{news} Some national Greens business to keep you updated-GPUS-SC Conference CAll, 10/22/06 - Minutes, Part I

Sat Oct 28 15:53:34 EDT 2006

Some might find some useful information on this recap email of national greens business

hhart at blue.weeg.uiowa.edu wrote:  Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2006 21:44:50 -0500
From: hhart at blue.weeg.uiowa.edu
To: natlcomvotes at green.gpus.org
Subject: [usgp-coo] GPUS-SC Conference CAll, 10/22/06 - Minutes, Part I

GPUS SC Conference Call
Sunday, October 22, 2006
8:00 p.m. EDT

Holly Hart, Budd Dickinson, Katey Culver, Echo Steiner, Jim Coplen, 
Liz Arnone, Jody Grage, Emily Citkowski, Brent McMillan, Steve Kramer

Facilitator: Budd

1) STAFF REPORTS
a. POLITICAL DIRECTOR - Brent
There are now 394 candidates. So far in this year's elections, there 
have been 24 wins out of 62 races, a 39% win rate. Brent is preparing 
a written account for the Media Committee on races to look out for on 
election night; will run it by the CCC for comment first. This will 
include a lot more data than in the past, more polling data, relevancy 
of certain races. There are several big stories developing. The 
overall quality of races is improving. Greg Gerritt is working on a 
spreadsheet # of poll votes for previous cycles to compare to this 
year's results to use in press releases.

Executive session 8:48 p.m. - 8:54 p.m.
Matters relating to duties of political director.

Steve asked about Cindy Sheehan's recent comments about the need for 
another progressive party. He suggests that a group of Greens meet 
with her to suggest the Green Party as that option. Brent stated 
that when people realize what it really takes to create a party, they 
run in horror. He suggested if SC members have an opportunity to 
reach out to her, to do so. People expect more from us - even when 
they get a lot from us (for instance, Brent's fundraisng work for the 
Aaron Dixon campaign in Washington).

b. FUNDRAISING - Brent
- Contributions are increasing over last month, more responses.

- Next fundraising mailng is ready to go. This will include something 
new, a tracking code for each donor in this mailing. This will help 
update addresses and phone #'s, looking to the possibility of 
automatically updating the database. This would be a huge help, we 
could take on more phone canvassers and do this in a more technical way.

- Brent sent out the proposed contract for base+commission phone 
canvasser to the SC for review.
PROPOSAL - Jody, that the contract language be approved.
APPROVED.

Brent would like to hire someone right away to start on December 1st.
Executive session 8:11 p.m.
Matters relating to personnel and hiring.

c. OPERATIONS - Emily
Online Outreach and Fundraising
- Emily has just hired a new intern from Howard University, and has 
another lined up from a high school. This is part of this school's 
program, the 3rd year in a row, and has worked really well. 
Interviewed and offered an internship to someone moving to DC from 
Arizona. She will also post job ad for internship on the website.

- Emily will send out code for two banner ads for state or local 
websites, blogs, etc., tomorrow. One is an animated banner with 
"Bring the Troops Home Now" to scroll across the top of a site, 
linking to he new "peace slate" appeal; after Nov, 7 this will link to 
the home page. The other is a button linking directly to the "peace 
slate."

- We have taken in almost $7000 this month. This is a pretty good 
month for us, maybe close to a record.

- Gregg Jocoy (SoCarolina) is organizing a blogstorm soliciting fund 
to match the matching funds challenge donation.

Outreach
- Scott McLarty spoke with Evan Messinger, VP of CNN, about possible 
people to have on for interviews. This came out of the Lou Dobbs 
action alert we sent out.

2) VOTING QUEUE - Holly
See separate Voting Queue Report

3) UPDATE on CAMPUS GREENS - Echo
Echo hopes to have proposal for a Campus Greens Network finalized by 
the end of next week.

4) UPDATE on FORUM MANAGERS - Holly
There is one volunteer and one potential volunteer for the alternate. 
Holly will follow up with both. If there is a clear response, SC will 
agree online to approve volunteer(s) to be sent to the voting queue 
for NC approval.

5) MISC - Secretary Report - Holly
Updating welcome message and delegate manual. Delegate manual was 
begun long ago and never completed, some of the outline and material 
is now outdated or inaccurate. Holly will review for needed updates 
(for instance, there are directions on sending votes to the NC list, 
not the voting page).

6) PORTFOLIO REPORTS
FINANCE - Liz: In reference to the budget information we are 
requesting from various committees, someone asked if the SC were 
working with their committees to get their budgets in order. Liz 
asked if, as portfolio managers, SC co-chairs were working with 
committees on their budgets? She has only gotten back 3 budgets so 
far. Jody noted some committees traditionally have not spent any 
money (AC, BRPP).

POLICY - Budd
IC: Still working on getting subscribed to IC list.
Eco-Action: No action on Eco-Action,
GPAX: A ton of traffic on GPAX.

OUTREACH - Echo
DivCom: Still not on DivCom. Echo will send another email, but may 
have to think of some other action.

Steve plans to contact co-chairs within his portfolio.

7) TREASURER'S REPORT/FINANCES - Jody
Jody is working on some ways of tracking income better. We should be 
able to pay October bills in October. The budget is coming along 
reasonably well, should get to the voting queue on time. Jody will be 
getting out the financial reports tomorrow before the FunCom and 
FInCom calls, as usual. She is working on a third paper and would 
really would like feedback from the rest of the SC. Jody is 
considering cash reporting as opposed to accrual reporting in the 
treasurer's reports to the NC, easier to understand.

Katey noted that donor lists include income from donors for things 
like attending the national conference. Does this skew the report of 
what funds are actually sending contributions to the party? Brent 
responded: this is a two-dimensional snapshot of a three-dimensional 
database. We do track these individual streams. Donor lists simply 
give candidates people they may want to contact.

Katey also asked if cash reporting would end up posing more questions? 
Jody explained that the accountant's report will still be accrual 
reporting, and those with questions can still access them online.

Liz brought up the situation in Pennsylvania with the Romanelli 
Campaign getting hit with humongous court costs. In the future, what 
will we come up against over and over again with similar situations, 
and how do we prepare in advance? Should we be thinking about a 
strategy or budget niche to either assist some states when they get 
into these situations? Brent responded that he doesn't want to see 
the GP get into a situation where some might attempt to use such 
situations as a trap to bankrupt the party. However, we must build a 
legal committee, legal resources; what came at Ralph Nader in 2004 is 
now coming at us. Steve suggested we think about getting a budget 
line item, ballot access or legal, where we could save to apply to 
things of this nature.

NEXT MEETING: Sunday, November 5, 2006. 8:00 p.m. ET

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  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Tim McKee cell (860) 778-1304 or (860) 643-2282
   National Committee Member of the Green Party(Connecticut)
    Cliff Thornton for Governor- Campaign Manager

  Paid for by Thornton For Governor, Max Wentworth, Treasurer-   www.VoteThornton.com

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