Document:LPNY Minutes 29 June 2002

Planned State Commitee Meeting

June 29, 2002, 11am via freeconference.com. 
Some regrettable miscommunication, but we did expect a quorum.

Attendees:
Marc Romain, James Eisert, Gary Snyder (over 20 minutes, but less 
  than or just an hour)
Steve Healey, John Clifton, Bonnie Scott (over an hour)
Bill McMillen, Jim Harris, Steve Becker (joined a few minutes after twelve)

There wasn't a quorum at any given point in time, so these are 
my own meeting notes, not the official record of a State Committee 
meeting. Some of them had been from my 'agenda' for the meeting, 
brainstormed in the hour before the meeting, and abbreviated (or 
expanded) for the meeting. Much is notes from other folks, credited 
only where I managed to write it down at the time. Some is elaboration 
written after the meeting in response to points raised there.

In general, we talked about the following topics, none of which 
required votes at this point.

  I. OUTSOURCING
 II. CANDIDATE KITS
III. LAST WEEK TO GET CANDIDATES TO PETITION
 IV. CALENDAR
  V. TALK ABOUT REGIONS

--

I. Outsourcing

Here are the suggestions from the meeting, with my comments. I'd like 
to ask widely if folks know of Libertarian providers who can offer us 
at least as good a deal. We'd be ready to vote on this in a month or so, 
using that time to solicit feedback via mailing lists and at local 
chapter meetings.

A. Phone conferencing: Eagle conferencing, $60 month for an 800 number
      At first I thought that was a lot of money, but then I realized 
that if we used it at least monthly, with at least as many people as we 
had today, it would pay off. (Until/unless everyone has flat-rate 
long distance, like cell phone users currently do, effectively, and 
assuming that freeconference services remain free that long. Two trends 
we should watch.) We SHOULD have at least monthly communication, at 
the various levels around the state and in various subgroups. I also 
feel the State Committee should be having monthly phone conferences 
to discuss "direction and action." In theory, we could be doing this 
in email, but I don't see it happening.  Not everything we need to do 
requires a vote. We are frozen, apparently because we don't have enough 
volunteer organization to do everything we'd want, and "it's not the 
state committee's job, anyway."  I hope that others are receptive to my 
proposal to get us out of that rut. If you are active in your local 
organization, I am encouraging that. I praise that which I know about: 
Manhattan and Monroe. If you on Long Island and the Capital District and 
Queens are doing more than I know about, my apologies. Please correct 
that by sending me frequent notes of stuff of what your area is doing, 
for me to highlight on the web site. Let me hold you up as an example 
to others. Anyway, moving on to other possible outsourcing areas...

B. Credit card processing 
    Bill M. will set up PayPal, but we'll also look into
    Click and Pledge. It's better, no monthly minmum, direct deposit 
with about 5% charge.

C. Printing -- Berman(spelling?) mentioned, he knows about great 
prices given for newsprint printings for libertarian-leaning 
boiledfrognews(.com). Other formats probably also available and a 
bargain. There are also printer-brokers (James has info), but the 
previous source seems even better.

D. Mailing--volunteer effort is better for us, not outsourcing, we 
all agreed
      Scott's volunteers have done NYC mailings
      6-8 in Rochester can do Monroe + five counties
      bulk permit--need details on ours: did it lapse? Is it still 
      near Jeff's house?

E. Petitioning--optimism on volunteer effort and Scott, et al's 
management of the statewide effort. 
We know we have our traditional sources if necessary. No need
to discuss now.

---------------

II. Candidate Kits

Justification skipped here, we agreed it was a good idea.
In-progress description: http://ny.lp.org/campaign/campaign_kits.htm

Differences among different level races acknowledged (city council 
candidate vs.  state assembly race), but our job is to focus on 
the commonalities and also in building infrastructure to spit out 
the right info for a candidate based on the exact race (office, 
geography, candidate's preferred issues) wherever we can, I think.

KIT ITEMS DISCUSSED
1. a "how to petition" video would be good

2. list of potential endorsers and affiliate groups 
   OR clearinghouse to get candidate's names in front of all 
   those committees, and questionnaires filled out.
   Steve will look into SCOPE and NRA (NYSPRA) Jacob Reiper, Pat Brophy...
   Bonnie is making sure we have reliable email communication with 
   all our candidates

3. Sample budgets -- best if WAY ahead of time, to let them know how 
much they'll need to spend for media. Someone said he was interested 
in this.

4. media contact info

5. Boilerplate copy--this could be a large category.
pitch for journalists
pitch for money and volunteers
pitch for talk shows: proposal letter for a show, including 
   ten provocative questions (many choices, and candidate
   can create own)
press releases

6. list of volunteers in the area, and assistance promoting their 
campaign to them (plus offer to do mailings to an even wider list 
of LPNY contacts, at their cost)

7. BOE numbers and tips

8. summary of must-do's, like sending acceptance letters

etc.

-----

III. LAST WEEK TO GET CANDIDATES TO PETITION

We could get a list of potential candidates from the DB in districts 
that aren't filled yet. (Al or Dave) Focus on one level, like state 
legislature, in specific geographic areas. Given limited time, perhaps 
we could focus on Buffalo and Syracuse (Rochester and Manhattan have 
already been recruiting). We'd have to filter the lists a bit to people 
we know or know of, because we can't spend time on interviewing. But I 
didn't remember until I read it in George's paper that we actually have 
a way to filter people who have expressed this interest.

Q: Who should call these folks during the next week, and in the future 
when we have more of a head start?

A: State committee members, chapter committee members, and ...
If someone wants to run for a higher-ticket slot, ask them to take 
responsibility for making a few phone calls for people to run 
down-ticket of him or her.
1) like an MLM: helps them get sigs, publicity, votes
2) better response if you're actually getting called from a candidate
3) we _have_ to ask
Yeah, it's late, but what else are we doing in Buffalo and Syracuse 
to make sure there's a reason for anyone to volunteer there for the 
whole summer? Petitioning starts July 9, we can make up forms and send 
them electronic copies up until then. It's now, or we just have races 
in NYC and Lee's race, other than the usual 'top-of-the-ticket' race. 
We give lip service to 'coat-tail effect' and 'updraft' and 'local 
races,' but what do we do? Dave used to call folks and ask them to run, 
and it produced some results. What happened? He gave up? He stopped 
getting results? I know I thanked him for what he was doing. But anyway, 
we do have a list. Dave or Al can produce it. We have a week to make a 
few calls to people WHO TOLD US THEY'D BE WILLING TO RUN. We are at the 
point where we can truthfully tell them that nobody stepped forward to 
run for state legislature in their district. 

IV. CALENDAR
** last chance to get someone to run: ask in person if we can, with 
statewide petition forms in hand. Tell him/her that we'll get 
him/her petitions just like that immediately with their name on it.

**Bonnie will send out mailings to lpny_announce
1. now: about Indianapolis, last exhortation for feedback for the 
delegates (informed representation) along with FreeNY text, if it's 
available (Al).
2. July 8th or so: Indy wrap-up, reiteration of petitioning info, 
with specific info from candidates for (group) petitioning, petitioning 
training, etc
I'd like to be able to plan ahead what we're sending on this list, and 
get other folks to provide info! We need to raise the quality before 
worrying about expanding its membership

** folks on the conference call supported Phillies for Chair, nothing 
else too exciting expected at NatCon

**county fairs, events: I will be sending out to candidates list and 
by region whenever I can. I would like to automate event calendar as much 
as possible.

** we should get voter CDs for the larger cities and counties if we have 
volunteers to petition there. I can process the data for the campaigns 
if they don't have anyone else to: I have scripts written and used for 
three different campaigns now for BOE data--it can handle local variations.

**things on my back burner that I thought I'd have done by now: 
1. ny.lp.org email aliases for all (I'll see Joe Dehn in Indy)
2. a mysql database user ID at Netsville, for our website (I need to 
remind them of my request)
3. that letter to the bank...I still don't have a printer. I'm not good 
with envelopes and stamps, unless it's a whole pile to be stuffed. I 
thought I just had to worry about keeping minutes as Secretary, not 
producing actual paper letters!

**I DID do, OTOH: 
1. created more regional email lists--LI, Central, etc. and invited 
all I could find
2. summaries of Convention-related info (state and national)
3. state committee phone list
Buffalo/Erie, Western? Did I forget them? (Are they official or not?) 
(FWIW, National just had John W's office number. I might have his home 
number in my email somewhere. I had tried to call him this morning to 
see if he could join the call.)

V. TALK ABOUT REGIONS
1. Buffalo/Erie, Western: 
July 10 is their meeting: perhaps on the way back from Indy? (To do 
some planning for the rest of the summer. Now is a crucial time if 
we want to publicise what we will  be doing, and get attendees and 
volunteers in all areas of the state.) There are a lot of people in 
Buffalo (328K, as a matter of fact). We have John Wadsworth who is 
doing a great job of organizing out there. He needs support. We did 
all agree (on the phone conference) that us keeping track of county 
committee members would help us help them stay active.

2. QUEENS? How to get them more visible on the political horizon 
there. Need names of people we can work with, who are responsive 
via email and not burnt out. Need petition coordination out of their
July meeting--John will bring it up.

3. Southern Tier: What's up? We need names, emails. I tried to call 
Scott Hurst yesterday in Binghamton, but the number national had for 
him is disconnected, no new number given. Can we go through ReconsiDer 
and find someone in the area to work with? We've had good luck with 
that group lately.

FWIW:
* Buffalo - 328K
* Rochester - 231K
* Syracuse - 163K
* Albany - 101K
* NYC - 9 million
* Yonkers - 188K

I think NYC and Monroe are in good hands: the state committee doesn't 
need to worry as much, and we can count on them to ask for what they 
need. I think Yonkers should be ruled out as a focus of our support, 
but Mid and Upper Westchester should have a Jeffreys fundraiser. (I 
will investigate.)

That leaves Buffalo, Syracuse and Albany as reasonable targets for 
the State Commitee to concentrate effort on, to try to make a difference 
from now until November 5. Binghamton isn't huge (53K), but the greater 
Binghamton/Elmira/Endicott/Johnson/Vestal area does have a lot of people, 
so I would include it as well. Albany also has many related outlying 
areas, so the numbers are larger than what I gave if we focus on these 
as population centers, and hubs for organizing volunteers. It's all 
about getting a snowball started. We have to start somehow with these 
areas, and renew our effort when we need to. This is campaign season, 
and if we want to raise volunteers, now is the time to get them involved. 
Ads in the paper in those areas, making phone calls. Making trips out 
there: as the State Committee, I do think our responsibility is to make 
sure we travel a bit around the state, to encourage active chapters and 
to help look for and coordinate volunteers and candidates in unrepresented 
areas until they have the strength to start their own chapter.