CMGR 2nd Quarter Report to StateCom – July 14, 2018

Since the April 7, 2018 State Committee meeting, the Central Massachusetts Green-Rainbow chapter has met three times, with an average attendance of 8.

In April we elected a new slate of officers for the coming year: Sheryl Vaillette and Matthew Moncreaff are the incoming Co-Chairs, Carol Sotiropoulos is the returning Secretary. Given the election of CMGR member Charlene DiCalogero as the GRP Female Co-Chair in May, the CMGR chapter has not yet finalized selection of a chapter representative to AdCom, but we have someone who is considering taking on that role.  

In May, two chapter members won election to municipal public offices: Bryan Moss was reelected to a second 3-year term as Representative Town Meeting member in Shrewsbury, and David Spanagel unseated an incumbent Library Trustee in Lancaster.  Two other chapter members have successfully initiated campaigns for State Representative positions in Northern Worcester County: Matthew Moncreaff is the only challenger on the November 2018 ballot for the House First Worcester district; Yasmine Khdeer is on the November 2018 ballot for the House Second Worcester district.

As usual, many CMGR members attended (and helped to host) the annual Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party’s State Convention on May 26, 2018 at the First Unitarian Church of Worcester.  Both of our chapter’s State Rep candidates addressed the Convention on behalf of their campaigns. CMGR Chapter member Gordon Davis also spoke on behalf of motions to secure party support for a Gateway (and other) cities coalition to fight for fully funded schools, and party support for the additional tax on millionaires petition.

In June, CMGR members took stock of all the campaign efforts, including coordinating their work to gather nominating signatures for the statewide GRP candidates’ slate. We have collected close to 700 signatures so far. The chapter also decided to institute a schedule of quarterly written reports by its own elected public officials.

Our members also continue to advocate on behalf of issues and legislation such as climate action (Clean Energy Omnibus and other bills), standing up for immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees (Worcester demo), local farmers and food, and more.

State Convention assistance/Participation on Working Committees, StateCom, AdCom

The CMGR will also help with State Convention logistics at the Worcester site.

State Convention Planning Committee: 3 members

CDLC: 1 member (co-chair), 1 member team coordinator, TGR petitions

MVDR: 1 member

AdCom: (recruiting)

StateCom: 1 rep

Total of 5 individuals on state-level committees.

Respectfully submitted,

David Spanagel and Charlene DiCalogero, chapter members