Pacific Green Party Convention in Eugene Oregon
Sunday April 22nd 2007 – Minutes
Convention attendees:
Lori Burton, George Hutchinson, Delbert McCombs, Pat Driscol, Tim Denhe, Chris Henry, Mary Cole, Lance Geiger, Steve Geiger, and Erik Douglas via video conferencing from the UK.
The first order of business was to make a tentative date for the June Convention.
The tentative date selected was Sunday June 24th in Corvallis. Tim Dehne of the Linn Benton chapter was appointed convention coordinator. More details will follow. Newport was selected as the alternate site on June 24th with George Hutchinson as the alternate convention coordinator.
The second order of business was to formalize the confirmation of new state officers and chapters. The following people were formally appointed on a temporary basis to fill vacant positions on the state coordinating committee and the party secretary:
* Erik Douglas - SCC temp position until June convention
* Pat Driscol - SCC temp position until June convention
* Chris Henry - SCC temp position until June convention
* Lance Geiger - SCC temp position until June convention
* Steve Geiger (Party secretary temp position until June convention)
* Steve Geiger (SCC temp position until June convention)
* The newly reformed Lane county chapter was also officially confirmed by the SCC.
Our new state coordinating committee is now as follows:
Erik Douglas, George Hutchinson, Pat Driscol, Lance Geiger, Chris Henry, Pam Vavra, and Steve Geiger (also acting as temporary party secretary)
There will be 6 openings for state coordinating committee at the June convention. This includes three “two year” terms and three “one year terms”.
* Action items pertaining to leadership positions:
Erik Douglas will be responsible for creating a new formal job description for potential future SCC candidates and Steve Geiger will create a job description for the position of party secretary by May 6th. All PGP membership are encouraged to provide input and thoughts and ideas toward the creation of these formal job descriptions and everyone is asked to consider running for a leadership position or help to recruit quality candidates to begin one and two years terms starting at the June convention.
Some discussion occurred pertaining to the key requirements for future potential leadership candidates and several members voiced these suggestions:
• Insure that the candidate has necessary level of commitment to fulfill entire term.
• Insure that the candidate is a team player.
• Verify candidate understands the duties and time constraints of the position.
The next order of business was to address Erik Douglas’s “bylaw process” proposal.
Erik outlined his proposal in detail and opened it up for discussion. Erik felt that creating a viable formal process to address bylaw revisions was critical to the future of the party. He felt that a formal process would lend credibility to the decision making methodology and would lead to a genuine grassroots democratic system that greens strive for. There was some concern voiced regarding the lack of inclusivity of the “supporting” member classification that is referred to in a portion of Erik’s proposal. Erik pointed out that this proposal was written with our current bylaws in mind and any change in “member classification” requirements would have to be addressed via another constitutional amendment. Ultimately Erik’s proposal was approved to be sent via a mailed ballot to approximately 450 supporting members for a vote. The SCC vote was unanimous with one stand aside vote by Steve Geiger who did not like limiting the vote to only supporting members but who agreed that member classifications need to be addressed via future bylaw revisions.
This created more discussion pertaining to budgetary concerns and the content of the ballot mailing. Steve Geiger suggested that we utilize the ballot mailing to poll members about their priorities and that the SCC could use the poll results when deciding on campaign priorities as well as providing membership an opportunity to help develop the issue priority matrix. It was also suggested that a fundraising statement could be part of this ballot/poll mailing and might yield enough funds for the follow up mailings that Pat Driscol felt were imperative to successful outreach. Budgetary expense for the initial 500 supporting member ballot mailing was unanimously approved.
Action Items:
• Erik Douglas will create a formal bylaw revision process ballot 30 days before the June convention. The vote will be tallied using IRV.
• Lance Geiger will supply the voter info and address labels to Delbert Mccombs.
• Delbert Mccombs will insure that the physical mailing is taken care of.
• The details of the poll, the follow up quarterly mailings, and the fundraising letter still need to be decided by the SCC.
• Steve Geiger agreed to pull his bylaw proposal for a” sunset clause on all bylaw revisions not meeting a minimum quorum” until a later date.
The next order of business pertained to general strategy.
The term “Campaign Priorities” was suggested by Chris Henry as the best language to describe upcoming state party goals. An open free wheeling discussion on this topic yielded several suggestions and here are a few of the points made:
• Erik Douglas asked for input as to whether identifying party priorities should be sole duty and responsibility of the SCC.
• Steve Geiger suggested that the membership should be involved in helping the SCC to shape these priorities.
• Pat Driscol suggested that the SCC should be the responsible body for implementing and administering these priorities but that room should be made to allow non-formal entities to provide input and direction toward those priorities.
The next order of business was pertaining to Revenue sharing.
Delbert Mccombs proposed that we rescind the January decision to suspend revenue sharing. This proposal was approved through June with one stand-aside by Steve Geiger who disagreed with current revenue sharing rules but who agreed to address the issue at the next convention. Currently there are only two active participating chapters Linn Benton and Jackson County (not counting the newly formed Lane county chapter). The informal Portland chapter has designated all of it’s Electronic fund transfers to the state and is not asking to participate in any formal revenue sharing at this time. George Hutchinson suggested a passing of the hat at chapter meetings as an alternate to revenue sharing discussions in the future. More to come on this issue soon.
The next order of business pertained to the web team.
Lance Geiger gave a report on the progress of the PGP website development.
Despite the approval of funding for a new web provider, the web team has decided to forego its initial plans for any more development at this time. Think-Host will continue to be our provider until such time that further web development necessitates a change.
Lance spoke to the need for eliminating the duplication of email and PGP forum entries for some of our lists. It was suggested that we use the state CC email list as a pilot to help decide if eliminating some of our email lists and replacing with discussion forums helps ease the email burden. This method will probably also be used for many of the committee email lists and perhaps others where forums are a suitable alternative.
Lance also solicited members in attendance for thoughts and ideas pertaining to web content and functionality. In addition, he stressed the need for volunteers to take on some of the administrative aspects of contributing web content, articles, photos, and video.