Agenda

Times are approximate and subject to change at the Chair’s discretion.

RR = Period will follow Robert’s Rules; OD = Open discussion, Robert’s Rules suspended;
ES = Executive Session, rules established in session

Meeting Minutes

Attendance: Anthony L., Tiffany S., Alvin C., Lorenzita S., Paul John C., Jackie S., Minnie W., Shaun N., Aimee H., Jesser S.
Facilitator: Anthony L.
Notetaker: Tiffany S.

7:05 – Call to order

• Anthony reads SC meeting rules
• Tiffany volunteers to be notetaker
• Tiffany motions to adopt the agenda, Lorenzita seconds, no opposition
• Tiffany motions to adopt last meeting’s minutes, Lorenzita seconds, no opposition

7:07 – Review action items from last meeting minutes

• Write a resolution for UMOK membership
  • Paul John has worked on a draft, Anthony and PJC will collaborate and have something for SC to review by thursday
• Adding meeting minutes to the website – complete
• Checking with Garrick about Housing Justice Commission application
  • Not yet, there were many things to follow up with Garrick about

7:09 – Purchasing Resolution

• Aimee requested some guidance from national but hasn’t heard back
• Anthony: if we don’t get it out by thursday, we can still pass it through emergency vote and have it ratified
• Minnie: Tiffany added feedback in the resolution about a threshold that triggers a purchase going to membership, somewhere between $600-$1000. Minnie would like to know where people are sitting, what kind of procedures we would like and then Minnie and Aimee can draft language.
• Tiffany: resolution is in a good space for me
• Anthony: suggests a monthly limit in addition to a single transaction limit. How can we help Minnie and Aimee?
• Aimee: There’s also reimbursements to consider. Hard to whittle everything to consider down into this resolution format. Expected to have more time to work on this today but had some personal issues that got in the way
• Anthony: Would like to see language about who can approve purchases and who can make purchases
• Anthony: moving on to next item

7:21 – YDSA Engagement

• Jackie: Got in touch with Michelle T., who put Jackie in touch with Jeremy G. who has been an active YDSA member. Jackie also has a 1:1 with a national YDSA organizer.
• Anthony: Is there anything in the future that we might have something time-sensitive to consider in terms of YDSA?
• Jackie: doesn’t think so

7:23 – Executive Session

• Moving to Executive Session (link restricted to SC members)

8:06 – Steering Committee member check-in

• Jackie: Has had two 1:1 orientations in the last week, trying to streamline 1:1 process by having a document prepared with everything that needs to be covered, and having a calendly that folks can sign up for 1:1 orientation through the calendly. New member orientation this Friday.
  • Anthony: we discussed writing a message about slack channels, are you still writing that.
  • Jackie: We created a greetbot that greets people when they join the Slack. It would be nice to have something describing the channels though. Happy to write it.
• Tiffany: One item trying to work on is cleaning up the Facebook page administrators, I need Keenan to accept the request to remove him, but not getting much of a response. Wondering if anyone else can try reaching out. Also have been working on getting Action Builder set up and had an onboarding training on Friday and just got access to the instance this morning so I’ll be working on getting things configured and working with housing and member engagement to set up their campaigns
  • Alvin will reach out to Keenan
• Alvin: Running a textbank and phonebank for the housing priority tomorrow. Putting together some organizer 1:1 hard ask training. Reached out to two separate people for Robert’s Rules trainings and hasn’t gotten a response yet. Hoping to get security stuff rolling as well.
• Anthony: Interviewed with the national growth and development committee for the training subcommittee, will be starting in two weeks and will have access to all their training. Once we’re through the special election, Anthony can help with trainings. Concerned about the electoral priority, has not gotten a response the last time he reached out.
• Aimee: Tiffany and Aimee are now on the bank account as signers. We have quickbooks synced up with the account. Going back through statements through may when the credit union account was opened. Will help us to build a budget. Is still waiting to hear back from national for insight on financial matters. Working with mutual & community aid stewards. Lillian and Justin are starting to get the internal network off the ground. Community aid stewards are doing great. All good on the business license, just waiting on the new bank card so we don’t have to put in Lourdes’ information. Not sure we need to consult a lawyer on that any longer, still thinks it’s still a good idea to consult with a comradely lawyer to look over bylaws etc.
  • Community Aid meeting 8/28
  • Mutual Aid meeting 9/3
• Lorenzita: Not much going on legislatively, but would love to spearhead a working group on our positions/stances on local and state issues. Focusing on coalition building, there is now a community events calendar linked to the Slack that Lorenzita updating. Also been doing research on some of the requests/inquiries we’ve been getting, would be interested in helping with the security portfolio on that type of work.
• Paul John: As far as events, not much going on just yet. A lot of equipment and things of that nature, NV Dems has a lot of it that we can use as a resource. Joined the housing justice campaign committee call on Saturday, offered to help with coalition building for the campaign. Working on writing the UMOK resolution.
• Jesser: Trying to make night school a monthly event, Anthony suggested a night school on Cuba. Would also like to get involved with member engagement and help with orientation materials.
  • Aimee: Maybe there is space to include something about Haiti
    • Anthony: brings up the recent twitter thread comms put together
  •  Tiffany: Has been working with Jesser to set up a process to request translations, did a training with the translation team earlier today to go over the workflow and will be testing that over the next week and we will be opening the form up to others soon.
• Minnie: Met with Garrick 1:1, still trying to coordinate when the monthly field organizer check in will be. Jackie, Alvin and Minnie attended the southwest regional call. Been doing a lot of connecting people with national. Minnie will be updating the dsa national calendar that is now connected to Slack. Question, will everyone get notifications for that? Minnie is also available to help other SC members with anything if they’re at capacity
  • Tiffany: everyone in the channel for the national events will, we can promote the channel and let people know it exists, and make it a default channel that everyone joins when they get in to Slack
• Shaun: Spoke with More Than a Hashtag about what options for coalition work there is for us to work together on. Lorenzita and Shaun has been attending Mi Familia Vota and No Racism in Schools, Cecia would like us to start mobilizing people to attend school board meetings. Also met with Sierra Club. Has a 1:1 with someone from the Unitarian Church, might be interested in working on some mutual aid events. Someone from Battle Born Progress wants to meet. Wants to form a working group to assign people to attend coalition meetings, including Lorenzita, PJC, and Aimee.
  • Jackie: Can we ask these people to come in to our chapter meetings to speak at open comment period and ask people to support their events? Might give them a better idea of what our org does
  • Lorenzita: It would be fruitful if we did more around the school board meetings.
  • Aimee: Trying to find a way to work with indigenous communities, youth specific. Imperative that we start hitting the schools, it’s a racial justice issue
  • Tiffany: School board is getting a lot play in local politics, it would be good to get involved.
  • Shaun: Maybe we can have the no racism in schools people come talk at one of our general meetings.
  • Jackie: I would like to normalize having coalition partners approach our chapter at general body meetings to make a pitch for events/support. Coalition partners need to learn that we make decisions democratically as a group
• Anthony: Had our first LVDSA dispatch go out, please send feedback if you have it!

8:47 – Process for Special Election

• Anthony: Mike is the only candidate that met the nomination threshold. Our bylaws state that when there is only one candidate, it’s a Yes or No up or down vote with ⅔s. Since he is the only candidate, we could motion for unanimous consent.
  • Minnie: The general body is still learning the processes of Robert’s Rules, so we might want to give them to option
  • Tiffany: My only question is are we doing opa vote or raised hands if we don’t do unanimous consent? Opa vote costs money so I don’t want to use it for just one candidate
  • Anthony: Let’s try airtable

8:50 – Update from SC Open Forum

• Lorenzita: Question from Brendan about posting a donation link for the Solidarity Fridge in the mutual aid slack, Lorenzita wasn’t sure what the protocol was
• Anthony: we have another open forum on saturday, do we have two people available?
  • Aimee, Jesser
• Shaun: Do we need to do them so frequently
  • Anthony: let’s try until after the next general body meeting and we have a chance to promote them more. Eventually would like to swap some of them with trainings

8:56 – Open Floor for SC Proposals or Needs

• Floor is open for motions
• Minnie motions for a once monthly labor chat. Losing the labor committee means there are people doing labor organizing but there’s no place for them to come together in our chapter. Not a committee, just casual conversation, sharing resources. Tiffany seconds.
  • Anthony: is there a way we can creatively tie it to our priority model? Might set the wrong precedent
    • Minnie: We don’t have any labor formations that are organized enough to plug into our priority model
  • Tiffany: Speak in favor, I have been concerned about recreating the committee model but this feels different, more like our open forums but just for labor. People ask those questions in our Slack already, would be nice to have a space for it.
  • Aimee: If needed it could be connected to community aid, the resolution mentions unions.
  • Anthony calls the question, allin favor except Jackie and Alvin who had to leave early.
    • Motion passes
• Tiffany: Member social – Shaun can’t host the member social on Friday, so we need someone else to facilitate
  • Aimee and Lorenzita can host
  • Shaun: raises question about in person events, should we be doing them right now?
    • Minnie: Essential stuff like Sunday Solidarity, yes, but socials can be virtual for now
    • Aimee: If we were going to do in person socials, we should have merch, Tiffany and Aimee are going to be moving forward on merch soon. Let’s take the time during this Delta surge to get those things lined up.

9:09 – Propose Agenda Items for Next Meeting

• Priority reports
  • One steward per priority
• General body meeting agenda

9:13 – Meeting adjourned

• Minnie motions to adjourn, Aimee seconds, no opposition