[Davis Democrats] DDC Board Meeting Minutes for May 1, 2007

G Richard Yamagata PhD yamagata at virtual-markets.net
Tue Jun 5 16:25:19 PDT 2007


               Davis Democratic Club Meeting Minutes 
                Tuesday, May 1, 7 pm - 8:46 pm 
          Place: Place: Davis Branch, Yolo County Library in Davis.  
                     315 East 14th Street.

This meeting was held at Place: Davis Branch, Yolo County Library in Davis.  
                     315 East 14th Street.
Present (15 board members total present -- 13 votes present -- NO QUORUM was
present) were:
OFFICERS -- EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE BOARD MEMBERS
President: Arun Sen,
Vice President: John Chendo
Treasurer: Betty Weir
Recording Secretary: G Richard Yamagata
Corresponding Secretary: Julia Sanchez
Membership Committee Chair: Carl Schmid
Publicity: Absent
                5 of 6 were present.

BOARD CHAIRS AND MEMBERS
Past Publicity: Barbara Slemmons
Acting Past President: Bob Bockwinkel, Past-Past President and Newsletter
Advertising,
Newsletter Editor: Eileen Lindsay
Scheduling Committee Chair Claire Black Slotten
Board members: Mike Syvanen, Lyle Smith, Jim Provenza, Adrienne Kandell, Pam
Nieberg, and Bill Ritter
Board Member that needs to be confirmed: Barry Wilson
Ex-Officio Members of the Board: Maximillian Milsonlonis; Alternate, Joseph
C Bleckman
                10 of 13 were present with 2 other board members with
medical absences.
                A Total of 20 board members on the rolls.
Guests:  Cecelia Escamelia-Greenwald, Judy Reynolds, Claude Garrod, Donna
Provenza, Mary M Zhu and Bob Schneider.

Absent:  Rick Gonzales, Julia Hunter-Blair, Publicity Mary Lou Hernandez (3
excused by President), Past Vice President Kingsley Melton (4 excused by
President) -- (number indicates how many meeting is a row have been missed)
There have been 12 meetings since the elections last year.  By-laws state
that board member cannot miss 3 meetings in a row or 3 out of 5 meetings in
a five month period (meaning you cannot just come to every other meeting and
still remain on the board).  Absences can be excused by the President.          

TOTAL:  16 board members and 8 club members and 1 guest attended the meeting.  
        
Arun Sen called the meeting into session at 7:048PM.  He asked for Rev.
Eileen Lindsay to start the meeting with an invocation.  

AGENDA
MOTION/VOTE
The agenda was presented for approval as distributed with no changes by Arun
Sen.  A motion for approval was made by Bob Bockwinkel and seconded by Mike
Syvanen.  The motion passed without objection.

MINUTES
MOTION/MSB
The acceptance of the April 3 minutes were moved and approved by Arun Sen, MSB.

PUBLIC COMMENT
Bill Ritter announced that Cecilia Excamelia-Greenwald was elected Northern
California Vice Chair of the Latino Caucus.  Pat Lenzi was elected to the
Native American Caucus.  

MINUTES AND REPORTS FROM OTHER CLUBS
UCDavis Campus Democrats 
A report from the College Young Dems was given by President Max Milsonlonis.
There were 10 UCDavis students that went to the California Democratic
Convention in San Diego.  He reported that the campus club would not be
asking for funding for the trip, because they felt they had enough money.
He also announced that 4 short depages on 4 topics was going to be held on
campus on May 14 with the Davis College Republicans.  There was a rally on
campus that day (more on this later in the minutes) with a counter
demonstration by the Campus Republicans.

High School Young Dems
A report on the Davis High School Dems was given by Bob Bockwinkel.  There
were three students that went to the convention.  They enjoyed themselves
immensely.  Julia Bockwinkel, a former Davis High Dem, helped with making
them feel at home at the convention.  Julia was attending as a UC Berkeley
Young Dem.  

Woodland, Young Dems and Yolo County Blue Action
Lyle Smith reported on the Woodland Democratic Club.  Ruth Fitzgerald
resigned as President.  Jeanie Fisher is now President.  They plan to have a
booth on Sunday, May 20th, at the Yolo County Historical Society Annual
Celebration on the theme, "Make an Ass of Yourself."  This is the annual
affair held in May at the Gibson House on Gibson Avenue in Woodland.  As for
the Young Dems, they are trying to invigorate the club and get together and
going for the year (Rich Peterson will send in a report next month on the
club's activities).  Lyle reported for the Yolo County Blue Action
Democratic Club that they will be having a general meeting on May 15th.
Steve Ybarra will be the keynote speaker at the May 15th event which will be
held at the Davis Odd Fellows Lodge.  On the 19th of May there will be a
meeting centered on training for phone banking and precinct walking to get
ready for the upcoming issues in November.  

President's Report
President Arun Sen reported that he is trying to get each member of the
board to volunteer as a designated chair of a standing committee.  The
President wanted to acknowledge Bill Ritter and Carl Schmid for stepping up
and volunteering to chair two committees.  He is hoping for more volunteers.   

YCDCC
There was very little to report given the State Convention and no meeting
this last month.  The next meeting will be on June 4 in West Sac.  This is
the day before our next board meeting.

Other Clubs
It was reported that the West Sac club in in limbo right now.  Lyle stated
that they need help in jump starting that clubs activities for this year.
The same statement was made for the Winters Democratic Club.  

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA CLUB DATABASE PROJECT
Judy Reynolds gave a report on this project.  She is working to get the
Northern California Clubs on a list serve to communicate with each other.
Claude Garrod, former President of the Davis Democratic Club during the late
1960's, has volunteered his programming skills to put together the list
serve.  Representatives from the various NorCal Clubs will be able to post
to the list to inform the other clubs of their activities, so the clubs can
support each other with participants.  Claude stated that there will be a
web interface to all of this, with a username and password.  

MOTION
Bob Bockwinkel made a motion that the club sanctioning the project to move
forward.  An amendment was made to the motion about asking the project to
write a statement for posting on the site about abuses of the system.  This
would be some user compliance agreement that all users would have to abide
by to be part of the network.  No vote was taken, but it was generally
agreed that the project would continue.

Judy Reynolds said that she would come back next month to report on their
progress.

TREASURERS REPORT
Betty Weir was present and made the following report.  At the beginning of
April the club had $2902.79 in the bank.

For the month of April, the following was the state of our treasury:
April 1 Balance: $2,902.74

INCOME
Dues        $1,869.00
Donations      100.00
Potluck income 100.00
TOTAL INCOME $4771.79

EXPENSES        
Postmaster     160.00
Newsletter      84.28          
Navin's        332.23
Flowers         52.80
Kinko's         24.97
May Rosell      19.67 
TOTAL EXPENSE  674.81

April 1 Balance: $4096.98

We have 130 paid members at this time.

DETAILS
The flowers were for Rick Gonzales, approved by the board last month.  The
postmaster and newsletter costs were all for mailings.  

BUDGET COMMITTEE
This report was given by Chair Bill Ritter.  The committee met with Betty
Weir and they assertained that there are $4500 in annual expenses in
non-election years.  We need to focus on fundraising and membership renewal.
On our lists we have about 300 members.  Because of Patrons, Sponsors, and
Donors, we get $3500 at that level (50 members) and $3750 at the regular
membership level (250 members) of $15/year.  There is also newsletter ad
income, which averages $800/year.

Because of the elections and election headquarters, we need to build up the
treasury over a 2 year period.  We can do this by inviting people to club
events and collecting donations or we can do a membership drive to collect
dues.  Where we will focus our energy will be reported at next month's
meeting.    

One suggestion is to have a long range calendar of events in the newsletter.
It was discussed as to how difficult a task this is.  (There is a calendar
on the web site with all of the annual events with TBAs inserted for time
and date, because there are events that float, because they are held at the
homes of club members.  There was discussion that an efficient way to deal
with this is to have the events at public venues like the library, IOOF hall
and veterans memorial.  It was argued that to not have these events at these
homes diminishes the participation of club members that want to host these
annual events and that many club members look forward to these events at
these club member homes.)

SCHEDULING COMMITTEE
Claire Black-Slotton was at the meeting and a discussion followed about the
long range calendar. 

RESOLVED
What was resolved was that we will have the DDC Board Meetings on the first
Tuesday of each month.  We will have the club general meetings on the 4th
Thursday of each month, when we can get a venue on that date.  

It was discussed that the first Tuesday of November is an election day and
that date, there should not be a board meeting.  The club does schedule an
election day party on those days and therefore we still need to book a room
or location for this event.

February 2008 will feature the club election of officers on the 4th
Thursday.  We will have the Annual Valentine's Day Party on the Tuesday or
Thursday closest to Valentine's Day without it being Valentine's Day
(Februay 12, 2008).  We will be having a general meeting in January.  With
the Valentine's Day Party, the January General Meeting and the December
Holiday Party, this allows members three (3) to pay their dues before the
Election Meeting on February 27th.  The by-laws will be enforced that
members need to have paid their dues at a previous meeting to vote.  Members
cannot come to the meeting and pay dues to vote.  (This was a long standing
issue championed by John Chendo, that the club should not be charging people
dues to vote at the meeting.  This also allows for verification of
membership before the election meeting, which has been a problem in the past.)

PUBLIC OUTREACH COMMITTEE
VICE PRESIDENT'S RESIGNATION
Because the Vice President was listed as the chair of the Public Outreach
Committee, John Chendo took this opportunity to tender his resignation as
Vice President of the Club, because of health reasons, which have hampered
his ability to fulfill the duties of the office.  In preparation for this,
John Chendo has spoken with Jim Provenza to take over his duties as event
speaker coordinator.  He has also spoken with Barry Wilson about helping out
with the club newsletter.  

President Arun Sen accepted the resignation on behalf of the board and
thanked John Chendo for all of the work he has done for the club.  Arun
announced that we need to find another chair or chairs for the Public
Outreach Commitee and Fundraising Committee and we need to nominate and
elect another Vice President.  President Arun Sen stated that the club needs
to seriously consider candidates for this position before we hold
nominations and an election for this position. 

MEMBERSHIP COMMITEE REPORT
Carl Schimd is chair of this committee and started with thanking John Chendo
for bringing him into the Davis Democratic Club Board.  

Carl then went over Bill's Budget report and stated that for a non-election
year, there is more than enough funds if we can get all 300+ members to
renew their membership.  [note that calculations with the current
membership, plus another 166 base members at $15/member is $6750 in
membership dues.]  An idea is for each board member to submit 3 names of
people to have the newsletter mailed to with a request for those people to
join.  A number of board members have done that already.  The same board
members could follow up with a telephone call to the people receiving the
newsletter.  We already have the red dot program.  We need to also divy up
the membership list of people that have not renewed and have the board
members call.  

Carl outlined a 4 point plan:
1.  Encourage new memberships by mailing newsletters to potential members.
2.  Newsletter is the key with a long range calendar of club events
3.  Phone non-renewing members 
4.  Phone registered Dems in board member precincts

There was lengthy discussion on all of this with Carl Schmid, John Chendo,
Joseph C Bleckman, Bob Bockwinkel, and Betty Weir contributing.  

The conclusion was that Betty will get to the board members lists of people
that have not renewed.

NEWSLETTER
Eileen started her session about the newsletter by thanking John Chendo for
bringing her into the board.  She commented that there were 5 articles in
the works from people, one each from Bill, Rich, Lyle, Claire and Jim
Provenza.  She stated that the policy has been original articles published
in the newsletter that apply to the Davis Democratic Club.  She would like
to have a club program every month with an article about the general meeting
program and see a long range calendar in the newsletter.  

Right then, there is a deadline for tomorrow morning for an article in the
May-June newsletter for an article about the Champagne Brunch and the July
4th Booth in the Park.  Mike Syvanen said that he will get something out via
e-mail tomorrow morning.  

Eileen reminded the board that she is moving to Walnut Creek and that she
will not be able to carry on with editing the newsletter.  She stated that
Tanya Chalupa has volunteered to fill in as she can until a more permanent
newsletter editor can be selected.  

GENERAL MEETINGS

GENERAL MEETING --  MAY
The May meeting will be on May 22nd from 6-9PM at the Blanchard Room.

Lyle stated that the meeting would be an activities meeting that would
replicate a campaign headquarters broiler room.  He and Rich Petersen will
be leading the workshop-simulation.  We will be promoting for November
elections, the parcel tax to support the schools, a bond to support the
county libraries, and a possible second parcel tax to keep all the schools
open in Davis.  The meeting will center on training techniques to get people
to the polls and prepare the way for the club to campaign in the Fall.  He
is going to ask people to bring calculators to do calculations important for
campaigns and that the food at this event be PIZZA.  He proposed in addition
to having a potluck, that people that did not have time to pick up or make a
food item be encouraged to bring $5 to go towards ordering pizza and soft
drinks.  

Lyle said that he will take care of the publicity, himeself.  

For the May meeting, suggested potluck items will be:
                A-I  Bring a main dish
                J-R  Bring a salad dish (green, macaroni, or potato or other
                S-Z  Bring a dessert  

JUNE EVENT - Champaigne Brunch
Mike Syvanen state that he has this event in hand.  The event will be held
on Sunday, June 10th.  The Keynote Speaker will be John Garamendi Sr.
Chairs will be coordinated with Stephen Souza by Bill Ritter.  A list was
circulated for board members to sign up for food items to bring to the
event.  Promotion will be through the club newsletter, which will be mailed
out before this event and through the Davis Enterprise.

FOURTH OF JULY BOOTH
Arun Sen stated that the City of Davis still needs our Tax ID number.  Betty
and Arun will take care of this for the application.

It was reminded that having the 4th of July Booth was questioned by Carl
Schmid as to whether or not we should do the booth on 4th of July.  Betty
Weir was present a report at this meeting on the financials of the event.
Last year we net about $130 dollars.  In years that we had the beer
concession, we made $1500.   

It was generally agreed that we would sell both soft drinks and baked goods.  

There was no committee appointed at this meeting, as stated would be done at
the last meeting, but Lyle Smith will coordinate all of the groups that will
be at this event.

[Please note the following:  It was decided at the March meeting that a
committee will futher deal with concerns about signage for the booth and
what information will be distributed at the booth, including party
literature and candidate literature.

At the March meeting, Eileen Lindsay asked if a committee is not formed at
the next meeting (April), if it would not be better for us to put our energy
in tabling at the Davis Farmer's Market.  She went further to even suggest
that we might pick up volunteers at the Davis Farmer's Market for public
events (like tabling and 4th of July booth).  At this point in time we still
do not have a chair for this event.]

ICE CREAM SOCIAL
The club decided that the September 20th date event was too close to the
September 29th date for The Bean Feed.  We called Jerry Kaneko from the
meeting and a date of Thursday, August 23rd was selected.  A start time was
agreed upon as any time after 6PM. [The Kanekos want the event to start no
earlier than 6:30PM.]

BY-LAWS COMMITTEE
Arun stated that he would appoint the by-laws committee.  The chair
appointed by the President is Jim Provenza.  Other members of the committee
are Carl Schmid, G Richard Yamagata, Bob Bockwinkel, and Arun Sen.  Jim
Provenza will call a meeting of the commitee.

ITEMS FOR NEXT MEETING
We will be discussing the selection of a new newsletter editor.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
There is a Casa Fundraiser on the 3rd of June, Sunday at 4PM at the IOOF
Hall on Second Street in Davis.

NEXT BOARD MEETING
The next board meetings will be on June 5 starting at 7PM at the Yolo County
Library in the Blanchard Room and will start at 7PM.  It was previously
decided that we will have a July 3 meeting (first Tuesday), the day before
4th of July in the Park.  The August board meeting will be at the Blanchard
Room on August 7th at 7PM.  

Arun Sen adjourned the meeting at 8:50PM.

These Minutes are respectively submitted,
G Richard Yamagata


G Richard Yamagata  PhD
CEO/President   VME Inc.   http://www.vme.net/

G Richard Yamagata is a member of the Davis Community Network Board of 
Directors, Secretary of the Board of Directors for the Davis Democratic 
Club, President of the board of Virtual Market Enterprises, Inc, 
Secretary-Treasurer of the board of the Davis Progressive Business 
Exchange and communications liason for the Independent Order of 
Oddfellows Chapter 169 and the Business Link of Woodland and Davis.

========================== The Virtual Markets =============================
Visit The Woodland Opera House
at:  http://www.vme.net/opera/
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
Davis Virtual Market - http://virtual-markets.net/vme/
Fresno - http://vme.net/fvm/   Rochester, NY - http://vme.net/rvm/  
Sacramento - http://virtual-markets.com/svm/  Vacaville - http://vme.net/vvm/
Woodland  - http://vme.net/wvm/   
"Pet, Vets, You, and Dr.Sue - http://vme.net/dvm/DrSue/ 

The thoughts expressed are my own and do not reflect the policies or opinions
of DVM, FVM, GVM, RVM, WVM, VVM, VME Inc, DCN, DDC, BLWD, DPBE, or IOOF.




More information about the DavisDemocrats mailing list