jun08,2005
Green Party - Fremont/Newark/Union City
(Calif., USA)
Report on GP-FNU meeting, Tue, June 7, 2005
Number in attendance: 7
1) Idea for a local enviro festival
A new idea was raised about organizing a progressive festival in the
Tri-City area. The City of Fremont used to sponsor an annual
Earth Day festival, but that was cut when the budget crunch came a few
years ago. Perhaps we could interest local ecology, nature, and
peace and justice groups in joining together to hold a local
festival. We could also invite some regional groups; we could get
some good ecology groups to come if we did NOT do it on Earth
Day. (They would likely be busy in their own communites on Earth
Day.) We listed some local groups that might be interested.
A possible name: "Tri-City Green Festival".
We'll continue developing this idea at subsequent meetings.
2) Lending Library
One member wanted to donate some progressive books to the local public
library, but the library said it costs $30-35 to process the book to
make it lendable. They would likely just sell the books for
peanuts in their ongoing used book sale.
Rather than donate the books to the library, for them to just be sold
to an individual and collect dust on that person's bookshelf, she
thought a local Green lending library would be better. She will
draw up a list of the books, with basic info, and when we get a
website, we can put the list on the website.
3) Evaluation of our first film showing
The feelings were that the May 18 showing of Control Room went well,
but as it was a first effort without much planning, some suggestions
were made for improvement:
At the start, someone should be assigned to introduce the film, say a
few words about the Green Party, offer the snacks to the audience, and
invite them to stay afterwards for a discussion of the film.
The prevailing view on frequency of future film showings was that it
should be montly. A further suggestion was made to time the film
showings about in the middle between our successive monthly meetings.
We did NOT have time to discuss what to show next, and when. This was in part due to the next item (see below).
4) Co-sponsoring TCPJ's upcoming film
We agreed to co-sponsor Tri-City Peace & Justice's next film,
"Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land". The date and time
for the film are not set yet, though the location will probably be the
Fremont Main Library.
There was an objection raised to co-sponsoring a film with TCPJ if the
publicity implied an expectation of giving a donation for seeing the
film. The choice of wording is very important for this. To
say something like "Donation $5-$10 (no one turned away)" does imply
that viewers are expected to donate. Something like "Donations
accepted" convey much less of an expectation of donation. The
chief ojection to implying an expectation of donation is that it will
keep some people from coming at all.
We agreed that if publicity for the film has wording that does NOT
imply an expectation of donation (for example, "Donations accepted"),
then we would endorse.
However, if the location does end up being at a public library,
donations cannot be solicited anyway. So our condition for
endorsement may not be needed.
5) Discussion of becoming an official local of county Green Party
We briefly discussed becoming an official local of the county GP, and
the requirements involved. As for having a phone with both
outgoing and incoming message ability, that would cost us at least $10
per month by adding a new line to someone's cel phone account. We
might be able to get an exemption from this requirement from the county
council. For example, the San Leandro local just uses a member's
home phone number as a contact number.
As for bylaws, it was suggested that some minimal bylaws for how we
make decisions would be essential. Particular items offered as
necessary to specify would be the definition of a quorum (so a small
group cannot take a decision without broader participation), and the
threshold for voting decisions, in case we adopt a consensus approach
with a voting "fallback".
We'll examine the Tri-City Peace & Justice bylaws as an example at our next meeting.
NEXT MEETING:
We set Tues, June 28 as first choice, Wed. June 29 as 2nd.
However, due to scheduling conflicts, we were only able to reserve the
Newark library for a later time than usual:
8pm, Tues, June 28
Since the reserved room is the Meeting Room off the lobby, we can stay after the nominal 9pm closing time, if necessary.