PCD-CC Minutes 2/09

POLK COUNTY DEMOCRATS CENTRAL COMMITTEE MINUTES

February 3, 2009

Alternate Location:  Walery's Pizza, Salem, Oregon

Acting Chair Alan Holland called the meeting to order at 7:10 p.m.

PRESENT FOR THE BUSINESS MEETING:  Officers:  Alan Holland (Acting Chair), Lani Kirby (Vice Chair), Fred Brown (Treasurer), and Beth Fleisher (Secretary).  Fritz Ulrich, Ron Dodge, Jason Brown, and Aaron Felton were also present.  Tom Ferron attended as a visitor. 

MINUTES:   Minutes of the January 8, 2009 Central Committee Meeting were presented for approval.  Moved and seconded; Motion passed.

AGENDA:  Alan announced that given the small turnout, he would dispense with some committee reports. 

NATIONAL DAY OF SERVICE:  Report and Volunteer Appreciation.  Alan applauded all the volunteers who turned out for the Highway Cleanup Event for the National Day of Service - 34 volunteers worked on the highway cleanup, bagging 47 bags of garbage, and another 3 volunteers - led by Sue Olmstead - provided a wonderful dinner for all the volunteers after the work was done.  Alan also commended Beth Fleisher and Fred Brown for all of their work in recruiting volunteers and organizing the event.

FINANCIAL REPORT: Treasurer Fred Brown advised that he has not received any of the books from Linda yet, so is unsure of the current account balance.  Alan Holland advised that the last figure he had from Linda was $1,500.00, not including the outstanding $500.00 check to Pentacle Theater for the July fundraiser event. 

DPO CONFERENCE CALL REPORT:  Alan reported on the recent conference call with the Democratic Party of Oregon.  Apparently, there has been a problem getting the volunteer contact information from the Obama campaign, and Trent Lott will be following up on that.  Beth Fleisher commented that our local Obama Field Coordinator, Daniel Tawfik, had made the Google document list of volunteers available to her, and said that we could use it. 

Alan also reported that the DPO recommended each county party have a Monthly Day of Service, similar to the recent National Day of Service, and the DPO announced themes for each of the months.  The two main reasons are to get more Democrats registered and, therefore, more votes; and also to raise money for the DPO.  However, all criteria does not have to apply to all events.  The themes are also just suggestions, not mandatory. 

Alan said that we could continue to do the Hwy. 22 Cleanup.  Lani added that we could also do other projects, and that the DPO encouraged counties to do more.

STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEETING:  Alan announced that the State Central Committee Meeting will be held March 15, 2009, in Albany, at the Linn-Benton Community College.

UPDATE ON CC MEETING PROGRAMS:

Lani presented an update on monthly programs, and these were thoroughly discussed. 

After discussion, a final calendar was agreed upon by consensus:

STANDING COMMITTEES

AND VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES:

Beth presented recruiting and volunteer strategies, reassuring the group that we will have the necessary volunteers for campaigns if we begin now to employ effective recruitment strategies:

• "Each One, Reach One," a process encouraging every person currently involved to invite their friends and neighbors to our programs/meetings as a way of broadening our base, and also our volunteer pool
• Monthly volunteer opportunities essential to keep volunteers active and engaged prior to election cycle
• Challenge: 5 hours of volunteer time per person per month as minimum
• Make CC meetings more interesting and enjoyable so they can be used as outreach tool
  • Populate and Activate Standing Committees and Empower them to explore ideas and conduct thorough discussions, reaching a Committee Decision, and then reporting to the full CC - thus cutting down on time spent on business minutia discussions at CC meetings
  • Give Program Speakers more time, business meeting less time
  • Provide a short break between Program and Business Meeting so those who want to leave can do so without guilt and without disrupting meeting.

After discussion, these suggestions were agreed upon by consensus.  Beth will present them to the March CC Meeting.

PCD EVENTS/FUNDRAISERS: 

Alan asked for input regarding fundraisers/events. 

• Ron Dodge strongly urged that PCDs consider the Polk County Fair as the most important event of the year, as it provides an important outreach to lots of people who attend the fair.  Ron will call Jack Straus about working on it.
• Pentacle Theater - Fred Brown to organize.  Fred and Beth will discuss organizing a phone bank to boost attendance and to get volunteers.
• Wine Tour with Steve Evans - Alan will call Steve.
• The Independence Mexican Festival, 1^st weekend in September, was added to the list of fairs, as an important opportunity for visibility and recruitment in the Latino community.

These suggestions were agreed upon by consensus.

ADDITIONAL AGENDA ITEMS:

• Consideration of Election of Chair - Tabled, by consensus, until March 3^rd meeting.
• Consideration of having leadership work/planning meeting - Consensus decision that this is unnecessary; Deleted.
• Presentation of PCD Calendar of activities and programs - to be kept updated on web page.
• PCP Recruitment:  Lani Kirby, Fred Brown, Fritz Ulrich to be reported to Val Unger, County Clerk - Consensus to do so (Beth).
• Discussion of Carpooling to CC meetings - Tabled, by consensus, for March 3^rd meeting.

ONE MEETING PLACE:  The Executive Committee presented the suggestion that if we want to achieve greater involvement and more unity in the Polk County Democrats, a single meeting place for monthly meetings, attended by all, would greatly facilitate that aim.

• With the current practice of two meeting places, one in Monmouth and one in West Salem, we effectively have two, separate PCDs - not one unified PCD.  This halves our effectiveness now and during the election cycle.
• Although in theory everyone can attend every meeting, many - most - people only attend the meeting closest to where they live. 
• Agenda items are effectively discussed and voted on by only half of the PCDs, although the entire group is bound by their decision.
• The current practice of two meeting places, as presented on the web page, is very confusing for potential new attendees - they have to not only figure out when and where the meeting is, they have to think about whether it's an odd month or even month and two separate meeting locations. 

After discussion, it was decided by consensus that:

• The Executive Committee's comments were well taken.
• The Executive Committee should investigate possible locations for a single meeting place and report back to the CC Meeting for further discussion.  Suggestions included:
  • Independence Library
  • Rickreall Grange
  • Vineyard Church Multi-use Building
• The target for instituting such a change to a single meeting place would be sometime after July 2009.

FOR THE GOOD OF THE ORDER:

Lani Kirby reported about an organization called Blue Oregon, whose mission is to provide training for Democratic women who want to run for office.  For more information, Google their website or email:  contact@emergeamerica.org.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:45 pm.

Submitted by:

Beth A. Fleisher, Secretary