonviolence -- Community Policing Nobody is currently signed up for this group Forum target date: early July Presentation target date: late July D) In addition to these working groups, we decided that to get a better idea of what's going on in our community, we needed to follow more closely our own government. Heather suggested a shadow government of Greens that will attend as many meetings as possible. The following city/county meetings exist, and most have already been covered: County Planning Commission (3rd Tuesday, 6:30pm) NOT COVERED City Council (Wednesdays, 7:30pm) Heather and Isabel County Commissioners (Alternate Fridays, 9am) NOT COVERED City Planning (1st Monday, 5:30pm) Chris County Council (Tuesdays 4:30pm) Steps VI.) Affiliation with GP/GPUSA The group agreed that affiliation with GP/GPUSA was desirable, and that it would never create a problem with ASGP, with whom we can't affiliate anyway because we're not a Statewide party. Affiliation is $40 for the group, and afterwards if individuals wish to join GP/GPUSA, they may pay a reduced membership rate of $25 (as opposed to $40). Steps agreed to shuffle the paperwork to make this happen. In establishing that there was a voting quorum present at the retreat, the group realized that the wording of the charter is a little unclear. It defines a quorum as "a majority of the coordinating council *plus* 25% of the full membership. Because our coordinating council comprises about half of the full membership, this definition calls for essentially 3/4 of the membership to be present. We plan to make a motion at the next meeting to amend the charter to read "25% of the full membership, *including* the coordinating council." In other words, a coordinator would be counted twice in a quorum, once as a member of the coordinating council, and once as a full member. VII.) Literature As the group gains more members throughout the summer, it will be imperative to keep everybody updated with what we're doing. Beginning in September, therefore, we will begin publication of a small quarterly newsletter that will contain: Letters to the Editor written by Green Party members Other public input (Speak your mind, for example) Articles written on pertinent subjects The focus article will be written by the issue-based working group. A Calendar of upcoming events. Whatever else we want. A Newsletter Committee was formed with Isabel, Heather, and Chris volunteering. Anybody else is, of course, more than welcome to help with the editing and design of this newsletter. For the purpose of distributing these newsletters, it is necessary to compile a database of all members, both full and supporting. As Secretary, Chris agreed to create this database, consulting Heather (the database Queen) if necessary. Once a year, the Secretary will print out a directory of all members. *It was at this point that the group voted to allot $50 to the canvassing committee VIII.) In order to reach more people quickly for upcoming events, including those people who don't have email access, the group agreed to establish a telephone tree, and several alternatives were considered. The final design is as follows: The coordinating council will begin the tree, with each coordinator calling several people. In turn each of those people calls several others, and so forth until the tree is completed. The trick is that if your person isn't home and you have to leave a message, then you have to call all of THEIR people. I'm still not completely certain I understand how all this works... IX.) Carbondale meeting The National convention for GP/GPUSA will be held in Carbondale, IL, from July 20-23 (Friday-Monday). We plan to send one and maybe two carloads of people to this convention, as Julie has reserved four rooms. The deadline for registration is June 20th, and the cost is $10/day for convention registration and $15/day for meals. If we send two cars, one will probably return on Sunday evening, and the other on Monday evening after all the events are over. If you're interested in going, contact Steps. The retreat ended at around 5:00pm, and a fun time was had by all, including Duncan (the Drakes' dog) who probably received more attention than he's used to!