GPSD County Council meeting February 1st, 2003 Facilitator: Lupita Jimenez Notes: Magali Offerman In attendance: Lupita Jimenez, Magali Offerman, Ed Zugates and Karine Megerdoomian. No quorum reached. Decisions to be ratified through phone calls. Start time: 3:30pm 1) EARTH DAY This year it is on May 4. This is during the same weekend of the GPCA Plenary in Sacramento. We have enough time plan ahead and attend both. Get two spaces this year which would total $150. Lupita will talk with Bob about getting the booth. 2) MERCHANDISE With Earth Day in mind, we need to prepare to order more merchandise. Magali will look into developing a budget and merchandise order. The full project is to be completed by mid-April. Needs: T-shirts, bumper stickers, "no war" type stuff. In the process of doing this, Magali will gather prices for GPCA platform booklets and summaries. 3) TREASURER'S REPORTS/DUTIES Magali has all the paperwork Micki had last year. Karine has everything between June and December of 2002. At one point, Magali was interested in helping through the FPPC filing procedures and decided not to do it after the October council meeting. Although Dale is interested in the Treasurer's job, the council will not make any decisions in that regard until after the February 16th meeting with Michael Borenstein and Mike Wyman. Currently, if anyone wants an update on GPSD finances visit the office and look at the computer files. Dale enters all the information there. He's our current bookkeeper, but is not interested in filing with the FPPC. Lupita will call Dale to ask him to attend the Feb. 16th meeting and ask that he bring a full report of the GPSD finances for that meeting. Dale, Karine and Lupita need to go to the bank to get Karine's name out of the bank account and Dale's name in. Dale is willing to do these things: - write bills/checks - keep the books, make reports for the council - can't deposit checks - won't take care of the approval process of bills. - No FPPC filing 3) AGENDA FOR FEB. 16TH Proposed agenda for the General Membership meeting. - 30m - Strategy committee proposal, decision - 15m - Rocky Neptun's campaign, endorsement request - 15m - Living Wage campaign, endorsement request, presenter Victor Patton - 15m - Anti-development campaign, EHC representative, South Bay Greens update - 10m - Civil Liberties coalition update, GPSD is a member of this coalition - 10m - Possible update about meeting with Sec. of State's rep. Susan Walsh - 10m - Electoral Reform update on IRV and Clean Elections - 15m - extra 4) WORLD BEAT CENTER PAYMENT The World Beat Ctr. did not charge the GPSD for the table during MLK's Day celebrations. They asked for a % of the funds we raise during the event. About $120 was raised, and Karine suggest we donate $20. Robyn suggests $20 and a thank you note. Lupita suggested $25 and a thank you note. Consensus is to donate $25 and Lupita will send the thank you note. 5) PURCHASE OF LA RESISTENCIA'S FACT SHEET La Resistencia has developed a fact sheet on the war. After discussing it with Ben, La Resistencia agreed to let us have 30 on consignment. We would sell then at $0.50 each. La Resistencia charges us $4 for 10 copies. 6) CIVIL LIBERTIES COALITION MEMBERSHIP Karine read the draft of the mission statement for the coalition and checked with us about our current membership in the group. She also mentioned that the focus was on three future actions. 7) PROPOSAL: POSTCARD ANNOUNCEMENTS Karine developed an outreach proposal that would involve sending a mailer to all Green Party registered voters in the county. This idea was inspired by discussions at the Santa Clara County Plenary this past January. - There are two parts to the proposal. (1) This would be a kick off of our new donor members plan. That proposal will be presented to the council later and then go to the general membership for approval. (2) Postcard plan. Send first class postcards (approx. $0.22 each) to 11,000 Greens informing them about the March membership meeting and how to become donors. The returned postcards would be used to update our database. - Karine consulted with Robyn and she thought that it would be best to divide the county in three sections and do three separate mailers. - Magali mentioned the goals of the proposal were good, and that we should be working toward accomplishing them, however, without spending so much money. Phone banking encouraged for the list of registered voters, as well as the March meeting. - The proposal didn't pass because of lack of funds. - Instead, as Karine, Jim and Jacqueline phone bank this weekend, they will ask for volunteers who are interested in phone banking. Once we find a group of volunteers for phone banking, we will call all registered Greens that have a listed phone number. We will revisit the mailer idea later in the year. It would only involve mailing to registered Greens with no phone numbers. - Need: phone banking coordinator. Once there is a group of volunteers available, we will find one person to take care of phone banking. Because of the postcard proposal, we discussed the membership meeting's agenda of March 16th. Karine would like to get as many people as possible to attend, including representatives from locals. The format would be as follows: 1. 2002 accomplishments 2. 2002 weaknesses 3. 2003 goals, strategy committee, campaigns, etc. 4. membership/sustainer proposal 5. Council elections 6. Plenary delegate elections 7. If time allows, break into group meetings for people who want to continue working, and have a separate reception for those who want to socialize. 8) SPEAKER'S FORUM WITH STEPHEN ROHDE He is the ex Chair of the Southern California ACLU. Karine invited him to speak in SD on March 29th, Sat. He will do if there is $500 honorarium, 100 people in attendance, and one night hotel room payment. He suggested that we charge $10 per person. Karine added $6 for students. He is willing to do a pitch for funds. Topics to be covered: Patriotism, Terrorism, and Civil Liberties. Proposed location: campus like SDSU. Nina is still active. Marketing: through coalitions, listservs, etc. Jan (Karine's boyfriend) is willing to donate $250 if the GPSD comes up with the other $250. Approved costs: Location: no more than $100. Food and beverages fund: $0. Donated. Honorarium: $250 to be raised. Karine is to negotiate honorarium fee and ask the speaker if he would do a pitch for the GPSD, not just in general. Due date for all details to be finalized: March 1, or abort project 9) ENDORSEMENT OF FEB. 20TH ACTION BY LA RESISTENCIA Tony and Ben from La Resistencia present the call to action for Feb. 20th. Council endorses. Attached to these minutes should be the original email to the Council from La Resistencia. 10) SUSTAINERS PROGRAM Ann and Micki are phone banking and taking care of the sustainers program. So far only 5 checks are in for January. In order to encourage sustainers to send us timely donations, we came up with a proposal. At the beginning of each month the GPSD would send a letter to the sustainers, asking them to donate, and updating them on what we are doing. Envelope would be included. Karine (as the office manager) would take care of this task. By the middle of the month, Ann and Micki would make phone calls to sustainers who have not sent their checks. Consensus reached on the proposal. 12) FUNDRAISING PLAN Proposal to have a special meeting with large focus on fundraising. Next council meeting is March 8, Sat. at 11am. 13) MEMBERSHIP MEETING REINBURSEMENT Lupita gets reimbursed for $5.50 fees. Feb. 16th meeting at 2pm. Meeting adjourned at 5:42pm. Next council meeting: March 8, Sat. at 11am, heavy focus on fundraising.