[statecom-discuss] Internal education & improved use of our time atStateCom

Tue Apr 15 10:39:14 EDT 2008

Hi Elie:

How are you brother?

Thanks for your thoughtful letter and excellent questions. i hope that our
dialogue will continue and invite others to 
join in.

1. What the MGRA is doing is wonderful! The problem is that it is
exceptional--most members in our party are not 
involved in a process of collective internal education. I agree that we
need to find different avenues to do this 
essential work. I have been hoping that we would have a 2-day convention
every year and an important part of such 
a convention would be focused on our internal development. Unfortunately,
we did not bring up this year's 
convention at our meeting on Sunday. 

2. I believe that most of the time that we spent on procedure questions was
on the 2008 presidential elections and 
the apportionment of delegates. We know that this has been a very
contentious issue and we have not found a good 
way to deal with our differences. I was surprised that the discussion went
as well as it did. It might have been more 
difficult but it might have been more productive if we had an honest
exploration of our differences. I too felt trapped 
by our process.

3. I was also glad that we had accomplished some important business. I had
some serious concerns about the 
process which had led to the proposals on the ballot questions. I was glad
that I had some communication with Jill 
before the meeting and a productive discussion with John during the lunch
break and was able to withdraw my 
concerns. Since there were no major concerns or differences, the ballot
questions were quickly approved. If the 
meeting had moved forward, I am confident that things would have moved much
more slowly because of our 
differences.

4. I like your question about how the Communications Committee can play a
positive role in promoting internal 
education. Because of time, I have nothing that I want to share at this
time.

5. I am also concerned how we are using our time and remain open to ways
that we can improve our process. 
Recently, my opinion has shifted about consensus and have become a stronger
proponent. The reason is that our 
party is going through a very divisive phase and for the most part is not
handling our conflicts very well. This is the 
absolutely worse time for us to abandon consensus and move in the direction
of majority decision-making. I see a 
major connection between the growing lack of diversity in the party (In the
last election of Adcom, the only non-
white heterosexual “educated” male not elected was the mandated position of
Female Co-Chair and the continued 
decline of diversity on the State Committee), the controversy over the
apportionment of delegates (Most of the 
people of color in the leadership of the party are supporters of the
“Minority Report”.) and the movement away from 
Consensus (which attempts to include every voice and address “minority”
concerns).

Mike Heichman

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Eli Beckerman elibeck at gmail.com
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:32:33 -0400
To: statecom-discuss at green-rainbow.org
Subject: [statecom-discuss] Internal education & improved use of our time
atStateCom

Mike,

I appreciate your desire for "internal education", and I
would like to suggest, as a member of Mystic River Green-Rainbow Action,
that more appropriate venues for internal education might be
a local chapter, the state and national conventions, and
perhaps special meetings or events set up around internal
(and external) education.

MRGRA has recently started to discuss one of the ten key
values for 30-45 minutes at the beginning of our monthly
business meeting. You are welcome to join us to see how it
goes.

I worry about how our time is used in our State Committee
meetings, because they are so few and far between, and
critical decisions need to be made there.

In this regard, I want to call your attention to something I
observed in Saturday's meeting. We spent a tremendous amount
of time hearing concerns on process, on language, on
clarifying intents, and on intricate details of esoteric
plans. That is not the stuff that gets most of us out of
bed, away from our families, and across the state to spend a
beautiful day. The amount of time spent raising concerns and
process questions was extraordinary, and it was mostly done
by very few people.

I am very thankful for John Andrews' plea towards the end
that there were important decisions that needed to be made
-- because at that point I was not sure if anything could be
salvaged.

And I am very thankful that after that plea, in a short
amount of time we made tremendous headway on other urgent
proposals (of genuine importance to the people of this
Commonwealth) and the contentious delegate selection
plan as well!

And I am thankful that people put aside their concerns so
that we can move forward.

As far as internal education goes, I would like to hear your
thoughts on how a functional communications committee could
provide tools, libraries, etc. so that its very intelligent
and thoughtful membership could educate themselves. The
links that Grace provided would be a welcome addition to
a library based on the ten key values... and such a library
would itself be a welcome addition to the website.

Eli

PS: Personally I left Grace's proposal out of the ranking
because it called for actions to proceed the meeting. Recall
that there were 11 proposals and only 10 opportunities to
rank, and so I left out whether or not I had any concerns. I
wouldn't be surprised if others did the same. It wasn't
necessarily ranked highly.. it just didn't register many
concerns.

PPS: I was dismayed by the use of our time at State Com and
am interested in considering possibilities for improvement. If we
had not voted to stay there until 6 we wouldn't have accomplished
anything other than the new member orientation and a fantastic lunch at mi
plaza / nuestras raices!
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