{news} Approved minutes of the 3-25-08 SCC meeting of CTGP at Portland’s Senior Center, Quorum was met.

[B Barry]

Approved minutes of the 3-25-08 SCC meeting of CTGP at Portland’s Senior
Center, Quorum was met. 

 

7 Waverly Avenue, Portland, CT 06480   Phone:  860-342-6760   Time:  7:000PM

Attendees by Chapter: Central: Vic Lancia; Fairfield: Richard Duffee;
Greater Hartford: Barbara Barry, Secretary of CTGP; S. Michael DeRosa,
Co-chairperson of CTGP; Steve Fournier; Christopher Reilly, Treasurer of
CTGP;

New Haven: Jerry Martin; New London: Laura Cordes; Tolland: Tim McKee.
Absent: Co-chairperson: Cliff Thornton.   No observers.        Facilitator:
Tim McKee.        Timekeeper: Vic Lancia.

 

A.      Preliminaries:

1.       Introductions of voting /non-voting attendees; chapters; quorum was
met; timekeeper; ground rules.

2.       Approval of tonight’s proposed agenda, no deletions; addition:
handout /comment by Jerry Martin of the Procedures and Process Committee.

3.       Review and approval of minutes of 2-26-08 SCC meeting by consensus.

4.     Review and acceptance of minutes from the 3-19-08 EC meeting by
consensus.

5.       Treasurer’s report from Christopher Reilly: balance of $2561.34.

 

B.     Any proposals/referendums by chapters, committee: 

A) .Policies and Proposals Committee proposals about Chapters:

1. Approved by consensus: Establishment of Chapters: Any group of five (5)
or more individual, who reside in a cohesive geographic or a political area,
may apply to form a regional chapter.   Upon holding a minimum of one (1)
monthly meeting over 3 consecutive months with at least (five) 5 people in
attendance, an application can be made for Chapter status. Minutes of all
meetings and attendance must be submitted with the application. A
representative of the Chapter must attend at least one (1) meeting of the
SCC prior to being granted chapter status. Written by-laws and other
documentation should be submitted with the chapter application.

2. Approval by consensus: Criteria for chapter membership in the Green Party
of Connecticut: 

Acceptance of the Ten Key Values as guiding principles. Chapters shall be
organized and run in accordance with those values and utilization of GP of
CT policies and procedures. A chapter is based on a town-wide or area-wide
organization and is open to and reflective of their defined geographic
membership. A chapter agrees to recognize  national and state candidates
selected by GPUS and GP of CT conventions. The chapter makes good faith
effort to: 1) run state and local candidates; 2) present written bylaws and
other documentation with that application; 

3) state an intention to network with other organizations which support one
or more of GP Ten Key Values or legislation, goals or concepts. The chapter
attests to commitment to and good faith efforts to achieve gender balance in
party leadership and representation. A chapter will identify and allay with
other organizations, caucuses or individual(s,) who promote GP Values,
concepts, goals and legislation.

3. Approval by consensus: Chapter Responsibilities:  Chapter membership
meetings must be held at least every two (2) months within a rolling  twelve
(12) month period in order to maintain active chapter status within the GP
of CT. The chapter must select representative(s) to attend each SCC meeting.
This representative(s) would be responsible for all communication between
the chapter and the SCC .  A copy of all chapter minutes and attendance
records must be sent to the SCC or Secretary of the GP of CT, within one (1)
week of their acceptance by the chapter membership. Unapproved minutes may
be submitted if approved minutes are not available. The chapter must reply,
in a timely manner,  to all requests from the SCC. The chapter must maintain
a membership list of all registered Green Party voters or members within
their borders, including updated town voter lists when available.  The
chapter is entitled to 30% of all CP of CT contributors residing in the
chapter’s affiliated geographic area.

4. Approved by consensus: Active Status: any chapter that is not represented
at three (3) consecutive SCC will be placed in an inactive status and will
lose its voting rights until reactivation. A chapter may have its SCC voting
rights reactivated after it is represented at three (3) consecutive SCC
meetings.  Any chapter that does not hold a chapter meeting at least every
two (2) months in a rolling twelve (12) month period, may be considered in
an inactive status. The SCC has the right to contact chapter members. Any
funds expended by the SCC to

reactivate the chapter will be charged against the chapters reserved funds.

5. Approved by consensus: Chapter Dissolution: The SCC can revoke the
chapter status of any chapter that fails to hold chapter meetings for a
period of one (1) year. Any treasury funds held for the chapter’s use can
then be used for general expenses of the party. 

 

C. Reports:

 

1.  Update from the Internal Elections Committee:  a) finalization of all
candidates for GP of CT officers: co-chairpersons: S. Michael DeRosa, Phoebe
Godfrey, Steve Fournier; Treasurer: Christopher Reilly; Secretary: Barbara
Barry, For GPUS Representatives: Charlie Pillsbury, Richard Duffee, Tim
McKee, S. Michael DeRosa and Steve Fournier. The order of candidates’
placement on the ballot was determined by pulling names out of a hat at this
meeting.  The names of GP presidential candidates will also be on the ballot
Christopher Reilly will submit the approximately 1740 names of people to
receive mailed ballots to the printer/distributor.   The Presidential
candidate ballot is to include an option for “write in” and an option for
“uncommitted”.  

Consensus: ballots are to be mailed to the P.O. Box  231214, in Hartford,
CT; ballots must be received by the Wednesday prior to 4-26-08; a legal
notice must be posted 5 calendar days prior to the 4-26-08 in an appropriate
newspaper per state regulations. The Hartford Courant was chosen as it is a
state-wide newspaper. Chris Reilly

will do this. 

 

2.  4-26-08 GP of CT Convention Committee:  Barbara Barry who will develop a
proposed agenda. As of this date, the Secretary, B. Barry, has not received
any response from the Presidential Candidates or their representatives,
despite multiple efforts to invite them to speak at the Convention. Jerry
Martin to arrange lunch. Requested price will be $15 which will go to CTGP.
Place of the Convention: New Haven Central Labor Council, 267 Chapel Street,
New Haven, CT

 

3.  Steve Founier is the Endorsed 1st Congressional District candidate. He
is petitioning and organizing his  campaign against Representative John
Larson. 

 

4.   GPUS reports from: Tim McKee: GPUS still working on organizing the
7-10-08 Convention. National Committee Member, S. Michael DeRosa: Arizona
got on the ballot by their petition drive. They received $3000 from the GPUS
and returned it all back to the GPUS because they received sufficient
donations that they did not need it.

 The overall GPUS budget for helping states who need to petition: $10,000.
However, it is unclear under what criteria it may be used by these
petitioning states.

 

5.  Political issues the GP of CT has addressed with legislators during the
2008 Legislative Session: Fight the Hike bills are still in committees.

 

6.  CT Green Times: SMD: more copies will be available at the 4-26-08 CTGP
Convention. 

 

7..  Summer Intern for GP of CT: will not be available as the student did
not receive one of the limited grants..  

 

8.   ACLU lawsuit: SMD: the summary judgment will be written over the next
few months by the judge.

 

9.   Chapter reports: need a candidate for the 3rd Congressional District
line.

 

10.  Jerry Martin, of the Procedure and Process Committee,  respectfully
submitted  his personal report about the SCC actions regarding proposals
from the Policies and Procedures Committee: “The Procedure/Process Committee
was appointed at the May meeting of the SCC and submitted its first draft of
the Procedure Manual at the June 26, 2007 meeting of the SCC. The SCC
allocated various amounts of time at 5 of its meetings until it has, at this
time, adopted 31% of the draft proposal. 

The Committee has attempted to save time by submitting the draft proposals
to the members of the SCC in advance, requesting their suggestions for the
final draft. In this way, it was hoped that consensus could be reached prior
to the SCC meeting for everything except the most problematic points. I
thought that in that way the SCC’s time could be reserved for resolving the
few points where consensus could not be reached beforehand. Although some
members of the SCC participated, some members insisted on saving their
changes for the SCC meetings and as a result, the process was much slower
than anticipated. Based on a few statements,

I grew to believe that some members thought that it was improper to work on
the proposal outside of the meeting, out of the view of the full membership.

A factor that came up several times during the course of the SCC’s work was
the fact that while the draft procedures were written to enable the
implementation of the by-laws, we did not have a copy of the current by laws
to work from. The Committee was told that by-laws posted on the website were
not a true copy but a later version with changes that had never been
adopted. To this point, a search has not turned up the real by-laws. The
Committee has continued to use the unapproved version and recommends that
the SCC adopt the version on hand and asks the By-laws Committee to review
them for possible change in the future. 

One observation, as someone who had never worked with the SCC on an ongoing
project like this one, I see the culture of the SCC as a very different one
from any similar boards that I have worked with. Most boards are leas by
their chairs. The Chair monitors the activities of the board’s committees
between board meetings and makes sure that the board’s goals and timetables
are met. During debate, the Chair makes process suggestions that move the
agenda along and makes sure that all the agenda items are handles in the
allotted time. At the SCC, the debate is not controlled in any way except by
the clock. It is a meeting of equals with individual interests. The members
inform each other on what they have been doing the preceding weeks. Issues
are brought forward and where action is needed, a consensus is sought
through unregulated debate. Decisions are made be majority vote not real
consensus.

I was surprised at how comfortable the members are with seeking ad-hoc
solutions rather than using an established procedure. For example, over the
course of this year, the problem of having a very loose definition of
membership in the by-laws came up on several occasions. Despite my urging to
charge the existing By-laws

Committee to come up with a solution in time for adoption at the Annual
Meeting, nothing was done until last month. At that time, a new ad-hoc
committee was formed to draft a new membership by-law for the meeting.

As someone who is used to working within a defined structure, with written
procedures to guide my activities, I found this very disconcerting.

Taking all of the above into consideration and acknowledging that the
majority of the SCC is comfortable with the small “d” democratic process of
the SCC, I recommend that the SCC not waste any more time completing the
procedure manual. At some point in the future, when the Party has grown
larger and when new members with more disparate views must be accommodated
by the SCC, a procedure manual will become a necessity. But at this time,
the members a(re) comfortable with things as they are so why spend time
developing procedures that they will not use.”

 

11. Date  for next SCC meeting to be either 4-29-08 or  5-27-08.  Date,
place and time of next EC meeting in 

4-08: to be determined.

 

 

Green Party Key Values: non-violence, respect for diversity, grassroots
democracy, social justice and equal opportunity, ecological wisdom,
decentralization, community-based economics and economic justice, future
focus and sustainability, personal and global responsibility, feminism and
gender equality.


No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG. 
Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.24.4/1476 - Release Date: 5/31/2008
12:25 PM
 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/private/ctgp-news/attachments/20080531/8d4dd705/attachment.html>