[Platform] StateCom - role of Secretary v. other changes in StateCom

[Larry Ely]

GRP,
   This is a resend of an email I just sent to Miike Heichman.
Larry Ely, Secretary

Mike,

Dan Melnechuk pointed out in a recent AdCom meeting that the bylaws mention 
that minutes should be done within 14 days of a meeting. Your 10-day 
suggestion is not sufficiently different in my view to warrant a proposal 
at this time.

More pertinent to a smoother running I would think are these points:

1) the StateCom at green-rainbow.org listserve just goes to StateCom members. 
Current policy is for the Sec. to post the raw minutes to this list serve. 
Yet doing so does not automatically mount those minutes on the webpage in 
the the StateCom portion of the page. I noted that when I go to that page, 
there are no minutes posted. Presumably, Dan Melnechuk most perform some 
webpage edits in order to get the minutes he got from me (as a StateCom 
member himself) onto the webpage.

   From the standpoint of transparency in the GRP throughout the community, 
I would hold it to be a more important matter in terms of priority for a 
proposal that somehow the minutes be automatically placed into the webpage 
when the Sec. sends them to the listserve. That presumably would take some 
reprogramming on the part of Dan or Eli.

2) In terms of a smoother running of StateCom, I would suggest that the 
following is much more important than the 4-day shaving off of minutes 
preparation you suggested. The proposals need to be put onto the webpage 
sooner before the StateCom, and the editing and replying mechanism needs to 
be altered. Currently at the end of a proposal is the word "more". That 
should be changed to read "read the whole thing". Also, the programming 
needs to be done in the webpage so that all the proposals can be printed at 
the touch of a button. The way things stand now, one has to cut and paste 
each proposal into a Word document if one wants to make one's own full 
document of all the proposals. Next, is that each person before he comes to 
the StateCom should first print off all the proposals, read them, and then 
come to the meeting prepared. There should be no handing out of proposals 
on a table at the StateCom. This results in clutter and people milling 
around. Besides, one ends up getting duplicates of proposals if one has 
already brought one's own printed proposals off the webpage.

3) Next, is that when edits are decided upon (amendments made to a 
proposal) it should be the task of the author of the edited, amended 
proposal to provide that final version to the Sec. via an email immediately 
after the StateCom. The author himself knows and understands the language 
of the proposal, so is the best one to make the accurate changes that have 
just been discussed. Currently, the final proposals are not given to the 
Sec. He has to ask for them, and the authors do not always respond to this. 
We made this decision at the 4-12-08 StateCom that the author is to provide 
the final version to the Sec. so that he can include the proposal in the 
minutes. Dan said something like "wow, why hadn't we been doing this all 
along?". Yet, we still have not changed our communication and methodology 
around this decision yet.

4) Another suggestion. We should not allow someone to bring back a proposal 
immediately for the next AdCom when that proposal has just lost (was voted 
down) or did not make it into the expedited round. We ought to say that one 
has to skip a StateCom if one wants to bring that proposal back up. 
Otherwise, people feel badgered, I think.

5) A suggestion for ranking proposals.
       a.) Dan should change his computer program so that the ranking goes 
1 for best, 2 for next best, etc.; instead of 10 for best, 9 for next best, 
etc. The way it is now done is totally counter intuitive, and Dan has to 
spend five or ten minutes explaining the ranking at each and every 
StateCom. It would be very easy for him to make this program switch in the 
code.
       b) Ranking should be done online over the webpage. Too much time is 
wasted doing the ranking on the StateCom floor. And besides, Dan has to 
spend his lunch period doing this ranking when it could be all done 
automatically by programming the code on the webpage.


These are some of the things that I think are more important than what you 
suggested as to a StateCom change.

But here is a final thought.

I think that we as a body of people need to get to know each other much 
better than we now do. Otherwise we tend to regard each other as 
categories. For example, I have no idea what your work is, whether you are 
married, have kids, what your religion is, etc.

If one of our StateComs, say one in October, could be given over to half a 
day of round robin personal sharing, that would be very helpful. We' d have 
no stacking. We would go around and around the room in circular order. If 
one had nothing to say, he would just say pass. In this way a whole slew of 
issues could be organically raised and discussed.

The way things are now, we just go through the motions of being a 
community, but we are not a community. We cannot do meaningful work until 
we are united in trust, and this mechanism would be one way of inculcating 
much more trust amongst ourselves.

Larry Ely




At 05:44 PM 6/15/08, you wrote:

>June 15
>
>Hi Larry,
>
>I apologize for not sending this to you previously.
>
>I am drowning from all of my commitments and am juggling things to the 
>best of my ability.
>
>I would have preferred to have sent this out to you earlier.
>
>I request your feedback. Please assist me in making this a better proposal.
>
>I want to make it clear that I mean no criticism towards you. My proposal 
>would have been very appropriate for most of the history of the GRP.
>
>I would very much like if we could come to an agreement on the proposal. 
>If that would happen, I would ask that you be the manager of the proposal 
>at the June 29th meeting.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Mike
>
>June 15,
>
>Members of the State Comm:
>
>Below is a proposal that I have just posted for the June 29th State 
>Committee meeting.
>
>I am going to immediately send this to Larry Ely and ask for his feedback 
>and support.
>
>I request your feedback and if you agree with the proposal, I request your 
>co-sponsorship.
>
>
>Thanks,
>
>Mike Heichman
>
>
>A More Efficient State Comm-the Role of the Secretary
>Sunday June 15, @04:06PM, by Mike Heichman, Suffolk County
>Subject : A More Efficient State Comm-the Role of the Secretary
>from the State Committee dept.
>Summary :
>Vetting:
>On June 15, I sent this proposal out to Larry Ely, the current Secretary 
>of the GRP. There is nothing in this proposal that I mean as a specific 
>criticism of the current or any other previous Secretary. The purpose is 
>to clarify future expectations.
>
>Background:
>One of the things that would make our meetings more successful and the 
>work of the party between meetings would be for us to receive the minutes 
>of our meetings in a more timely fashion. Over the years, we have had a 
>number of Secretaries of our Party who would often send out the minutes 
>just before the next meeting, the day of the meeting, and even after the 
>meeting.
>
>Text :
>The State Committee respectfully requests that the Secretary of the GRP 
>send out the draft minutes of our meetings as soon as feasible, but no 
>later than 10 days after our meetings. The Secretary will send out the 
>draft minutes and ask for feedback within 10 days. The Secretary will then 
>take into consideration the feedback and within 10 days post the completed 
>draft minutes to the StateCom and to the appropriate place on the GRP 
>website. After the minutes of the previous meeting are amended and 
>adopted, the Secretary will post the minutes in the appropriate place on 
>the GRP website and send them out to the Statecom e-mail list.
>
>Budget Impact: None