January 30 2023 Steering Committee

Agenda

Meeting Minutes

Chair: Kara H. 

Notetaker: Sarah L.

Non-SC in attendance: Jakub D., Lisa O., Justin N., Val T., Ephraim Z.

1. Call to order 7:05 PM.
2. Kara: does someone want to amend the airtable so that guests can sign in?
3. Agenda adopted by unanimous consent.
4. Previous minutes adopted by unanimous consent.
5. Anthony, training portfolio: Planning trainings in conjunction with Leg priority stewards regarding Structured organizing conversations.
6. Two deadlines in February – officers list due Feb 28 which is an Aimee duty, and taxes which Aimee will probably file.
   1. Every time we change officers it’s $50
   2. Aimee will wait until after Feb GBM to file because there is an election.
7. Sean, PoliEd: Night school on Ecosocialism went well and our next one is coming up 
8. Kara: our social at Meepleville was postponed to Feb 18. We should have a couple out of town visitors for from national.
9. Natasha: from regional meeting there was emphasis on educating our members ahead of time about the upcoming convention. We should keep that in mind in what we’re doing.
   1. Convention is August 4-6 in Chicago
   2. Each chapter elects delegates. This year for each 75 members we get 1 delegate, most likely we will get 7 delegates this year. These people then pay their own way to the convention.
   3. Cutoff for apportionment (determining number of delegates) is 3/1. Roy and Skyler will likely be handling the recommitment drive in February.
10. Anthony: Training Wednesday on phone banking members to recommit.
11. Kara: what goes into scheduling a meeting? I just learned this and I want people to understand why we need it done promptly.
    1. First make the Zoom meeting
    2. Then make graphics in various sizes: website, opengraph, twitter, instagram, Facebook event, Zoom background.
    3. Action Network, which does not recognize recurring events so each one has to be created separately.
    4. The zoom link has to be manually updated to match across several sites/apps.
    5. Especially close to the GBM this is a lot of work.
    6. Sean: this seems like too much for one person. What could make it easier? Could we make graphics for you?
       1. Kara: it can be worse to assign graphics to someone else because I might get it late. But if it’s given to me far in advance I’m able to delegate it. It’s heavy now because I have been doing both Comms and Digital Management portfolios. Apologies for any errors with zoom links.
       2. Kara’s request: recurring meetings are good, and having the info far in advance is good.
       3. Sean: Could this be automated?
       4. Kara: Neither Tiffany nor Roy has figured out how to automate it. Tiffany can do the whole thing in like 12 seconds, she is super-human and was an amazing SC member!
12. Val, NV Leg Priority: we will be meeting tomorrow with NV Dems to organize an event kicking off the legislative session
    1. We built a legislative bill tracker, we have gone through all the assembly bills and most of the senate bills with whether we think it’s important to follow and whether we should support.
    2. Currently we are supporting Lisa’s Tree Bill, the grad student workers budget and collective bargaining, we hav discussed baby bonds, making Juneteenth a state holiday, and some other legislation
       1. SEIU is supporting the Juneteenth bill, Val thinks they would get a new day off for it.
    3. We held a storytelling training and put out a form to collect stories. People want to talk about housing.
    4. Kara: any links for the GBM agenda? Val: No
13. Lisa O., Desert Power Priority Steward
    1. A recurring date and time would be awesome to help me stay on track.
    2. Kara thanks for graphics, Sarah for Zoom help, Anthony for helping us get on track.
    3. BDR-720: at the end of the day today the funding got kicked out of the budget. Assemblyman Cohen was carrying it and she has never had a bill that had a fiscal note. There is no match for disadvantaged of communities. We also wanted a match for where they are taking out sod because it can worsen urban heat islands.
    4. Next round is solar. A solar power transmission line will be going through Tule Springs. There will be a protest probably but we don’t know anything about it at this point.
14. Ephraim Z., Abolition & Community Safety Priority Steward
    1. There’s a meeting tomorrow I’m ready and excited for. After tonight I can try and set meetings through May or June (the end of the priority basically).
    2. I’m pretty lost. I have some things in my head but I need to think about them.
    3. Kara: Anthony and I can help. Sometimes thinking about things can take up a lot of energy, try not to second-guess yourself. Please don’t feel confined to doing things a certain way, e.g. if we provide a template, use it if it works for you, if not do it however works for you.
15. Justin N., Mutual Aid Working Group Steward
    1. Sunday Solidarity had good attendance. Meeting next week where we will discuss having a bigger event, like the Back to School Solidarity, as well as an event between now and then but not sure what to center it around. So we hope to use the next meeting as a brainstorming session.
    2. Shaun: St Patricks Solidarity, March (Marx) Madness
    3. Kara: we have talked about doing a fair, we could do haircuts, food, games.
    4. Anthony: There were lots of people and lots of donations. It seems more and more people come to get items, there are a limited amount of items available. People will come take stuff when we’re not ready yet. Should we ask if we can use the parking lot with a sliding gate, and open the gate when we’re ready for people to come in?
    5. Sarah: What about a couple key volunteers who can help manage the line and show people where to stand etc.?
    6. Shaun: We need to make sure our volunteers come early, at 9:30, so we are set up in time. We should partner with other orgs like PLAN and culinary to get donations.
    7. Justin: Agree we should put out our time is 9:30 – 11:30. If we are set up before people show up I think it will solve a lot of the problems. Having a locked gate between us is not good optics.
16. Anthony: There are ways to unite the priorities around the legislative sessions.
    1. For Desert Power, we should decide where to focus, maybe the tree bill.
    2. For ACS, two things that align immediately: we will oppose any line item with an increase in police budget. We can put pressure on the legislature to tell them we don’t want them to pass it.
    3. We want the 988 hotline staffed with non-police mental health responders, whether they are trained social workers etc.
    4. Working together as a team of stewards, we can have a lot of cut-and-paste template type work because the formula for getting it passed is the same.
    5. I would like to get together with the stewards so we can copy each others work.
    6. I would like to advise that we spend the next few months focusing on the legislative session and put all our efforts towards that. We can still do other stuff if we want.
    7. Kara: SocFem met with legislators and National Lawyers Guild. Be aware that just because someone is a legislator doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about.
    8. Kara: we should connect with the NV and Clark Dems and not schedule over each other. We can have a mutually beneficial relationship.
    9. Anthony: stewards, the next thing you can push people to is an event coming up for the NV Leg Priority where we will phone bank members.
17. Kara: PoliEd 101 series.
    1. Three weeks: What is Capitalism?, What is Socialism?, Why is the Working Class So Important?
    2. We will be plugging PoliEd people in there, hopefully some SC members as well.
    3. These will be recurring so new members have access to them.
18. Kara: Merch! If you have ideas for merch let me know. We want to plan ahead for something we would want to have printed since it has to be union.
    1. Buttons, stickers, tote bags, lanyards
19. GBM Agenda
    1. Kara: should we add something about police violence since it’s currently relevant? It could be something we add after the land acknowledgement, or part of the Abolition & Community Safety section.
       1. Anthony: should we have a discussion? Kara: I’m against it because it opens up a can of worms and it is a business meeting.
       2. Anthony: what about having the statement be put on the consent agenda? And tell people we are opposing increases in police budget
       3. Sean: Seems strange to have people vote on it. Just have Ephraim or somebody talk about it and say we’re doing more work in the priorities.
       4. Kara: Reading the statement word for word seems stuffy, I think it should be more casual.
       5. Sarah: we should include it as part of the ACS if Ephraim is comfortable doing it, or if someone else is going to do it, put it after the land acknowledgement.
       6. Roy: I don’t think anyone’s looking to us to make a statement. But we could highlight people who have been targeted by police here locally.
       7. Anthony: I can pull from things Mike Y. wrote in the past. Anthony will send to SC to review, who will send to Ephraim to fine-tune it however they are comfortable.
    2. Steering Committee Elections
       1. Kara: how should questions be picked? I think it would be fair to Tyler for him to know the questions ahead of time.
          1. Roy: Tyler already has the whole list of questions
          2. General consensus, we will eliminate any questions that are not meaningful and have Ash pick a few.
    3. Legislative training by Lorenzita
       1. Natasha has asked Lorenzita if they are still willing to do it and how long it will be.
    4. Chairing the GBM – who’s gonna do it?
       1. Kara: I don’t think I should do it because it gives me an unfair advantage in the election. Anthony will be out of town.
       2. Roy: I think we should get a list of members who want to get more involved, to be able to give them parts of GBMs.
       3. Kara: that’s a good idea but maybe get them involved somewhere other than GBM. Community Agreements and stuff like that we can plug people into pretty easily.
       4. Skyler: volunteers to chair the meeting!
       5. Sean Y. is happy to do Community Agreements or Land Acknowledgement, but doesn’t want to run the whole thing. Can also drop links.

Action Items