SJVGreens Minutes

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Minutes of St. Joe Valley Greens

July 2003, Victoria Webb, Recorder

PRESENT: Jeff & Maia Sutter, David Vollrath, Lance Howard, Victoria Webb

1. OPENING AND CALL TO ORDER:

Vicki began the meeting with questions about our success selling T-shirts and buttons at Paddlefest last weekend.

2. READING AND APPROVAL OF MINUTES:

Waived reading as minutes were posted on the website.

3. TREASURER'S REPORT:

No report.

4. REPORTS OF DELEGATES AND OFFICERS:

Dave V. suggested we make an effort to present candidates/placeholders for the Presidential Ballot Access Drive. He said we should publicize proposals for all Indiana Greens to be informed by late August. The deadline was agreed on of Jan 1, 2004 to begin work on the petition for the drive. We agreed to work up a platform list of issues to discuss at the next meeting.

The CC is planning the next State Congress on Sept. 20, 21 at Pam Raider’s house in Bloomington, IN. Dave noted she has accommodations for twenty people, including camping on her land and in sleeping bags in her house.

In working with other coalitions and collaborating with like minded groups in the area, Jeff proposed we seek out what kind of bills these groups might pass or what legislative agendas they might entertain. He suggested getting a list of Superfund sites in the area and an EPA list of toxic areas and power plants nearby. The fact that IN is the 3rd most toxic state in the nation poses other focus issues in addition to CSO’s and water quality. Dave V. voiced concern that some of these groups might be opposed to political agendas in general. Vicki agreed to network with various local groups and begin gathering information. The Sierra Club, Hoosier Wetlands, Michiana Peace & Justice and Citizen’s Action Coalition were some names tossed around.

5. OLD BUSINESS:

Tabling Items

Buttons and T-shirts look great, although prices are possibly too low at $15/shirt and too high for buttons at $2/per. Suggestion was made to reduce buttons to $1 each, charge $17-20 per shirt. Total cost was about $166. ($.80/button for 100 and I thought about $14-17/shirt for 20) Vicki would like to redo next batch of buttons to match the design she created for the IGP; the sunflower with Green Party type and SJVGreens underneath.

We now have cards, letterhead, buttons and Tees! Onward with promotional branding.

Cable Access Show

Vicki and Dave K planned to visit Comcast together two weeks ago, but coordination fell through. She’ll go over this week (July 7-11) to ascertain their equipment and give the contract to the programming coordinator. We are now planning for an October production schedule. Vicki and Dave K. should get together soon to plan for these shows - two months wouldn’t be a long period of pre-production.

6. NEW BUSINESS:

We have access to the very reasonably priced ‘Democracy University’ videos ($5-10 per hour show) as well as the recent local South Bend City Plan Lecture tapes from Grass Valley. Vicki will check on fees for these. The consensus was to air short clips of pre-produced video with round table discussion afterwards if we need filler for cable access shows. Vicki proposed having the two City engineers speak on CSO’s at the first production. Dave V. has very good documentation that can be used for this first show.

Jeff suggested contacting IUSB for video and the possibility of the school buying pieces for their archive that we could then use in our programming. Dave V. offered to check on IUSB’s policies. Vicki has a catalog from Bullfrog Films, a distributor of environmental and social justice films from around the world - with more expensive ($45 and up) pieces that seem to be very well produced; many have won awards. IUSB may especially be interested in this resource. Jeff mentioned GreenTime TV as a model, that the St. Louis Gateway Green Alliance produced on their local cable access channel.

Lance is concerned about surveillance from unmarked vans in his neighborhood. This was brought up in the City Council meeting this past January; the South Bend Police Dept proposed forbidding groups to congregate on certain street corners and asked for community participation in videotaping and surveillance, presumably to curtail gang violence. This was called the ‘Gang Loitering Ordinance’. The group agreed that Lance could call the police department for information and/or videotape the vans videotaping unsuspecting citizens and we could air the piece in one of our cable access shows. (performance activism)

Note- Downloadable agendas from previous City Council meetings are available from the city website.

Dave V asked about future tabling events this summer. The suggestion was made to plan 1- 2 mos. ahead; harvest festivals are coming up in the fall! Dave V. mentioned an IUSB Festival on September 13, so we can plan for tabling at that one.

Vicki will contact South Bend Public Library about the possibility of holding future meetings which can then be publicized. Comments were made about a national green site posting personal emails, phone numbers and addresses online. (for unknown reasons http://greenpeople.org posted info from our site on theirs—they are asking V. for a link to them from the SJVGreens site.) This was unsolicited and I suggest researching this group before linking to them. V. requested they take our personal info offline.

Vicki presented examples of a proposed website redesign. She will get the HTML files to Tom when she’s completed the basic homepage and links.

7. NEXT MEETING:

Dave V. offered to host the August 11th meeting at his IUSB office.

 St. Joe Valley Greens, South Bend, IN