October 2008 Local Meeting
From SP Boston
The Socialist Party of Boston met at noon on Sunday, 26 October 2008 in the Lucy Parsons Center. We did a lot of work organizing upcoming educational, fundraising, and business activities, which should keep us going strong through the end of the year and into the chilly months. For more information, check out the full minutes below.
[edit] Agenda
- Introductions and agenda approval
- Educational Program
- Monthly workshops, "Democratic Socialism for Activists" format, speaker - Matt
- Speakers bureau?
- For now, put Chris P. on speaking tour about trip to Venezuela -- "From Quincy to Caracas: Community, Solidarity and Socialism".
- Proposal for SP to adopt expanded platform points.
- Local meetings
- LPC weekend hours changing starting in November -- should we push back meeting time?
- Proposals going over email to change format to make more engaging and attractive?
- Fundraising
- Merchandise for tabling -- Chris P. looking into Che t-shirts, Matt considering "Capitalism is Organized Crime" hoodies
- Sustainers Club
- Benefit show, possibly with SA.
- Donate to the LPC for meeting space.
- Antiwar
- Report on October 11
- Preparations: How we were able to contribute, and what we can do in the future to be more effective
- Day of: Rally, table, march
- Iraq Moratorium / DMZ
- Other upcoming antiwar events and actions -- action focusing on economic situation; December 10 (Human Rights Day); Spring 2009 and the National Assembly's "Open Letter to the U.S. Antiwar Movement".
- Report on October 11
- New members
- Four in the past couple of weeks to be approved -- Rob S., Donald J., Emily F. (with a dues waiver request), and Kevin T.
- Paul C. announced intentions to join at the meeting.
- State and Regional meetings
- Socialist Party of Massachusetts Convention
- Bi-annual New England Regional Meeting
- Electoral
- Campaign updates
- Election Day, Nov 4th, another Red and Black Bloc opportunity?
[edit] Minutes
- Introductions and agenda approval
- The meeting was attended by Matt A., Paul C., Billie M., David S., and Kevin T.
- Educational Program
- We will try to hold a presentation and discussion on "A Socialist Perspective on War" following the DMZ on Friday, 21 November.
- Matt will look for a location within easy walking distance of the DMZ, at the corner of Mass. Ave. and Boylston St. -- basically somewhere in or around Berklee.
- If we don't have a location by 8 November, the event will be postponed.
- Paul proposed forming a book (or article) discussion group requiring a slightly higher level of commitment; we agreed to postpone that until we become familiar with planning and organizing presentations and film screenings and see how many we can attract at that lower level of commitment.
- We also discussed encouraging socialists to turn out to other educational events and discussions already being organized by other groups such as the Boston Radical Education Project, and present socialist perspectives there.
- Local meetings
- We agreed to move the meeting start time back to 1 pm in the future. We will continue to meet on the last Sunday of the month.
- We discussed the relative merits of having separate discussion meetings versus combining them with the business meetings. November's meeting is currently planned to focus on business, while the educational event discussed above will focus on discussion.
- Fundraising
- Matt will get in touch with Lynn M. to see if she can design an attractive "Capitalism is Organized Crime" logo.
- Kevin will look into the costs of getting union-made hoodies printed.
- We authorized the LEC to release funds for the hoodies once we have a design and a reasonable cost estimate.
- David will contact Greg about ways for the local and the National Office to work together (by commission?) on selling the shirts.
- We should get an update from Chris P., who could not make the meeting, on the Che t-shirts he had been looking into.
- We agreed to donate $10 to the LPC each month for use of their space. To help cover this cost, we'll "pass the hat" at each meeting.
- Antiwar
- We will continue to hold the DMZ this month, starting at 5 pm to be there before the sun goes down, even though things are starting to get chilly.
- We voted to endorse the National Assembly's Open Letter to the U.S. Antiwar Movement, which urges united antiwar action in the coming months, particularly the coming spring.
- David will contact some members of the Socialist Party of Florida to see if they want to become more closely involved with the National Assembly.
- New members
- We voted to approve Donald, Emily, Kevin and Paul, and to endorse Emily's waiver request, which will now be sent to the NAC.
- Chris P. was to have contacted Robert, but wasn't at the meeting to report. The LEC was empowered to approve Robert once we hear from Chris.
- David will show Kevin and Paul how to subscribe to the SP Boston members' work list.
- State and Regional meetings
- The next New England Regional Meeting should be in Brattleboro, VT, later this fall.
- David will raise the issue on the nesocialists list after the election at the latest.
- The last MA State Convention was in February 2008 -- another should be held in early 2009, but has not yet been planned.
- Paul proposed setting up some sort of online graphical calendar widget; David will send him the link to the SP Boston calendar, currently under development.
- Electoral
- At relatively random points throughout the meeting, David gave some updates on Socialist Party campaigns, particularly the Presidential campaign, and discussed some related history.