First and foremost: This club is only effective as it Exec Committee. If individually we don’t step up, no one will. e.g., only Tekla volunteered for the Endorsements Committee.
IMDC Identity
First and foremost, we need to let people know who we are and how to find us. Then and only then are we a viable force for the Democratic Party. Suggestions?
We all run into people who say: “Do you know “?” Get the names and how to contact those individuals and get them connected to our organization. Too many people don’t know who we are nor how to reach us. We need to change that to go forward. Why should they join us? What is the benefit? What local elections are coming up? Who do we support? Do we know anyone who would want to run for any of these positions?
Work with who we have elected to help remind them of the principles of the Democratic Party. If members have issues with some “electeds”, how can we turn their lack of support into guided change?
Example: Robin has gone for a walk with local Supervisor and discussed issues. Great! Who else do we need to be working with? Do we need to start “grooming” someone for other upcoming seats?
Where to Now
I don’t think we can be that effective with so few people involved.
- What do we need??
- Our membership is about 80
- Population of Mendocino is 90k
- Inland population is about 72% = 63000
- Reg Dems 11242
- Reg Dems inalnd 8000
- IMDC Members % of Reg Dem inland = 1%
Voting in the Primary
Jared got about 15k votes in primary in the county
Supes race 1st and 2nd total dem votes 3300 about 17% of the inland registered dem voters.
Inland Republicans had about 30% turnout
Our membership is about 80 about 0.2% of the inland population, and only about 2% of those voting for Dem Supe candidates in the primary.
What is apparent in the voter turnout for the primary, Republicans out voted Dems by more than 15% in all but the 2AD race.
IMDC did a terrible job of GOTV.
We need to recruit more.
What are some ways we can be more attractive?
What are ways we can be inclusive?
How can Bernie supporters live to work with “I just don’t want to vote for Trump supporters?”
Even if someone doesn’t support Healthcare for All, can we find common-ground to work for the party?
Another example is to say the whole name of who we are. It is much more effective in defining who we are. And, a closing and an invitation to the next meeting and event!
Meetings
PSAs once a month with KZYX notifying everyone of our meetings. Our meetings need to be geared towards how people can get involved at each meeting. Our meetings have been great but they do not lead towards involvement nor activism. We all need to generate ideas.
We do PSAs every month when we have the program set 10 days before.
(Who is the IMEC program committee? )
We notify about 400 people on our mailing list each month of the meeting time and place and speakers.
PSA with KZYX notifies everyone listening to KZYX – given the attendance at our club meetings, our PSAs, don’t seem to be very effective.
Come to a meeting: Bring a friend!
Use some of our money to invite activists to speak and pay them and advertise well. We all need to learn ways to be more politically more active. Sue Hildebrand, is now being paid by CADEM, She is in charge of Northern California. She is focusing on District 3 right now (Along the Nevada Border). We could ask her to meet with us OR we could help her! 20 people from Sonoma County are going to that district for 2 days of canvassing in September. Maybe we could help? Also, Mike Thompson is paying for a bus to take volunteers to Reno for a day. 3 or more of us could volunteer to go with them as our contingent from Mendocino County.
(Who is the IMEC program committee? )
Let’s make a list of who we might like to invite?
How can we attract the wide spectrum of Democrats to our meetings?
We also need to be as welcoming as possible and assume people don’t know what we’re talking about.
Why the Land Acknowledgment?
Who are we? Introduce ourselves and have them introduce themselves and welcome them!
When is the next meeting? <always 2nd Thursday of the month>
Where? <Always the same>
Why they should come? < Program committee needs to set up the programs in advance>
..If Fred can’t do it effectively, then we need a greeter and a “welcomer”.
(I nominate Kayla to be the Welcomer)
Be ready to sign up those who attend to do something! <See Volunteers>
Social Awareness
Monthly dinners with a speaker.
Who is “They”? Is this the Sonoma CC, or a particular club?
The effort to put on the How Sweet It Is Fundraiser to get 50 people to show up is an indication of the effort needed (each month) to put on a monthly dinner to get 50 people to show up, or would 10 be OK? 25? Our pool of attendees is about 8% of Sonoma’s. But if you could get the How Sweet It Is team to try it out, I think we could fund it.
Consider this: Sonoma population is about 500k. If 50 people attend these dinners, that is about 1 in 10,000 of the population. Now Mendocino has about 90,000 people. 1 in 10,000 attending would mean we could expect about 9 people to regularly show up. HEY !- that's about our normal club meeting. We have a free meeting space, and pizza and beer costs us about $100.
I met with Pat Sabo of Sonoma County to see how they do theirs and how much they charge. They pay $400 and rent the Veteran’s Building in Santa Rosa. The club did pay for that but now, finds sponsors to cover each rental fee. They charge $25 per person. That total amount goes to the caterer. The club makes no money off of it but around 50 people attend each of their 10 meetings. If someone wants to just come for the speaker, there is no charge. They have the Vice President find the speakers. The Mayor, one month, plus council members or separately, the Supervisors another month, Betty Yee or Fiona Ma during AAIP month, Human Rights Commissioner during Pride Month, State and Federal Representatives once a year. If we want to start small, then, a dinner every other month until we have 10 meetings! This is when we get folks to sign up and give $.
Find a caterer and go from there! Now is the time!
Campaign Headquarters 2024 Campaign
Do we want to have a physical base until the election? Maybe Dragon’s Lair? Sonoma County has a center for President- election years and frequently, every 2 years if they have enough staff. One person is paid for 20/week to run the office. She often works longer than that but that is what is offered.
Lack of suitable space is a big constraint. We used what is now Dragon’s Lair in 2020, but that is now retail space, and I’m pretty sure it would not be suitable for a Dem Campaign Headquarters
If we are going to have a mobile headquarters, what about an appealing vehicle which attracts attention like Joe’s van or Ken’s old car?
We checked this out before the last cycle. Insurance for multiple drivers would be a very large expense and the CC would have to buy it. Possible – we can look into it again.
I checked for Van and SUV rental from 9/1 – 11/5 about $7000 for van, $4000 suv.
What about paying for a banner over State Street reminding people to vote?
Volunteers
Divide up our phone directory among us and get lists of volunteers to:
We’ve done this . Several times. But that requires the IMEC members to actually do the calling. Robin and Michelle are the Vol committee.
Sign-up
Sign up for the county fairs with orientation as to how to do what, with a person-not just a sheet. By the way, each club signs up for a day to get members to work at fairs or other venues around the county.
Sign-up sheets are online, orientation info is available in our doc index, – requires a volunteer to do the orientations. Redwood Empire Fair is on the site -several have already signed up
Waiting for Booneville schedule, PumpkinFest will be live mid September
Orientation/Training
Sonoma County provides a group training but also has a video for those signing up which they can watch as to how to do it and how to say what needs to be said.
Video training would be nice. We have the technology to do that, but it is a pretty big effort to prepare tutorials that are effective. I’ve done many in my former life. The general rule of thumb preparing tutorial materials is about 20 hrs prep for 1 hour tutorial plus recording, probably another 4-8 hrs.
Collateral
Also provide stacks of Biden’s accomplishments ( I’ve attached several versions) and I also asked Pat if their paid intern could possibly put together a list with links so folks can do their own checking as to a reliable source. I also asked if he could put together a sheet of at least some of Trump’s lies for comparison. And maybe what Trump did accomplish to compare…
The items attached to the email were not suitable for printing. Can we get "clean" digital sources?
Club Activities
- Write post cards for candidates- have them available and how to get them to those interested. Know the Why and Where and how effective it is to write postcards.
- Encourage members to have small dinners or soirees to write post cards and provide them withsheets of Biden’s accomplishments and Trump’s lies. 8 by 10, stacks of them...Ask them to notify you when they will have their soiree and how successful it was…
- Sign up for phone-banking. Have resources at hand or options of what works for them.
This requires planning, documentation and participation. I’ve been attempting to get Activity plans together for 4 years. We have some of that info, but if we ask a person to volunteer, we have to be able to tell them what, when, why and how. See the endorsements committee plea for members – it went unanswered. Supporting doc, task list, links – its all there for the ephemeral Endorsements Committee.
Charter
WE COULD HAVE LOST OUR CHARTER BY HAVING JACOB BROWN SPEAK AT OUR CLUB MEETING! HE WAS NOT REGISTERED AS A DEMOCRAT!
Does this mean we can have only registered speakers at our meetings? I don’t think so. That would mean that we couldn’t sponsor a Candidate’s Forum if we have all the candidates speak. I guess that would correspond to having a Presidential Debate but the only speaker would be Joe Biden. Doesn’t make sense. Allowing someone to speak does not imply support or endorsement. Our meetings are public, and we allow anyone to speak. We don’t ask their political beliefs – we support the First Amendment.
WRT jacob Brown:
PRETTY OBVIOUS! IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE WHO BRINGS WHOM TO A MEETING! IF THEY SPEAK, THEY ARE REGISTERED! (I have a picture of the section in reference in Sonoma Co. bylaws) point F.
C.D.P. Bylaws of CaDem/ ARTICLE VIII: ENDORSEMENT OF CANDIDATES FOR PARTISAN AND NONPARTISAN OFFICE, AND ENDORSEMENT AND OPPOSITION TO STATE BALLOT PROPOSITIONS, INITIATIVES, REFERENDUM, AND RECALL /
Section 1. General Procedures
h. Prohibition on Endorsement of Non-Democrats: This Committee shall not in any way support or endorse a candidate who is not a registered Democrat.
We did NOT in any way support or endorse a candidate who is not a registered Democrat.