2024-04-04 General Meeting

Meeting Minutes & Weekly Updates General Meetings
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2024-04-04 General Meeting

Attendance

Campaign Coordinator: @chima
Membership Coordinator: @HipGnosis
Treasurer: @Turcotte
Secretary: @Robert_H
Other members: @Adri_Martinez, @anon26178869, @Englishpete08, @Joanna, @igotallergies, @Tanner , @denis_wells
Present members: 11, 6 in person.
Quorum: 4

Meeting Notes

Opening

  • @chima opened the meeting serving as Meeting Leader

Approval of Minutes

  • 2024-03-07 General Meeting
  • 2024-02-25 Steering Committee Meeting
    The minutes were approved as posted and amended.

Reports of Members Sick or in Distress

  • A loss in the music scene

Reports of Officers and Committees

  • Treasurer: Presentation on the 1024a later
  • Secretary:
  • Membership Coordinator:
  • Campaign Coordinator: Later updates

Unfinished Business

Death of the left

  • Discussing what has changed since 2016
  • should we invite coalition partners + public
  • generally feel like we should open, maybe change the name something less insular

1024a form tax declaration

  • describe in detail past and planned activities
  • can update once a year with tax filing
  • Electoral activities: money and time spent attempting to influence selection of candidates
  • moved by @chima second by @Adri_Martinez to submit the form Motion Carried(A)

Sidequest: No Votes for Genocide

  • Recruit from broader community. This month as trial, a couple 100 on email list.
  • we will reach out, see how effective it was, how people respond.
  • Need to set date.
  • Members can reach out and talk but we won’t make it a organizational project this week

New Business

Focus Campaign

  • @chima presented on the “No Votes for Genocide” proposal.
  • Pressure on Josh Harder to support cease fire resolution and active support of the genocide.
  • Ask People to sign Pledge
  • Phonebank his donors
  • SJC Labor for ceasefire
  • Form connections between community groups.
  • Membership had a good discussion on the potential criticisms and how we would approach such a project.
  • Vote will be had next general meeting

Bylaw Modifications:

  • changes to treasurers defined duties
  • Membership coordinator description updated.

Reading Group

  • Discussed Glasgow rent strike and what can be learned for modern labor/social movements. Summarized by Peter
  • please join the thread
  • Next reading group.
  • Discussed possibility and the pros and cons of the reading group vs the membership voting on the selected readings.
  • @HipGnosis moved that the reading be voted on by forum poll, the deadline being the day of the general meeting. Motion Carried(B)
  • @Tanner proposed A History of False Hope
  • @Chima proposed Omelets with Eggshells
  • Omelets with Eggshells was selected as the next reading group book(C)

Extend the meeting

@chima moved second by @anon26178869 to extend the meeting 20 minutes, Motion Carried(D)

WTCU update

Membership dues waiver

moved by @chima seconded by @Englishpete08, unanimous in favor Motion Carried(E)

Dates

Please fill out on the crabfit

Working Meeting Mondays

Adjournment

Voting Record

(A) IRS form (B) reading group (C) Book Vote (D)Extend Meeting (E)waiver
@chima yea no omelets yea yea
@robert_h yea yes omelets yea yea
@turcotte yea yes yea yea
@hipgnosis yea yes abstain yea yea
@anon26178869 Abstain abstain yea yea
@Adri_Martinez Yea yea yea
@denis_wells Yea
@igotallergies Yea abstain omelets yea yea
@Tanner Abstain Abstain yea yea
@englishpete08 Yea yes History yea yea
@Joanna Yea abstain yea yea
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First draft posted, known to-do:

  • attendance and voting record, some links
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As with the Free Palestine Focus Campaign proposal, some of the goals (i.e. Pull people away from seeing the Democratic Party has a place to advocate for left-wing politics AND Build WCU + other independent political movements in SJC) in the No Votes for Genocide Focus Campaign proposal could be seen as being overly broad–goals that could be easily transferred to focus campaigns on other topics. And if that’s the case, how focused are we really being? And if we were to leave the goals as they are, what metrics would we be using? Goals should be measurable. How do we measure whether or not people see the Democratic Party as a place to advocate for left-wing politics? How do we measure movement building? What does success or failure look like under those metrics?

I think there may have been some confusion when Roby asked if anyone had responded to the last correspondence that was read off at the 2024-03-07 General Meeting. He was referring to Sacramento Valley Tenants Union, not LCIP. Since I didn’t hear from anyone on @WCU_Steering about it, I followed-up with Harpreet at the 2024-03-25 Working Meeting. No reply had been sent, so I just shot SVTU a short message on their Facebook account to thank them for reaching out. We should try to stay on top of these things because part of the reason WCU voted to approve an affiliation request form to join ATUN (Autonomous Tenants Union Network) was to get more access to other unions and organizers. So, it’s important for us to be responsive when people take the time to reach out to us.

Something to keep in mind is that if we have too many social events that are only for WCU members, we may be seen by the IRS as more of a social club than a social welfare organization (Source: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/social-welfare-organizations). Although, it might be trickier trying to facilitate a discussion in a larger group that includes other organizations like North Central Valley DSA. A way to deal with that could be to have co-facilitators lead discussions in breakout groups and then having everyone come back together to share. But that might be a lot for something that is intended to be a social event, not work. Also, in terms of location, it can be hard to find parking space at Valley Brew. Personally, I don’t think the food there is that great, but at the moment, I can’t think of another place that could accommodate a large party.

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Going forward, I’d like to ask that agenda items and their associated documents be distributed at least 72 hours prior to a General Meeting to give membership time to formulate any comments, questions and suggestions.

“They shall also acknowledge and offer advice with respect to fundraising efforts initiated elsewhere in the organization.”–I don’t know if this comes across in the text, but I believe the intent of saying that the Treasurer would acknowledge fundraising efforts was to create oversight by requiring any fundraising efforts to be cleared by Chris first. For the sake of clarity, we may need to amend this proposed bylaw change.

DRAFTS (of what I may submit as an amendment to the proposed bylaw change): The Treasurer may initiate fundraising efforts or offer fundraising advice to others. Prior to the initiation of fundraising efforts from elsewhere in the organization, the Treasurer must give approval.

OR

The Treasurer may initiate fundraising efforts or offer fundraising advice to others. The Treasurer must provide acknowledgement of a fundraising effort, proposed from elsewhere in the organization, before it can commence.

OR

The Treasurer may initiate fundraising efforts or offer fundraising advice to others. The Treasurer will oversee fundraising efforts approved by the General Membership.

OR

The Treasurer may initiate fundraising or offer fundraising advice to others. The Treasurer will track fundraising efforts approved by the General Membership.

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Here is what I was citing from Robert’s Rules of Order:

"If a motion has either been adopted or defeated during a meeting, and at least one member who voted on the winning side wants to have the vote reconsidered, such a member may make the motion to Reconsider.

This motion can only be made by a member who voted on the winning side. That is to say, if the motion was adopted, the motion to Reconsider can be made only by a member who voted in favor of the motion, or if the motion was defeated, then only by a member who voted against it. This makes sense because, if there is no such person, there is virtually no chance that the result of the vote will be any different on the second go-round. This motion can, however, be seconded by any member, no matter how he or she voted."

4

I voted YES on this motion. Adri voted NO.

These hyperlinks direct users to the Google Slides and video from a different General Meeting.

It sounded like maybe we weren’t positive on what the quorum was for this meeting, so here is the math to confirm.

General Meeting Attendance

#1 October 12, 2023
-Number at the start of the meeting: 6

#2 October 23, 2023
-Number at the start of the meeting: 5

#3 November 9, 2023
-Number at the start of the meeting: 6

#4 November 27, 2023

-Number at the start of the meeting: 5

#5 December 14, 2023
-Number at the start of the meeting: 6

#6 January 11, 2024
-Number at the start of the meeting: 9

#7 February 1, 2024
-Number at the start of the meeting: 8

#8 March 7, 2024
-Number at the start of the meeting: 9

54 divided by 8= 6.75 x 50%= 3.375 or 4

The quorum for the next General Meeting will also be 4, but it may jump to 5 in June.

General Meeting Attendance

#1 November 9, 2023
-Number at the start of the meeting: 6

#2 November 27, 2023
-Number at the start of the meeting: 5

#3 December 14, 2023
-Number at the start of the meeting: 6

#4 January 11, 2024
-Number at the start of the meeting: 9

#5 February 1, 2024
-Number at the start of the meeting: 8

#6 March 7, 2024
-Number at the start of the meeting: 9

#7 April 4, 2024
-Number at the start of the meeting: 11

54 divided by 7= 7.71428571 x 50%= 3.85714286 or 4

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Sorry for the delay in updating, its no excuse but I have been busy with a lot of personal stuff lately and I haven’t been able to give the organization the time it deserves.
We forgot to hit record, so I didn’t have the meeting to go back to and help correct/complete my notes and it’s still a bit of a mess(I’ll take full responsibility for that as I came in a couple minutes late and neglected to check). Please review and offer any corrections. Particularly in reading group vote as I wasn’t sure on Names and forum names. Apologies if I forgot anyone in attendance, but I adjusted it down to 11 as I believe 12 was a miscount, please message me or reply and I will update the record.
And again thanks to @anon26178869 for your corrections and notes.

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Personal stuff is a legitimate excuse.
We all have lives that we need to live.