Board Meeting Minutes

December 9, 2003

This meeting was held at the home of Betty Weir.
Present (8 members total) were:
President: Stephen Souza,
Vice President: Absent
Treasurer: Betty Weir
Recording Secretary: G Richard Yamagata
Past President: Bob Bockwinkel
Board members: Susan Peter-Thompson, Tony Gruska and Mike Syvanen.

Guests: Paul Schramski, representing the Campus Democrats.

Stephen Souza called the meeting to order at 7:17 PM.

MINUTES OF PAST MEETNGS:
The minutes from the November Meeting were approved with changes suggested by Stephen Souza. Most of the changes were already made as suggested by Bob Bockwinkel, who saw the minutes on-line. Bob Bockwinkel moved for approval of the minutes. Susan Peter-Thompson seconded the motion. The motion carried unaminously.

OTHER MINUTES
The minutes from the Woodland Democrat Club were sent to Stephen Souza, who reported on the highlights from those minutes. No Action was required nor taken on these minutes.

TREASUERER'S REPORT
The club has $3010 in the checking account and $7000 in a reserve CD. A total of $996 was taken in at the Holiday party event. This included $177 from the holiday raffle, $405 in cash taken in at the door, and $220 from checks. The club has over $10,000 in its treasury.

MEMBERSHIP
Betty announced that the club picked up two new members. Betty reported that we had new and renewed memberships paid at the club meeting.

HOLIDAY PARTY -- RECAP
This was reported as a success. Raffle items donated by Stephen Souza were a pearl necklace, a garnet necklace, and two gift baskets that were constructed with Robin Souza. The Davis Trophy Shop donated an item to the raffle. Bob Bockwinkel and Richard Yamagata both donated 2 boxes of See’s Candy (Total of 4 Boxes) to the raffle. Mary Lou also made some nice gift baskets.

The extra food platter was not needed at the party because the Lester’s brought additional food, along with sandwiches made by Mary Lou.

The following people made good on their commitment to bring food items:
Bob Bockwinkel Cheese Cake
Mike Syvanen Roast Beef (roast baked with cloves of garlic)
Richard Yamagata Pot Stickers (4 baker's dozen)
Barbara Slemmons Cheese and Cracker plate
Stephen Souza Beer and soda
Betty Weir Boiled Shrimp and Cocktail Sauce
Adrienne Candell Will bring something (Chef's choice)


Betty suggested that in the future we only have white wine at this event. There was a spillage of red wine on the white carpet that caused some concern. It was generally agreed that this was a good idea for the future.. Susan commented that plastic forks were needed to be placed out at the event. The club did have these on hand at the site, but no one put them out on the table for people to use.

NEWSLETTER
It was noted that the club will put campaign and business ads in for $100 in its campaign newsprint editions. For the regular 8.5 by 11 inch newsletters, the cost is $25/issue.

It was noted that in the race for Yolo County Central Committee, there are 7 people running for 5 seats in the second district. It probably would behoove some of these people to take out an add in the newsletter. The newsletter should also state that in the contested election in the second district that the members have to turn out to vote to choose their representative. Stephen said that he will talk to the newsletter editor about this and other suggestins that were brought up at the November meeting.

A Recap Follows from November --->
Newsletter content that was suggested to the editor via Adrienne were the following:
· Statement or article from our new supervisor, Mariko
· Article on the State filibuster by Scott Lay
· Letter to the editor about cell phones by Adrienne

The format of the newsletter was discussed and the costs involved in mailing the various formats. It was suggested that the club collect money from the various candidates running for city council for ads in the newsletter.

It was stated that the web site address should be put in the masthead or sidebar of the newsletter that contains the Board officers and PO Box address for the club. The address for the web site is: http://www.yvm.net/vme/democrats/ The web site currently gets traffic over 3300 hits/month. (Traffic was 4200 in October)

It was announced again that the newsletter should announce that there will be Board elections in January or February. The offices are:
President
Vice President
Treasurer
Recording Secretary

We still have to fill out the slate for submission of the names to club. The club has names of people that volunteered and came in during the anti-Recall effort. We could pull people from that list to try to fill these positions.
<--- End of Recap

NEW BUSINESS

ANNUAL CLUB MEETING
The annual Davis Democrat Club meeting is slated to be held in February, about the third or fourth week of the month. It was suggested that we invite Democrats that are running for this office. If we do not host a forum, at least the candidates can bring their literature to hand out at the meetings.

As a side note, Bob and Stephen talked about the Move-On.Org event and that there are 2 million e-mail addresses with 2,500 parties in homes across America. They also discussed the ad contest and the lawsuit by the Republicans against those ads. I was discussed that a link exchange between the Davis Democrat Club web site and Move-on.Org should be arranged. There were no objections to this. (This has not been done nor completed at this time.)

It was noted and agreed by all present that the club will coalesce and will support whoever is chosen as the party’s nominee for President of the United State.

Getting back on track with the meeting, it was generally agreed that Stephen Souza would be the master of ceremonies at the annual club meeting until the new president is elected. It was noted that Angelides will be coming to Davis to speak and that the club meeting date should not conflict with that event.

The slate that was nominated at this meeting was:
Treasurer -- Betty Weir
Recording Secretary -- G Richard Yamagata
President -- Tony Gruska
Vice President -- Mike Syvanen

The motion to approve this slate was made by Stephen Souza. The motion was seconded by Susan and the motion passed with no opposition.

COMIC BOOK
Bob Bockwinkel would like the club to distribute a cartoon or comic book that editorializes President George W Bush. The club would put up a couple of pages at the web site with an order form. Mike Syvanen said that he would have to see the comic book before he could vote on such an endeavor. It was generally discussed and decided that a disclaimer had to appear on the web pages. This item was put forward for further discussion at a future meeting where a copy of the cartoon book would be presented.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Susan announced that the repeal of the Domestic Partnership Law, AOB 205, will be placed on the November ballot as a referendum. This was done after the conservatives decided that it would not help them to put such an item on the California Presidential Primary ballot.

With no more announcements, the meeting was adjourned at 8:17 PM.

These minutes are respectfully submitted by:

      G Richard Yamagata

This web page is authorized and paid for by the Davis Democratic Club (Copyright © 2003,2004) and
updated by
G.Richard Yamagata. Last updated: January, 2004

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