CMGR report to StateCom – April 7, 2018

Since the January 20, 2018, State Committee meeting, the Central Massachusetts chapter has met two times, with an average attendance of 11 (going up!).  We have attracted two more new members, both of whom expressed interest in running for public office.

Candidates running in 2018, and support actions

This year we have 4 members running for public office:

1. Bryan Moss, Shrewsbury Town Meeting, re-election, May
2. David Spanagel, Lancaster Library Trustee, May (on ballot)
3. Yasmine Khdeer, State Rep, 2^nd Worcester
4. Matthew Moncreaff, State Rep, 1^st Worcester

We plan to do standouts this May for the two local candidates, and help our State Rep candidates with signature collection, as well as help them with their campaigns.

Dick Vaillette volunteered to be our statewide nomination petition coordinator. He has distributed a number of sheets to our members. We will be planning next steps at our April 13^th meeting.

Dick is also campaign treasurer for Danny Factor, running in the Metrowest region for State Rep, 14^th Middlesex.

Member outreach, constituent education

The chapter held its first meeting with a featured speaker. Our secretary Carol Strauss Sotiropoulos got some press coverage in advance of the event, which featured a long-time officer of the MA League of Women Voters, and we did two emailings and a small postcard mailing. Three people outside our chapter attended. The chapter plans to debrief on how the event went, and start thinking about what to do next.

Advocacy

as part of the publicity for the above event our Secretary got an LTE published in the Worcester Telegram supporting Automatic Voter Registration.

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: 1 rep (stepping down)

StateCom: 1 rep

Total of 5 individuals on state-level committees.

Respectfully submitted,

Charlene DiCalogero, CMGR co-chair