Prog Dems of Buncombe County Meeting

Minutes from the Progressive Democrats of Buncombe County meeting on 4/10/07

Eight people attended the meeting. Susan shared with the group that she bought a small banner and supplies (bumper stickers, buttons, stickers) from PDA since the last meeting, out of her own pocket. She represented PDA at the Fayetteville Rally, and Isaac Coleman represented PDA, PD North Carolina, and PD of Buncombe at the Asheville Rally. Susan said she spent $100 and recouped $60 so far. PD of Buncombe also had a movie night last week, and The Road to Guantanamo was shown. We decided not to elect officers at this meeting because the group is so small. The financial update showed that $65 was on hand at the last meeting, and two people contributed a total of $10. Our expenses were $10 rent for the room for the meeting and $10 rent for the room for the movie showing. That leaves a balance of $45.

We discussed upcoming events and possible tabling at Earth Day (at Center for Unlimited Possibilities, All Souls, and Greenlife) and possible tabling at Montford Arts Festival. No one was able to volunteer for tabling at these events. We also discussed other upcoming events, including STEP IT UP campaign (1 PM in front of city hall), Rove coming to town on the 28^th, and Kucinich coming to town on the 29^th.

We discussed the endorsement from United for Peace and Justice on ending the Israeli occupation and the group did not want to endorse this position. We also discussed many issues facing our country and world, including Aero Contracting and the arrests yesterday in the eastern part of the state yesterday.

This group at the Progressive Democrats of Buncombe County meeting had very differing backgrounds and felt various issues were more important than others. We discussed having progressive Democrats elected to County Commissioner and other local positions would be a worthwhile goal. Several people felt we should join with the local DFA group. The only concern raised about this was that the DFA group was not connected to the US House of Representatives Progressive Caucus. DFA seems to be better organized and much better at campaign and election training (which is done via the national group).

We decided to support three movie nights at the North Asheville Library. Susan will make arrangements for this and make up a flyer for the upcoming Buncombe County Democratic Party convention on Saturday. The movies that will be shown are The Fog of War, Why We Fight and The Road to Guantanamo.

The next meeting will be July 10, 2007.