[Convention] Meeting Minutes - 5/22/2004

[Mlaserte at aol.com]

DATE:  5/22/2004

LOCATION:  Salisbury Green Clubhouse in Worcester

ATTENDING:  Jon Levy, Wanda Boeke, Mark Laserte, David Rolde, Rich Zitola, 
Samantha Zitola, Jim Bosman

STARTING TIME:  7:15 PM

ENDING TIME:  10:25 PM

NEXT MEETING: TBD - (will be called by Jon Levy)

The following members of the Convention Planning Committee are "stepping 
back" from the committee at this time:  Wanda Boeke, Rich Zitola, Samantha Zitola, 
and Mark Laserte.  This leaves Jon Levy as the only remaining member of the 
2004 Convention Planning Committee.  Mark Laserte and Wanda Boeke will still be 
available to help the committee from time to time.  The committee could 
certainly use some additional members!


AGENDA ITEM 1 - Round Table on the 2004 State Convention

Wanda's observations:

- We should not have entertainment at the convention, as we cannot pay for it 
or even provide a decent-sized audience for the musicians that are kind 
enough to play for us.

- We should make sure that childcare is available for the entire business 
agenda of the convention.

- We need to have constant communication with Adcom.

- A less expensive venue would be preferable.

- We should take a "shotgun" approach to recruiting keynote speakers and 
approach lots and lots of potential candidates for it.

Jon's observations:

- The convention tends to create a negative impression of the Party for 
non-insiders.

- The convention is not terribly inspiring.

- The convention costs too much for what people get out of it.

- Every year the admission price for the convention goes up while the 
attendance goes down.

David's observations:

- We need a less costly venue and better access to public transit.

- There should be less emphasis on pre-registration.

- The food was not so great this year.

- There should be less emphasis on proposals.

Rich's observations:

- The convention should be something that inspires people to get involved in 
the party.  (The convention doesn't do that right now.)

- If GRP candidates win office this year, next year's convention should be 
better-attended.

Mark's observations:

- Mark agreed with Wanda's observations about entertainment.

- The convention should be more inspiring.

- The Convention Planning Committee should operate by milestones (e.g., 
finding the location, establishing the workshops, etc.).  Wherever possible, each 
milestone should be reached well before the convention date.  This will prevent 
convention-planning from being overly back-ended.

Jim's observations:

- The Proposals process did not go as smoothly as he had hoped it would.  
However, overall, the processes were good.

- He wasn't aware of the convention rules changes that had occured at the 
Spring meeting of Statecomm.  The changes caught him blindsided.

- Jim has ideas for improving procedures, nominations, proposals, etc.

Samantha's observations:

- We need more help (more active members) on the Convention Planning 
Committee.

- A lot of the work that the committee did during the year didn't produce any 
results.

- The 2005 convention should be scheduled by September of this year so that 
people can plan on attending it.


AGENDA ITEM 2 - Evaluations of 2004 Convention

Mark tabulated the data from the Convention Evaluation Forms.  Hardcopies of 
the tabulated data were distributed at the meeting.  Contact Mark 
(mlaserte at aol.com) for a PDF file of the tabulated data.  A total of 24 completed 
Evaluation forms were received by the Convention Planning Committee.  Here are some of 
the highlights of the Evaluations:

- 16 of the 24 respondents said that the the date of the convention was "Just 
Right"; 1 said it was "Too Early" and 2 said it was "Too Late".

- There was a wide range of opinion on the Devens Conference Facility.  
However, 15 of the respondents said "Find a New Place" and 5 said "Stay Here".

- 12 of the respondents said that there was "Not Enough" Early Registration 
Lead Time, and 9 said there was "Just Enough".

- 20 of the respondents said that it was "Important" to have the 
Pre-Registration forms in the GRP Winter Newsletter.  (This probably means that the 
convention attendees like to know about the convention as early as possible and like 
to have plenty of time to pre-register and plan their convention attendance.)

- The respondents had a generally favorable impression of the workshops and 
caucuses.  (Most rated the workshops and caucuses as "Excellent" or "Good".  A 
few rated them as "Okay".  No one rated the workshops and caucuses as "Poor".)

- 9 of the respondents said that the Green Hours Volunteering was "Helpful"; 
2 said that it was "Not Helpful" and 3 said that they "Didn't Need It".

- There seems to be strong support for having a shuttle from Public Transit, 
with 6 of the respondents saying that it was "Helpful"; 9 of the respondents 
said they "Didn't Need It" and none of the respondents said that it was "Noy 
Helpful".

- There was overwhelming approval of the Packet Information, with 21 of the 
respondents saying it was "Just Right".


AGENDA ITEM 3 - Date and Location of the 2005 State Convention

At the next Statecomm meeting, we are going to recommend that the next State 
Convention be April 30th and May 1st of 2005.

We also recommend that the 2006 convention be on May 6th and May 7th of that 
year.

As to the location, we will keep the Devens Conference Center as a Fallback 
Location.  A summer camp might be a good location.  MIT might be a good 
location.  The location must be wheelchair accessible.


AGENDA ITEM 4 - Increasing Convention Attendance

- We need to have Statecomm do more recruiting of convention attendees. 

- We need to set the convention date and location as early as possible.  Then 
we need to make the pre-registration forms available, ideally in the Fall 
Newsletter.  Perhaps we could establish goals for the number of pre-registrations 
we want to have by specific dates (e.g., 30 pre-registered by November, 80 
pre-registered by January, etc.).  If we fail to meet these goals, Statecomm 
could take pro-active recruitment measures.)

- Free food would help to generate more attendance.


MISCELLANEOUS

- We should have tabling at next year's convention.

- The committee needs to have a liason to Adcom.

- We would like to have every other meeting by teleconference.

- Next year we will need to get a Pro Forma invoice from the venue WELL 
BEFORE the date of the convention.

- The Party spent $3,200 on the 2004 convention.  To defray the costs of 
future conventions, we MUST HAVE MORE ATTENDANCE!
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.green-rainbow.org/pipermail/convention/attachments/20040524/5f652eee/attachment.htm