2024-07-16 Steering Committee Meeting Minutes

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Agenda >>>ZOOM LINK<<<

# # # Item # Allotted Time
# 1 # Land Acknowledgement

Code of Conduct

Declared Absences:

Undeclared Absences:

Consent Agenda

  • Approve Agenda

  • Approve Previous Minutes

  • Tim stack

  • Tim MO to approve

  • Emily 2nd

  • Approved by UC|# 7:00 pm - 7:15 pm|
    |# 2|# Reports

  • Financial Report (Tim S.)

    • Got 77k on hand rn. Down a bit from last time I reported bc we paid out the invoice for Uncommitted lit. Spent on ceasefire lit for canvasses in DC as well as on some periodic admin costs for NOVA. Our ratio of restricted/unrestricted is different bc we just brought in a bunch of money from moco fundraiser for lit, which is about $1,200 on restricted side. Aso spent from restricted on lit IWG used. Still have about 62k in general fund. Priority campaigns still not spending super fast, which is okay. Will follow up w/ them in next couple weeks. Also wants to remind Abolition they have migrant justice fund they can spend from as well. Last time I checked up we’re up to 110 solidarity income dues payers. Have been working on recommitment campaign which is connected to fundraising. Haven’t been able to move on QuickBooks yet, but hoping to soon. Need to get speaker and hybrid equipment back in storage and will update spreadsheet soon.

  • Secretary Report (Michael M.)

    • ScaleToWin spoke texting is finally set up — Tim is an owner and Andy is admin
      • Tim let me know that we still need to get opt ins, either on our own or through national, but Brian’s working on the latter
    • I haven’t heard from Aaron in a while and we haven’t had a comms meeting in two months, so at this point I think we need to start looking for a new Comms Steward. I’ll follow up w/ him one more time to let him know that we’re going to start looking for someone else.
      • Will put out a call for volunteers in the slack, but if you know of anyone please send them my way
      • This is especially a problem bc I think there are like 3-4 people now who are waiting to get fully onboarded into Comms and I don’t have much time to be constantly following up w/ folks right now. The sooner we get someone to take ownership over Comms the better
    • Things are generally going well w/ Operations, Security and TechOps — Simone T shifting in as new Ops Steward; Andy shifting into Security Dept Steward; have about 5-6 people on the Security team fulfilling vetting requests; Ben and Brian continuing to write up Wiki articles
    • Tim stack
    • Michael DR
    • Alf stack
    • Emily stack
    • Gary stack

  • Campaigns Council Report (Gary Z.)

    • Mid year reports: got 5 in so far. Need publications, electoral, report from Adcom would be nice, PG, NOVA, labor, YDSA. Have started taking answers from reports and putting them into the Wiki and will also use it to update the website. Also using it to coagulate data. Plan is to have next CC meeting next week or week after.
    • Claire stack
    • Gary DR
    • Aparna stack
    • Gary DR
    • Aparna DR
    • Michael stack
    • Gary DR
    • Tim stack

  • NoVA Branch (Alf)

    • NOVA labor had open in person meeting this past sunday. Had updates from sbux leader and someone from NEA’s strike/lock out. Abolition had its first meeting since merging w/ migrant justice. New poli ed meets on off weeks. Planning a recurring prison/detention writing event series that will kick off in late august. VA for Palestine coalition participated in people’s liberation celebration. Loudoun for Palestine working w/ full coalition for divestment research. Canvassing new VA majority to pressure Tim Kaine. Next branch meeting will be on August 10th. Social at Quincy park soon.

  • MoCo Branch (Michael S.)

    • Last week on Monday, Rockville council held their meeting to discuss rent stabilization, had lots of testimonies. Had several residents testify. Rockville had opted not to take up discussion at next meeting. Team strategizing on what to do next there. Had branch meeting on the 7th, fairly well attended. Had good discussion on the state of the American electoral system. Branch meeting in August, branch picnic on the 4th. Next week on Monday, will be meeting w/ regional organizer. Turned in CC report. Will have slides for GBM done by thursday.
    • Gary stack

  • PG Branch (Ralph C.)

    • County council passed the version of rent stabilization that had some things we wanted in it. Rent increases capped at 6% or 3% plus CPI. Some exemptions for buildings that were built after a certain year, which will lead to some more fights. Housing justice coalition meeting next week to see what next steps are. Many ppl have highlighted pushing for further rent control and wanting to learn more about social housing. Will take a much larger role in coalition beyond just door knockers. As far as branch, we have a new interim SC. Core group of branch are either moving out of county or taking up different professional obligations, so going to take remaining half of the year to use the interim committee to gather resources and do member mobilization – taking the lists we’ve gathered from our campaigns and commit to full member engagement and have elections in october or november. Interim committee will be Ralph, Frankie, Thomas, Alex M, Abel. All not committed to running again. Planning for a social in July and then August GBM that will be an intro to DSA poli ed session. Should have details for next GBM, if not will have something that says “be on the lookout for the slides.”

  • YDSA Update (Jack S.)

    • Right now, main update is the convention is the 19th and goes til 21st. Booked for the festival center. Right now just trying to figure out the schedule. Have some speakers lined up from AU talking about labor stuff. One of the leaders of UNITE HERE talking about organizing school for dining workers (Josh). Got some people for Palestine talking about divestment resos in schools and the GW encampment. Got a lot of cool panels. Trying to finalize catering. Pretty much all set at this point.
    • Eduarda stack – catering will be handled by the festival center and I will bring some stacks.
    • Michael stack
    • Jack S DR|# 7:15 pm - 7:30 pm|
      |# 3|# Old Business

  • Recommitment drive update (Emily N.)

    • Targeted 494 recipients of reaching out to folks whose dues lapsed. 192 ppl opened the email. Targeted anyone who lapsed within the last two years. Hoping to use this project to reenergize the MED. Want to do more rolling recommitment drives.

    • Recommitment Drive Data:
      Recommitment Emails (to all members who have lost good standing):
      Targeted to 494 recipients
      315 emails sent
      Total Opens: 192 (open rate of 60.95%)
      Total Clicks: 10 (3.17%)
      Unsubscribes: 1
      Rejoin Emails (to all lapsed within last two years):
      Targeted to 523 recipients
      270 emails sent
      Total Opens: 172 (open rate of 63.7%)
      Total Clicks: 3 (1.11%)
      Unsubscribes: 1
      MIGS on date sent (7/9): 1948
      MIGS today: 1955

    • Gary stack

    • Emily DR

    • Michael stack

    • Alf stack

    • Emily DR

  • GBM/chapter business (Claire M.)

    • GBM coming up this weekend. Have all of the roles we need filled. If anyone can think of other roles, that’d be helpful. Doing the social afterwards at Continental Pool Hall. Will put another reminder in weekly update. Moving on the chapter business we’ll be discussing. With two amendments and the main reso, will take up most of our agenda. Talked about conversation re: national politics, but we probably won’t have time. Will still push people towards Cori Bush phone bank. Wanted to ask about electronic voting – issue is what happens if both amendments pass? Doesn’t make sense right now.
    • Carl stack – if both passes, we’ll have to figure it out. If for example, the numbers don’t line up, we’ll be empowered as steering to combine them all. I don’t think it’s necessarily our role as the committee to bring that up during debate, but the chapter is within its rights to vote on stuff that doesn’t make sense. We’d be within our rights to create something holistic without changing content.
    • Claire stack – the process of this is going to be confusing to chapter members. I want to make sure everyone understands what happens if both of these pass.
    • Alf stack
    • Carl stack
    • Alf stack
    • Michael stack
    • Bakari stack|# 7:30 pm - 8:00 pm|
      |# 4|# New Business

  • Alex M training proposal with Milo (Alex M.)

    • VAN issue – SC should’ve gotten email from org tools about an email from one of our members reached out to me about doing canvass for ceasefire bc that’s a big focus on the PG for Palestine at the council level. Reached out to ask if I could help w/ canvass and wanted to do it this past weekend. I had given her the link Milo shared w/ me to request VAN access, then I met with her and another member of the group this past friday to discuss the plan, I had some concerns about the long term strategy of this campaign and it seemed like they weren’t trying to work w/ DSA. Reached out to Milo to request that her access be removed. I reached out to apologize to her, and then she reached out to org tools. Talked to Milo about it last night – want to apologize bc I miscommunicated and didn’t follow right processes w/ VAN. They wanted to do the canvasses soon so I wanted to move quickly and was excited that a new member wanted to get involved. Milo said current policy is that the chapter or branch decides who gets access and we only want it to be shared w/ ppl interested in partnering w/ DSA.
    • Carl stack
    • Bakari stack
    • Alex DR
    • Alex: Talked about training w/ Milo. He could drive down for a weekend (do a social on friday, campaign workshop training on saturday w/ breakout groups, and then sunday do a door-to-ballot training). Important to invite our strongest canvassers to last one. Could invite different sub formations of our chapter to attend bc, for example, something that’s been coming up in MoCo is abortion as a constitutional right to ballot question. Two potential dates: first or second weekend of september.
    • Emily stack
    • Gary DR
    • Ralph stack
    • Alex DR

  • Our Funds MD Coalition request (Susan Kerin)

    • Claire stack
    • Susan DR
    • Carl stack
    • Gary stack

  • Saturday Pass the Torch Biden rally (Tim S.)

    • Protest at White House on July 20. The ask it to endorse the event for turnout and share via weekly update and announcements. Doesn’t require a huge amount of resources and aligns with the chapter position voted on in March, as well as recent NPC positions.
    • Imara stack
    • Tim DR
    • Carl stack
    • Gary stack
    • Emily stack
    • Claire MO to approve by UC
    • Emily 2nd
    • Approved by UC|# 8:00 pm - 8:45 pm|
      |# 5|# Executive Session|# 8:45 pm - 9:00 pm|
      |# 6|# Adjourn|# 9:00 pm|

Action Items

Task Assigned To Expected Date
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fb_-v5Dr_Woevi1EYPz_ZDQxEk8_KjpFWZjV9ZYMVeU/edit