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bill & jonesythank you both for your work on this forum. i thought we had a large group volunteer to work on restructuring, so it's disappointing that so few are participating. but perhaps they are not aware, or not savvy enough to get involved.just a couple clarifications -- when you say boards in this SMF format, i presume you mean "threads" which is the term for one subject discussions on most blogs or community discussion boards, like the one i used to run in the '80s.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threaded_discussionfor those of us used to threaded discussions, calling it "boards" or "child boards" here, is confusing ... if we have to do that here, can we put a note defining this new term on the front page of our forum?i think jonesy has a lot of good and interesting ideas. but i don't think we can leap ahead to employing this forum for council deliberations before we hammer out a restructuring. i feel strongly that we need to devolve from a strong statewide organization with a handful of active participants and reps from chapters to a weak statewide org that maintains basic functions only (like maintaining party status, websites, etc.) and strong individual chapters, quasi-independent. i think bill feels slightly different. and i'd love to work through those differences before we go to actually setting up mechanisms by stretching our bylaws (one of the issues with "detailed" bylaws is that they are too inflexible. our bylaws specify emails not forums as how council works. i think we need to agree on a restructure and change our bylaws to fit our new structure, before we start operating "outside" our bylaws.
This gives me some other ideas:=KGNU would probably be willing to announce state actions, events, and maybe even a newspaper. Maybe a 5 min. spot on the radio could be used by a State Green leader to speak on what positive issues and candidates the Green Party is supporting.-Maybe we could start a long list of tasks and try to put 2 or more persons in the list to work on things. I love to see people caring and sharing - Thanks all you Green Party Patriots. for actions in my area, we notify KOTO-FM in telluride and KVNF-FM in paonia. again, i think making state officers try to notify all the radio stations in the state or all the newspapers is unrealistic. let local chapters notify their local media.rather than try to add more state officers, when we have trouble filling even the officer tasks we have (i can't tell you the number of times we've set up state committees to take on many of these tasks, and nothing happens and/or the committee folds), let's let local chapters take on these tasks, until we build a party with thousands of members, instead of one with only a few dozen active members...
my sense of it is, the purpose of the state party ought to be:1) maintain our ballot status by meeting all state regs pertaining to minor parties2) solicit, encourage and support local candidates from among greens and/or among progressive groups to run on a green campaign platform in consort with our ten key values3) to maintain the website, make contact with new members, make replies to inquiries, and manage this forumThe above three issues are also of the utmost importance. However the 2nd issue about selecting candidates I agree with, but I am troubled that there sometimes seems to be more of a emphasis on bringing in outside qualified people rather than training & preparing people from the inside. Are there current college students who are Green Party members? I would love to see people encourage someone who has been in the GP to run for office and then ask for some support from Kinsey to run for Senate & Swing for Congress and Tonya for City Council. It would be nice to encourage people on where to go for training and positions for leadership, writing, and working with the press or other things that will help the party grow with professionals. Perhaps workshops and teach-ins would be an idea. Ft. Collins strength through peace had a recent teach-in on the war in Afghanistan. But I think public teach-ins about how the political system works would be good too, because if you were to take a poll in the local neighborhoods about who the officials are, how they get elected, and what they do from the County Commissioner up to the president, few people would know. Everyone is always afraid to be involved in organizations they don't know about, including politics. susan, i'm glad we agree on these three essential functionsre: your concern about candidates -- i guess the problem i've seen in the past 12 years is that folks we've trained on the inside haven't won many elections -- in fact, none until tanya's wonderful recent win in Federal Heights with 300 votes. in 1996, when the Greens didn't have ballot status in the state, i ran as a dem, and won. in 1998, with Rep. Tupa's bill (D-Boulder) that gave ballot status to minor parties, i changed parties and have won as a Green three times now. which has led me to the conclusion that seeking leaders to run on a green ticket may be a better way to grow the party quickly than limiting our candidates to current green members. it took me 20 years living in my community and volunteering for many leadership positions before i attempted elected office. anyone can run for office, but winning an elected position takes a long time and lots of work in one's community.i understand your concerns about few people knowing how to run for office and win. i attended a non-partisan (although predominantly dem) leadership training workshop in the state several years back for how to win elections. running for office has become a science, and consultants make big sums helping people get elected. but with our organization without any real money or financial backers, we are stuck in a place where we send folks with no chance of winning into races where they are lucky to get single digit approvals. as someone who's won my elections as a Green three times running over the last 15 years, i'm a strong advocate for finding other winners, so the greens don't fall into the third party trap in this "rigged system", as jill stein calls it, of becoming a party of losers.
create press for local greensagain, i don't think all state greens are united in their thoughts (our state platform is way out of date) and so i'd like to leave the press to local chapters -- though, at some point in the future, it would be great to see the state co-chairs coming out in statewide press on issues. but that's not something i see us moving towards too fast...I think the more & sooner the press can be brought in at ever level the better, as long as the matters are supported by the Green Party. Most of the time societies fight new ideas, but with enough exposure, conversation they can begin to change. A few examples might be the equality of races, respect for diverse religions, women in the work place, and many, many others. My grandmother once shared with me how shocked they were when people began wearing swimming suits with their forearms and the tops of their legs showing - lol (We've come a long way baby). I think the public needs to get used to seeing more than the old 2 party monopolized political system and the more we hold back the longer it will take. Personally I think the most important issues in society move ahead by jerks. It would be nice if they moved by a sweet smooth discussion over lemonade, but I think the jerks and the time make the most impacts on change.again, susan, i don't disagree with you that the more press we can generate the better. but asking me, as state co-chair, to create press for local groups on the front range is unrealistic. local chapters can generate local press, as the Southwest Greens have been doing quite successfully. once we get a functioning organization going, i think creating press for our statewide party will be a good goal. but we have to get our group to organizational stability first...
build relationships with local organizationsanother worthy goal, but not the core of the state's job, in my opinion. ideally we'd have various persons taking on coordination with various state organizations, but this is a huge time drain. and i think unrealistic for the current state of the state party. let's leave it to local chapters to make these contacts...I think the Green Party STATE leaders should be watching & working to know were STATE leaders (CO - Senators) are standing and what they are doing & how it compares with where our GP state leaders would want to stand.if we paid state leaders for their time, sure. but having volunteers take on all these time-consuming functions is a recipe for failure. we do not have the capacity to do this yet. at some future time, perhaps. but for now i think we need to leave that to local chapters and their leadership.
bring in volunteers for local partiesi see that as a local chapter function, not a state function -- except to perhaps refer folks who contact the state website about the local contact to make...I think bringing in volunteers is a great goal for both state & local groups. As the state helps the locals, the locals can be more cognizant of how to help the state. The more positions and places we are all helping each other and bringing in new people the more we all feel valued and want to see our party grow. It is a bit of a bragging right to know people at different levels of an organization and with the great characters we have in the Green Party we need to give more Greens the opportunity to appreciate them. The conversations that take place between different Greens are informative and inspirational, so the more of one group, including the State leaders group with the public volunteers and the local groups the better. again having watched state leader after state leader resign and, many, drop out of the group over the past 12 years, i would urge you to consider the essential functions of a state party. we almost collapsed as a group recently and we need to figure out a streamlined structure and functions that are essential for the state leadership, not load them up with every good idea possible. certainly, if we can grow the party to more than the 20 or 30 folks who are willing to take on state as well as chapter responsibilities for free, than i agree this would be a good goal.
foster communication between local party leadersthis is a "leadership" role, and presupposes that some members are more important to communicate with than others. that kind of works against what some people believe is important -- the egalitarian nature of the Greens...and it doesn't seem like the highest priority -- in fact, maybe the lowest -- something done if there's time to do...It doesn't seem like a good idea to me to sit around and wait for the Green Party to grow. The Green Party has been around for 10 years and needs to grow faster in every way, and not just people, but strength of conviction, desire in knowing and supporting each other. Boulder is said to have had a fair amount of party participants a few years back, but I didn't know about them and they dissipated. Now we are back & I hope to stay. If we have too much to do, we might feel guilty for not meeting the expectation, but if we don't have enough we might go somewhere else. This is an important ideal. Boulder has worked together with several groups to get the Move to Amend issue on it's ballot. The Boulder Greens with RMPJ endorsed the goal. However those of us in the Gr. Party who spoke at the City Council forgot to say who we were representing and many of the meetings of support were held at the Dem. party. I felt a little weird about meeting there, but didn't get time to communicate it. Certainly it is important to work together on important issues like this; communicating that we are GREEN and want to work at a neutral facility would have been at least worth communicating. Although I missed this opportunity, my eyes will be open for another. susan, i'm breaking this up into discrete parts, since it's too hard to deal with long long postings in this kind of a forum. bill's original state party function suggestion is in bold, my reply to him in lime green, your reply to me in purple...it IS important to work together. but, as one who was around when boulder was the largest and most active chapter in the state, i think putting too many talks on STATE officers is unrealistic. it's led to burnout and most of the old guard Greens leaving the party. i'm hoping to restructure so, in our current very very small status as a group, we can function and figure out a way to grow. loading up state officers with tasks does not seem like a good way to grow, in my humble opinion.The location communication was something to disagree on, however Boulder Greater Greens had already agreed on hosting a speaker for the Move to Amend and welcomed the Democrats at a location planned by the GBGP, Bonnie.Although this was a local issue, the Move to Amend is working to join all the cities it can & I think the state could offer assistance. The state could also look at other issues like this and connect with groups to help encouraging them. Also our state leaders should be in contact with the State Senators to be asking and publicizing where they stand as opposed to where the Green Party and their constituents stand on these issues that are beginning at ALL LOCAl levels. you seem to be suggesting that state leaders need to be communicating with more than local party leaders, but state legislators and other groups. i think local chapters need to do that. not state leaders. until the Green Party has the money to pay for state leadership functions ON TOP OF local chapter functions, this is unrealistic, in my opinion.again, i think this function is a good one, but in our current state it should be among the lowest priorities. i would rather devolve this function to local chapters and their leadership.
jonesylots of good suggestions. but there's so many things in one post, it's almost impossible to respond. can you break your suggestions down into discrete parts with different headings. that way we can discuss each one separately, rather than try to reply to such a long post with many different parts...artg
you're probably right, john…i was thinking to start with a small group to be sure this will work, but maybe we ought to just dive in. bill, can we ask all the restructuring committee to weigh in?artg
( There are some notes I've made over the last few weeks. They are no complete, but encompass a good deal of my views on the place of the state party. )The purpose of the State Party: - Foster communication between local party leaders- Bring in volunteers for local parties- Build relationships with local organizations- Create press for local greens- Polling about green issues
good notes. thanks, bill. i can see we have a bit of a difference in perspective here. i'm hoping to simplify the tasks and duties of the state party until the local chapters can grow to a size large enough to support and staff a state party. i'm for devolving authority to our local chapters as much as possible. not building a bigger state leadership group with more and new tasks...my comments in lime green foster communication between local party leadersthis is a "leadership" role, and presupposes that some members are more important to communicate with than others. that kind of works against what some people believe is important -- the egalitarian nature of the Greens... and it doesn't seem like the highest priority -- in fact, maybe the lowest -- something done if there's time to do...bring in volunteers for local partiesi see that as a local chapter function, not a state function -- except to perhaps refer folks who contact the state website about the local contact to make...build relationships with local organizationsanother worthy goal, but not the core of the state's job, in my opinion. ideally we'd have various persons taking on coordination with various state organizations, but this is a huge time drain. and i think unrealistic for the current state of the state party. let's leave it to local chapters to make these contacts...create press for local greensagain, i don't think all state greens are united in their thoughts (our state platform is way out of date) and so i'd like to leave the press to local chapters -- though, at some point in the future, it would be great to see the state co-chairs coming out in statewide press on issues. but that's not something i see us moving towards too fast...polling about green issuesgiven how easy it is to do this on line in this forum, i like the idea of having the state party run polls on subjects of state-wide interest... but again, this is not a core function.my sense of it is, the purpose of the state party ought to be:1) maintain our ballot status by meeting all state regs pertaining to minor parties2) solicit, encourage and support local candidates from among greens and/or among progressive groups to run on a green campaign platform in consort with our ten key values3) to maintain the website, make contact with new members, nake replies to inquiries, and manage this forum
A procedures and guidelines would be excellent to instate standards of calling current members, finding and assigning new members, fundraising... need to brainstorm that aspect more, but in essence there needs to be a set of procedures that can be followed to attain specific purposes, tied to each officer's position. Each procedure needs a feedback loop and control mechanism to ensure that corrections can be made when difficulties are encountered. Generating these procedures is dependent on the results we want from the state party.
i think we need to break up this thread into more discrete topics. i find that having multiple ideas in a post makes for very difficult replies. and too long of posts.we have a procedures and guideline document -- we need to possibly expand it, as you are calling for, or simplify it, which is my goal...but all good thoughts for discussion...
As to fitting form to function, I would support adding at least two state representatives to the roster: public relations and membership. The co-chairs would then be responsible for the management of the secretary, treasurer, PR, and membership officers.
adding more officers to an organization that is having trouble even operating seems counter-productive at this time. yes, in time. i think allowing for that possibility. but i though we were streamlining, not bulking on organizaton?
I have reviewed the bylaws and didn't find any particular places where it could be simplified, except perhaps with some of the voting procedures. Do you have an example?
bill, i thought i was suggesting that we may be premature in changing bylaws when we haven't discussed what form the state party ought to take. and i gave several examples of areas of change...but why not post the bylaws here on the site, so we can all review them together, if you want to start working on that now...
They don't call it the "Colorado Paradox" for nothing! 😉
yep, in san miguel county it's pair of ducks or pair of dice... 😀
