Laura explained the compromise language or whatever it was. I was distracted by finding this revolution fan on the literature table.

Some of us have a tendency to mostly sit in one place. Others are like bees that never stay on one flower too long. You can see some of it in the differences and similarities between the above and below pictures.

Somebody told me they found my camera antics quite distracting, so I put it away for most of the rest of the day.

We spent some time on the budget. I think our annual budget is down to under $50,000. No staffer. No office. A phone number and some storage space. The Green Party of California is not very busy at the moment. We bridged from that to an open discussion about our rules and our process and why is it that we're trapped in a political backwater that seems to be draining quickly. As Mike Feinstein said, "We're dying." Hard to find people to fill jobs like treasurer and spokesperson. A lot of old volunteers that used to do those jobs have died on us. It's part of the whole political thing. They retire and look for something to do around 60-65ish. We got a whole cohort of those from the Nader 2000. We got a decade out of some of them. Now a lot of them have become organic tree food or some other "done with this life" thing like ashes. Others just moved to Mexico. Whatever it was, they moved on without finding a replacement. Ooops. That pattern has happened a lot around the state. Then there's the top two problem. In the olden days our candidates had a golden summer to spread the word on their issues as our Nominee. With top to that is extremely unlikely. Not only that, but having to submit the same number of signatures as the Democrats and Republicans is much harder than having to do campaigns proportionate to our size.

Then we talked about the Bernie factor. Somebody pointed out that for a lot of young people voting for Bernie will be their first big vote. We need to think about the shadow of that on tomorrow. I told them "I don't know if I believe in Bernie, but I'm sure I believe in Vermont." Online there's a lot of discussion of messages like "Bernie or Jill Stein in November!" HRC doesn't own those votes. Trump doesn't want them. All they have to do is find us when they're looking for something else. We gotta make that easy!

    

When I got home early in the evening my prize for the day was this bug pin from the GE Free Sonoma County initiative a few years ago. The woman I got it from said she had made it herself. A true activism prize to me.

Sunday morning Brian gave me a ride to the meeting, so we got there early. I started the day by browsing the literature table with my camera.

  

Never saw Pam Elizondo, but her literature was there.

Barry Hermanson was there for a while. I promised to walk a couple of precincts for him.

I brought back a stack of those Green Party voter guides for this election. If you want one let me know.

  

I looked up when they started singing. At first SKCM Curry was the instigator, getting people to sing verses about how the Green Party was going to solve the worlds problems by setting a good example. People were clapping along and smiling. Then this guy with a guitar showed up and turned it up.

  

The woman in the NOPE shirt is an amazing poet. Her verses got people nodding and going "YEAH!"

We paparazzi were digging all the fun.

Turns out Guitar Man is running for San Francisco Supervisor in District 11. He sounded good.

        

Then the meeting started. The only business item for the afternoon was picking the location for the next meeting. Kendra said she'd host, so it looks like it will be January in Ventura County.

     

Then we broke into caucuses. Don't know what happened at most of them. Green Issues Working Group picked a new leader. The measure CO2 guy from San Mateo County.

     

  

After the caucuses the main meeting was over. People had to go back to their home counties. For some that meant an eight hour drive and then go to work tomorrow.

After it was over I found this report back about the meeting from Brian Good in my GPSCC news feed:

It was a good meeting.  Mr. Feinstein was much chastened.  SKCM Curry was there, and somebody gave her a check that seemed to have lifted her spirits.  Whenever she stood up to talk, Mr. Feinstein left the room.  Ms. Wells delivered her complaints, backed up by Greg Jan, and was well received.  (I know Greg for many years now because he'd come around to my 9/11 tables, skeptical but open-minded.)  The vote in favor of putting the discussion of Ms. Wells's complaints on the agenda was something like 35 to 2. 

I found myself placed on the Electoral Reform Working Group and the IT Committee.   I was told to consult Warner about the history of the electoral group so as to recognize the current issues.  I joined the IT Committee in hopes of learning enough to aid the rehabilitation of the scc web pages.  I'm told that all these pages are being migrated to a new server.

All of us in Santa Clara County have been boycotting the Standing General Assembly, the institution of which I believe was declared by Warner to constitute something like a coup.  I believe that Ms. Wells considers the SGA to be an institution that, employed correctly, might aid in the decentralization of the GPCA.  I'd like to come to a consensus on the question of whether we should seek to change the GPCA through the SGA institution. 

My souvenir from the meeting is this sticker from the literature table. It's decorating my fridge now.