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I agree.and want to be made aware of any assistance we can provide.Congrats to Chris and his wife on their new family member!Susan HallGreater Boulder Green PartyReport to moderator Logged
Agree – I agree because a portion of the money comes from the Jeffco-Adams and it is appropriate for it to be used now to build the party. I totally agree that when one chapter has more participants, it helps the Green Party at all levels. I have passed out a lot of flyers for my own campaign and for Dr. Steins this election season and the Greater Greens has had 2 guests because of them. One of the things I love about passing out the flyers is explaining the differences between the Green Party stands on the issues and the Democrat-Republican stands. I find opening dialogue with strangers really requires a hard copy for a later reference. Many people are unaware of issues and are excited to meet someone or a Green Party member who both knows where to find more information and cares enough to share it. Thanks to ALL of the members in the Jeffco-Adams for your labor and dedication.
I don't think it would be good for the Green Party to support Amendment 64 because it is so deceptive. Many people are going to think that they are voting to make Marijuana and hemp legal and the amount of people that get into vulnerable positions may certainly be problematic. I should hope it would not end up contributing to the growing prison profits of today. Also I have a question. Doesn't THC stay in your system for a long period of time, even when it is not affecting your senses & if this is true, how will people be able to drive to work without worrying about being stopped & tested? I am against the bill.What would it take to have the Green Party sponsored a good bill for cannabis?
This posting style argument is a heated discussion in many circles. Top-posting (newest messages at the top) is good for things like a Facebook wall where just the newest stuff is read instead of all posts. Bottom-posting (oldest messages at the top) is best when the entire conversation should be read. In the case of this forum, I feel bottom posting is best because it makes it easier for people to follow the whole discussion. A classic example of why bottom-posting is best in many situations is:
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?A: Top-posting.Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
Bill, thank you for providing a solution that allows people to customize this based on their preference.
Thanks for these directions. I like having the last news first because I've been sitting at this computer all day & want to get to the most important and recent posts right away. I haven't seen any emails to direct me to the forum, but I might need to look into whether or not that is a selection. On the heals of thanks to Bill for posting the directions for this option, thanks to for connecting with Boulder & the 4-20 too. Between your communication, Gary Swings, and the AJ chapter's agenda, I feel more connected.
I would like to add my thanks to everyone who came to the convention in Carbondale. It was an excellent experience to meet members of the Green Party I had not met before and to hear their concerns. Of course, it was also refreshing and encouraging to visit with the members I had previously met, which are continually involved in new actions to support the Green Party and to make the world a better place. The trip to Carbondale was wonderful for my husband, Tom, and I.
Tom and I thought Vail might be somewhat centrally located and we could commit to going there. However where ever it is decided on we will be delighted to make arrangements to attend. I thought some of the criteria for consideration in choosing the location could be the following:-A location close to any candidates running for congress or senate. We need new senators since Colo. Senators Bennet & Udall who voted for the NDAA, especially after Udall spent an hour on the senate floor telling how bad the bill is and then voted for it. On a side note to this issue, it is too bad we do not have some seminars from Bob Kinsey that would encourage others to run. Then the next criteria might be which Green chapters have the most members that would attend the conventionor - which location would result in the most attendees attending the convention.Finally, of course, making it easier for those who have already done the most traveling in the past would be a good thing.
Well it is a bit hard for me to comment because I may need more facts in my analyzation. However I will give my thoughts & then others can speak to me on additional perspectives they think I may need to consider with more weight. What Kevin said about Glenwood or Veil sounds good since it would be easiest for so many groups. Although I also think if there are candidates running for the Senate, they may need the most support & then any that might be running for Congress. We in the Green Party do not pour out the money, but we could try to be accommodating with meeting locations and laboring for a day in some way. If there is no one running for offices, it might also be a consideration as to which groups have the most active members and would more green party participants come if held at a central place like Glennwood Spr. or Veil as compared to the area were the largest number of active members reside. It would be nice to have some comments on these statements before I vote.
( 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
I think all of these notes on goals for the Green Party Members are worth pursuing. These goals encourage us to extend our thinking about the Green Party. Fostering communication, building relationships with org., press issues and polling are all a means to say to the public we are here and stand for wanting a better gov. 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...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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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.
thanks for this model, bill. it shows us how we could have poll our group on lots of issues. and the polling could be with the entire group, not just a representative council. that would certainly make members feel more empowered. i love the poll idea...
Yes, the polls are a good quick visualization of where we stand.
