[Procedures] Meeting Minutes

[Daniel Melnechuk]

Met on Saturday May 22nd, 2004 @ 1:00pm in Waltham
Present: Gil Obler, Jason Meade, Jim Bosman, David Rolde, Daniel Melnechuk

Next meeting is at Sat 11:00am on June 12th 2004 in Waltham.

Identified major areas of work:
1) Minutes of meetings
2) Statecom process:
	- remove floor proposals for new members
	- meeting place
	- experimental meeting to get more work done
3) Bylaws:
	- regional diversity
	- adcom part of statecom
	- gender balance
3) Passed procedures and policy
4) State convention
5) Rainbow governing board
6) Next statecom meeting - july 18th worcester

We then listed as many bylaws issues as we could remember needing attention:
1) Adcom part of statecom - at large delegates
2) Gender/regional diversity
3) gender balance - currently can seat greater than 1 imbalance 
(bylaws reserve only)
4) alternates legality blurb in bylaws
5) STVPR, IRV, etc, in addendum B of bylaws - need detailed proceedure
6) formalize 2 year session for appointed statecom delegates
7) adcom 1 year but on statecom longer?
8) adcom is "day to day" not "week to week" as in bylaws
9) adcom diversity seat responsibilities - too over burdened on two 
committess - fix
10) adom committee representation - should have reps on all commitees
11) caucuses ? 8.5.3 ?
12) move procedures out of bylaws when possible
13) if PR statecom delegate moves to new region, what happens?
14) state convention delegates?
15) term limits for GPUS reps keeps us from having any one on GPUS CC!!!
16) corporate stuff - remove?

We then talked about statecom meeting process to facilitate more time 
on proposals than on ranking them and other process stuff:
1) too much on process
2) more issues
3) try random order of proposals?
4) vetted through committees first then not vetted?
5) list all clarifying questions first then answer them in batch, 
recurse, same for listing concerns
6) subgroup process after X minutes on concerns - identify polar 
dimensions and pick people at ends of dimensions
7) remove floor proposals
8) send to committee if can't reach consensus (not even take a vote)

Gil will work up on a proposal for next meeting

We then talked about procedures and minutes:
1) need manual of all passed procedures, policy and proposals
2) must record all passed procedures, policy and proposals
3) name of passed is "YYYYMMDD name of procedure"
4) need one copy of manual at every meeting - statecom parliamentarian
5) passedproposals at green-rainbow.org -- should we still set up
6) how about having minute taker edit proposal doc on computer with 
amendments on the spot? Party should have a laptop. Can put packet on 
computer.
7) sponsors are responsible to provide final electronic doc of passed 
proposal to secretary - could assign to committee

We then got into a discussion of bylaws in more depth. IN particular 
looking at longer ranging issues, statecom, etc. Came up with some 
good ways to deal with lots of things to both simplify and empower 
and be less tied up from state law.

1) Define regionally elected statecom delegates and alternates as 
appointed to the statecom by virtue of being elected at the regional 
convention, once the secretary accredits the regional election.

2) In our bylaws only "seat" (ie give voting power) to a gender 
balanced (one off either way) delegation - promotes gender balanced 
delegations - this avoids the issue of who is on the statecom 
(delegates and alternates) but ONLY gender balanced gets to vote - 
issue is technically we have to report every change in make up of 
statecom to sec of comm - instead we are inclusive to who is on 
statecom as appointed by only give power to vote to "seated" 
delegates. Of course elected from state senetorial district at 
presidential primary delegates are seated by virtue of being the 
first way statecom is made up.

3) regional conventions held every 2 years at the same time - end of 
march - since we have to have them at that time every 4 years after 
the presidential primaries why not have them the same place and time 
every 2 years

4) define 2 year sessions of statecom that start the day the statecom 
is "organized" after the presidential primaries and then again 2 
years later.

5) adcom memebers are appointed statewide statecom delegates by 
virtue of being elected -- this includes the regional diversity 
members -- all are seated for the length of their term but if the 
first year of a two year "session" then they are still appointed 
until the end of their two year appointment but they lose their 
seating and therefor power to vote -- this simplifies reporting to 
the state who is appointed since they have to be for two years by law 
- so this adds another type of delegate in the bylaws

Gil will work on proposal for next procedures meeting.

We then talked about the last state convention and ways to improve 
for the next one:
1) Have food for everyone for lunch - pot luck but the party buys a 
whole lot to make sure no one goes hungry
2) have child care with no registration
3) have it convention FREE!
4) have a fund raiser dinner sat night to pay for it all
5) have it at a place we can bring in our own food!
6) have it at a place that is MUCH cheaper
7) have it at a place that is near public transportation
8) possibly outdoors with an indoors fall back


Meeting adjourns at 5:30pm

Dan Melnechuk