December 2006 Local Meeting
From SP Boston
The Socialist Party of Boston met at noon on Saturday, 2 December 2006 in the Lucy Parsons Center. We discussed upcoming events including International Women's Day and antiwar actions being planned for the spring (full minutes below).
Agenda
- Introductions and agenda approval (5 min.)
- Reports on recent events (15 min.)
- Oaxaca solidarity actions
- The 11 November New England regional meeting of the Socialist Party.
- The brief nurse's strike, and the potential for more in the future.
- The IWW Solidarity Night on 17 November.
- The 18 November Stop the War Profiteers March and the picket of John Abizaid on the 17th.
- The Rosa Parks Human Rights Day march and rally on 1 December.
- Future events and actions (30 min.)
- Form a "No War but Class War Campaign Committee" for the new YPSL Campaign, and try getting other organizations involved.
- Organizing solidarity with unionization efforts -- hotel workers, nurses and others.
- International Women's Day
- Upcoming antiwar activities, including January and March. We should discuss as well the bickering between the main antiwar coalitions, and what we can do about it.
- Additional campaigns? For instance, more regular fair food actions, or restarting the Democracy Commission?
- Consider organizing/outreach ideas (15 min.)
- Communication with members and others who may be interested -- occasional reports on recent and upcoming events?
- Ocean Press books have arrived -- let's make sure we're comfortable with all of them, and discuss pricing
- Speakers or panels?
- Public discussions/debates -- with or without a featured speaker?
- Films?
- Web site -- how's it working out so far, how can it be improved?
- Getting in touch and working with other groups (10 min.)
- IWW
- Rosa Parks Human Rights Day Coalition
- Stop the Wars Coalition
- UJP
- Others
- Plan the January local meeting and April regional meeting (15 min.)
- We will elect a new LEC at the January meeting, so we want good turnout.
- Dates, times, locations
- A discussion or some other way to interest and attract people
- The spring 2007 New England Regional meeting of the Socialist Party, to be held here in Boston on 21 April. Discuss location, times, and any ideas for an accompanying public event or action.
Minutes
- Introductions
- The meeting was attended by David S., Matt A., Chris P., and Billie M.
- Recent events
- David shared a brief update on recent and upcoming events that he proposed to mail to the membership. He hopes to send out a similar update every couple of months in order to improve communication and organization. This update includes reports on the 11/18 March against the war profiteers, the 11/11 New England Regional Meeting, the and the 11/4 Oaxaca solidarity demonstration, along with some notices of upcoming events.
- Upcoming events
- Matt advertised the monthly "After Work Wednesdays" parties organized by the IWW -- the next is coming up on Wednesday 12/13.
- Matt also mentioned a community-labor organizing meeting to be held at his apartment on Tuesday 12/12, and shared a tentative proposal to establish a Spanish class for radicals through the IWW.
- David circulated a petition to free Mansour Osanloo, an Iranian trade union leader recently arrested and imprisoned incommunicado.
- Matt shared a flier being developed by YPSL's No War But Class War campaign, and David mentioned an upcoming meeting of United for Justice with Peace's counter-recruitment campaign on Sunady.
- It was only a week until Assembling Peace IV, so David distributed some fliers for people to drop off in their communities. The Socialist Party will table there, and will show off our new books.
- David shared a proposal from some members of the Stop the Wars Coalition to call on United for Peace and Justice to delay its local demonstrations so they wouldn't conflict with the Troops Out Now Coalition's national demonstration on March 17. We decided not to adopt the proposal and plan to focus on the local demonstration, whenever it is held.
- We considered International Women's Day, coming up on March 8. A film festival was proposed, though we agreed that we should look into what other groups are doing before planning our own event.
- Chris suggested fliering or tabling at an upcoming Antiflag concert in March and volunteered to contact the band to inquire about having a table.
- We agreed to pursue Encuentro5 as a venue for the Spring 2007 Regional Meeting. Billie recommended seeing if it could be made wheelchair-accessible, and Chris suggested setting up rendezvous at T stops so that comrades from out of town will have an easier time parking and making their way to the building.
- Outreach/organization
- We approved sending the updates mentioned above out to members and other interested individuals in the Boston area. Matt also suggested making extra copies for tabling, so we can show what the Socialist Party has been doing recently.
- We decided that we were comfortable selling all of the books from Ocean Press, though we agreed to keep Fidel Castro's Cold War toward the back and make sure that our position toward the Castro and Cuba was made clear to anybody interested.
- We set a price of $5 for all of the books except War in the 21st Century and The Mafia in Havana, which were priced at $8-$10.
- Next meeting
- We scheduled our next meeting for Saturday, 13 January, in the early afternoon, most likely at the Lucy Parsons Center. We will elect our local executive committee for 2007, so to encourage turnout we scheduled a film to accompany the meeting.