2024-05-19 General Body Meeting Minutes

Minutes & Historicals
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General Body Meeting Minutes

May 19, 2024

Meeting Chair: Tim S. Location: Hybrid; Register here
Meeting Secretary: Michael M. Time: 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm

We use Robert’s Rules of Order for agenda items that include formal debate. More information is here.

  1. Mingle/Welcome (CHAIR, 3:00 pm - 3:05 pm)

  2. Opening, Review of the Agenda, and Announcements (CHAIR, 3:05 pm - 3:10 pm)

  3. Land acknowledgement, overview of conduct, stack

  4. Approve agenda

  5. Carl MO to approve by UC

  6. Michael S 2nd

  7. Approved by UC

  8. Secretary’s Report (Michael M, 3:10 pm - 3:15 pm)

  9. Mobilization efforts ongoing — new members onboarded into Operations and Website team and in the training process

1. Still need to mobilize new members for Security Dept — Dept Steward David S will be taking a step back next month
2. We’ve been cross training members of the Ops Dept on Security procedures to create redundancies, but we still need more people to facilitate vetting processes and step into leadership roles
  1. We’ve updated our vetting procedures and will likely be bringing a process item to the next GBM for the membership to deliberate on
  2. We’ve updated our Member Interest survey, so if you haven’t filled it out yet, please find it on the slides, agenda, #random channel in slack, or in the zoom chat: Metro DC DSA Interests & Activism Survey
1. This was motivated by a realization that we have a few similar surveys floating around with significant overlap, so we discussed consolidating them into a new one. This will help our Member Engagement Dept more easily get you plugged into our work! So if you’re a new member or interested in joining, I would highly recommend filling it out
  1. Brian D from TechOps is going to facilitate at Wiki workshop next Thursday, May 23rd at 7pm
1. The Wiki is our internal search function accessible to members looking to have a deeper understanding of our history, archival records, internal structures, best practices and procedures, among other things
2. Reach out to Brian D or Ben M in slack if you’re interested

  1. Lastly, we had an Adcom happy hour a few weeks ago that was really fun and led to a few new members being recruited! We plan to have more in the future, so keep a lookout on the calendar and in slack! Hopefully we’ll see you there.

  2. Kurtis stack

  3. Michael DR

  4. Treasurer’s Report (Tim S, 3:15 pm - 3:20 pm)

  5. In good shape financially. Had our biggest dues share ever in April. Strength from chapter outreach re: solidarity dues. Got about 79k on hand. Slightly overstates our reserves bc part of that is funding for uncommitted campaign and priority campaigns that have not spent hard yet. Expressed concern about how quickly we’re spending down outreach and discretionary budgets previously. Pumped the brakes and we’re good now. Operating is a little over budget partially bc we’ve front loaded in person meetings which are expensive. Not an issue, but something we need to look out for. Moved us out of our previous storage unit. Was very expensive and inconvenient to have one so far away. Going to try to get us set up in a smaller unit in Petworth to make equipment access more democratic. Will be attempting to distribute boxes of books that were in the unit. Cash on hand is in good shape.

  6. Zachary T stack

  7. Tim DR

  8. Gary Z stack

  9. Tim DR

  10. Campaigns Coordinator Report (Gary Z, 3:20 pm - 3:25 pm)

  11. Going to try to get a wider view of what’s going on in the chapter via CC/SC meeting coming up. Have seen a lot of activity across our working groups. Lots of new members getting involved. New Member Orientations are really good. Typically get about 10-12 ppl. Many ppl activated thru Uncommitted campaign. Front facing campaigns doing good job of pulling in new people. Abolition WG helped coordinate supply drops at GW encampment. In January there was a desire across the chapter for WGs to be less alienated and there’s been a coordinated effort to collaborate more. Supporting WGs (Pubs, PoliEd) doing good job of acting as a tether between WGs to develop tactics that become a point of common engagement. Number of Solidarity Dues paying dues members increased. A lot of chapters have been struggling to maintain member growth, whereas our chapter has not. How to continue WG coordination and collaboration to continue this success is the question. WePower DC gearing up over the next few months to push Public Power Pledge.

  12. Sela stack

  13. Gary DR

  14. Alf stack

  15. Gary DR

  16. Branch Updates (3:25 pm - 3:40 pm)

  17. Montgomery County Branch (Michael S., Olivia D. & Allison F.) -5 mins

1. Upcoming Events:

  1. Saturday May 25 upcounty social at Bohrer Park in Gaithersburg
  2. Thursday May 30 game night social at Silver Branch Brewing
  3. Sunday June 2 branch GBM at CASA Wheaton Welcome Center
  4. Saturday June 15 "Places we call home" benefit in Bethesda

2. Uncommitted campaign great success. Had 3500 volunteers. Knocked over 26,000 doors. MDC DSA was the overwhelming majority of all of those figures. 4,000 conversations. Biggest strengths of this campaign is that it allowed us to coordinate w/ volunteers in a new way, expand our network for outreach, and give better insights into who we can engage for future actions. Will provide new in depth report at next meeting. Still have some mail in ballots being counted. 14 new sign ups in the month of April. Campaign was a huge success in all ways.
  1. Northern Virginia Branch (Alf) -5 mins
1. Electoral:

  1. Alexandria City Council Candidate Forum with Grassroots Alexandria and Tenant + Workers United

2. Abolition:

  1. Israelism screening + panel
  2. Alx4pal:
  3. The People’s Resolution for a Ceasefire

3. M4A:

  1. Healing Us screening / medical debt fundraiser + Arlington m4a kickoff

4. Labor:

  1. NoVA friends of labor dinner

5. Migrant Justice:

  1. Pack the Arlington board room for #ICEoutofArlington and Palestine Solidarity

6. Upcoming Events;

  1. 05/21 - Electoral research wrap up meeting
  2. 06/02 - Labor Organizing School

7. Alex N stack
8. Bakari W DR
  1. Prince George’s County Branch (Ralph C.) -5 mins
1. Able to get the six month extension on rent stabilization bill. Will allow time for housing coalition to organize. Upcoming general body meeting on Sunday, June 2 at 1 PM. The meeting will be hybrid. Physical location is New Carrollton library at 7414 Riverdale Rd New Carrollton, MD 20784.

  1. Working Group and Section Updates (3:40 pm - 4:30 pm)

  2. Social Housing Working Group (David P.) -5 mins

1. Sela stack
2. David DR
3. Joe R stack
4. David DR
  1. Labor Working Group (Zachary T.) -5 mins
  2. Electoral Working Group (Bakari W.) -5 mins
1. Sela stack
2. Bakari W DR
  1. Community Builders Update (Tim S.) - 2 mins
  2. Red Rabbits Update (Carl R.) -2 mins
  3. Publications Working Group (Gary Z.) -20 mins
1. Bakari stack
2. Gary DR
  1. Meeting Closing (CHAIR, 5:00 pm)

LINKS from SLIDES

  1. Join Slack: slack@mdcdsa.org

  2. Take the Member Interest survey!

  3. Join DSA if you’re not yet a member! https://dsausa.org/join?source=Metro+DC

  4. Social Housing:

  5. Sign up here on our campaign page

  6. Sign the petition: Tell the DC Council to Support Social Housing
    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QhQXBWTOilCoIsEsBZeKk5mvmSGIllWlF-9UEdiBHl8/edit?usp=sharing