Progressive Dems of Buncombe/Kucinich Meetup on 12/02/07

Photo was of Dennis Kucinich when he came to Asheville in November 2007- I took the picture.

Progressive Democrats of Buncombe County meeting/Kucinich Meetup on 12/02/07

Attending: 40 people

Minutes taken by Susan

Next meeting of the Progressive Democrats of Buncombe County/Kucinich Meetup is January 8, 2008. This will be held at 7 PM at North Asheville Library.

Susan gave a short intro on Progressive Democrats of Buncombe County and how this group came from the prior Kucinich campaign. She gave her reasons for continuing the group – to support the Progressive Caucus in the US House of Representatives via the Progressive Democrats of America. Susan also told of the necessary steps to become a delegate to the National Democratic Party Convention in 2008. First step is to register as a Democrat. Next, make sure you attend you local Democratic precinct meeting in February 2008. At that precinct meeting, sign up as a delegate to go to the Buncombe County Democratic Party Convention. This is applies to other counties also, and this meeting is generally held at the county courthouse. At the county convention, you must sign up to be a delegate at the District Convention (Congressional District #11) and the NC Democratic Party State Convention. At the District Convention, when you arrive, you sign in as a delegate for one of the Presidential candidates. The Kucinich delegates will vote for the person who will go to the National Democratic Party Convention in the summer of 2008 from congressional district #11 as a Kucinich delegate. At the NC Democratic Party State Convention, we also vote on some delegates “at large”. Susan mentioned how it is important to “hang together” especially during the District Convention so that a non-Kucinich person does not get voted in to be the Kucinich Delegate to the National Convention.

Susan also briefly mentioned being a precinct chair, vice-chair, and secretary/treasurer. This can be a lot of work, or very minimal work. However, if a Kucinich supporter is in an “un-organized” precinct, then he or she will have to get four other registered Democrat voters to come to the precinct meeting and elect officers in other to go the County Democratic Party Convention. This is the way to effect change in the Democratic Party, but we did not discuss if this a useful path to pursue.

We then moved to the Kucinich Meetup part of the meeting, and Gloria ran this part of the meeting. She passed around a sign up sheet, which she will enter on the Kucinich meetup site. She talked about how to answer assertions about Kucinich and about how to get the message out to the public and the Democratic Party. She said Kucinich is rising in the polls and become more and more popular. December 10^th is ‘write to your newspaper’ day for Kucinich supporters (please do not send the same letter to more than one newspaper – if they discover you have done that, they will not publish your letters again). Gloria talked about the “National Money Bomb” day – more information at www.december152007.com. They are trying to get 10,000 people to donate $100 for Kucinich. She talked about the upcoming Health Care now events this week in Asheville, and how that would be a great time to promote Kucinich and his health care bill. Our meetup is www.denniskucinich.meetup.com/324.

At this point we broke into smaller groups. After meeting in small groups, we all got back together to report on our groups and discuss issues raised.

Fundraising –There was some discussion on the need to develop fundraising forms to collect information on people who make donations. Someone will need to investigate how to document donations and what exactly is required. A suggestion of a making tee shirts or having weekly parties was from this group, but nothing specific was planned. Michelle M, Pauline R, Alan B are on this committee.

Flyer – design and print up flyers. Someone in this group is a printer, and that will help with getting flyers made. They discussed the making of the flyers and suggested they be put up everywhere. John K, Paul C, Eve R, Oscar are members of this committee.

Media – make comprehensive list, develop media contacts, make sure all press releases go through the Kucinich campaign – send to Gloria, she will forward to Kucinich national staff and get it back to the media person. This would be done in a day or two. This group will start by doing LTE on 12/10/07 to one or more local papers. There was some information shared in this group on various media outlets in other counties besides Buncombe. Leslie (ACT, Daily Planet), Fred (ACT, Weaverville paper), Anne (ACT), Susan (H’ville, Smokey Mountain), Rachel (Indy Media), and Gary (Yancey & Mitchell country papers) are on this committee. The papers they will write to is listed after their name.

GOTV – find out about early voting, registration. May 6^th is primary day in NC. This group wanted to have calling parties where people bring their cell phones and call voters in NH and Iowa. Gloria will contact state chair for call lists and this group will organize a time to do the calling. They did some brainstorming on early voting – Tom will research requirements. They will research events for promoting GOTV. Kristin H, Naomi M, Cicada B, Tom C are on this committee.

Internet – go to websites and post information on Kucinich

Events & tabling – organize events calendar and establish regular tabling and/or handing out flyers at events. Rotate who will cover the events, and be sure not to block pedestrian or vehicle traffic when you hand out flyers. This group has people from Brevard, Hendersonville and Asheville. They hope to get to the SiCKO event to flyer, and to Hendersonville Christmas events to hand out flyers. They need help with printing costs. They do have a table available to use, just need help with transportation. Ruth C, Lola L, Mollie S, Brian W, Lynne W, Connie N are on this committee.

Networking – compile list of local groups that would be sympathetic to Kucinich campaign. This group will contact SDS at UNCA and peace crew at WWC, and set up times to go talk to them. Someone will contact Episcopal Peace Fellowship and Creative Non-violence group. David said that he will talk to WNC Peace Coalition, Dept of Peace and Vets for Peace. Ron will email organizations to get connected. Barbara G, David I, Ronald H, Lena F, Michelle M, Paul C, John K, Oscar are on this committee.

Someone commented that making a donation to the Kucinich campaign in stead of a holiday present. The slogan was “don’t give them a present, give them a president.”

From Gloria, NC coordinator for Kucinich campaign:

Thanks to all of you for a great Asheville meetup on December 2^nd. Please sign up to keep updated on upcoming Kucinich Meetups at: http://denniskucinich.meetup.com/324. Kucinich materials are available for download at this site also.

The minutes and pictures of our last meetup can be viewed on the Message board and Photo Album menus. This message board is the place to communicate with your local community, so please keep this area organized. To minimize the number of posts for people to scan through, communicate with local members by replying to the most current Asheville Meetup Minutes posting. If you have articles or other announcements not directly related to our action groups, please join our yahoo group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NCforKucinich/ for North Carolina or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Kucinich4President/ for the national list and share your information there.

All fliers and T-shirt logos can also be found on our Files menu of the meetup site- for a general pamphlet, I recommend "Basic Overview Flyer." For tabling, pick an assortment of flyers that you think will best suit your audience. Please also download our list of Kucinich websites on our Files menu for internet campaigning. If you are collecting any cash for the campaign, even small amounts, please use the "Contribution Forms" on the Files menu. Let's work to strengthen this movement in the Asheville area and increase our volunteer base so we can expand our reach to surrounding areas. Go Kucinich!