Board Meeting Minutes
Davis Democrat Club Meeting August 2nd, 2004
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This meeting was held at the Davis Campaign Headquarters, at the corner of 5th and L Street. Present (14 members total) were: President: Tony Gruska, Vice President: Kingsley Melton Treasurer: Betty Weir Recording Secretary: G Richard Yamagata Past President: Stephen Souza, not able to make meetings at this time. Newsletter Editor: Dan Kehew Board members: Mary Lou Hernandez, Julia Sanchez, Bob Bockwinkel, John Chendo, Lyle Smith, Mike Syvanen, Pam Neiberg, Scott Lay, Jim Pollack, Susan Peter-Thompson, and Rhonda Gruska. Adrienne Kandel and Joyce Wilson came late to the meeting because they were not informed of the change in time, as did Jerry Kaneko to discuss planning of the ice cream social. Absent from Meeting: Representatives from other organizations were not present, including the UCDavis Young Democrats and the Woodland Democrat Club. Arun Sen, Max Rothe , and Jerry Lester were also not in attendance. Guests: There were two guests at this meeting that came . Total number of people at this meeting was 22. Tony called the meeting to order at 7:01 PM. AGENDA: A proposed addition was made by Betty Weir to the agenda to discuss “Beat Bush.” Mike Syvanen seconded the addition. The agenda was moved forward by Kingsley Melton and seconded by Bob Bockwinkel. The agenda passed unaminously. MINUTES OF PAST MEETINGS: The minutes from the June Meeting minutes were moved with a single change, the correction of the spelling of Arun Sen. They were moved approval at this meeting by Mike Syvanen and seconded by Bob Bockwinkel. The July minutes will be presented at the September meeting for approval. The draft of the August minutes will be available at the web site or distributed at the meeting in September. OTHER MINUTES The Woodland Democrats were not at this meeting, even though a representative from the group is on the e-mail list. The UCD Campus Democrats are not expected to make an appearance until November. No Action was required nor taken on either subject. TREASUERER'S REPORT It was announced that $8,126.40 was in the club’s checking account and $4,168.55 in certificates of deposit. We have a total of $12,394.95. Betty stated that we need to remember to pull the remainder money out of the CD on August 19th. She also stated that we need lots more money to come in before November. Other donations this month to the club totaled $150. NEW MEMBERS No new members were added to the board this month. It was stated that the Davis Democrat Club by-laws that there is a two meeting requirement before people are added to the Board. ICE CREAM SOCIAL Kingsley Melton is the board member in charge of organizing for this event. The date for this event is Thursday, August 6th from 7 to 8:30 PM. A sign-up sheet was passed around for tasks for this event. One of the tasks is to get someone to coordinate and mail out invitations to new people, people not on the Davis Democrat Club list. This person would collect mailing lists from the Davis Democrat Club, the Yolo Beat Bush and Emily’s List and get rid of duplicate entries and distill it down to a single list. The event will start at 7PM. People with the set-up committee will appear at 6:30 PM. Betty and Mary Lou will work the front table. Other tasks are 3 to 4 ice cream servers and items are ice cream scoopers, napkins, bowls, spoons, etc. The last task will be clean-up. The person in charge of the Soap Box will be Jerry Kaneko. It was stated that Jerry Kaneko wants this event to not only be a club event, but for members of the public that do not normally come to Davis Democrat Club functions. He wants this to be thought of as a push for new club memberships. Under this scenario, called Scenario A, there would be a suggested donation of $5 at the door or $15 paid membership in the club. Club members would get into the event, free. This would be if the ice cream was donated by people, for there would then be no overhead for this event. The people would bring whatever they want. Kingsley made the provision that no smaller than quart sized containers of ice cream. Bob Bockwinkel volunteered to get the list from the Yolo Beat Bush headquarters. Teresa Kaneko will provide “Emily’s List.” Betty will provide the club list. A coordinator is needed to combine the lists and mail out invitations to the resulting, combined list. The invitations would be very simple and a very basic font. The suggestion was a single sheet of paper, folded over and sealed. Scenario B would be where the club pays for everything, namely the ice cream and will provide only 3 flavors: Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry. The event would then be a required $5 at the door to get into the event. There was a substitute “scenario,” where it would be $5 suggested donation for people that are the public or members of the Democrat Club. There is no payment requirement only donations. This was moved by Bob Bockwinkel and seconded by Jim Pollack. The motion carried unaminously. The toppings and cookies and other condiments would be overseen by Mary Lou. Any board member that wants condiments on their ice cream, should bring that item. The publicity for this event will be two fold. Kingsley will send out the press release. Barbara Slemmons will set up the picture to accompany the press release. It was suggested that Jerry Kaneko and possible guests of honor, like Mike Machado be in the picture. FALL BARBEQUE The location has not been set for this event. The main problem for this event is that it is in competition with so many other events. There are fundraisers by Lois Wolk and Mike Machado scheduled for September-October. Dave Rosenberg plans to have his Oktoberfest and there is also the Yolo County Bean Feed. Rhonda Gruska spoke with Stephen Souza and with all of these events, it was suggested that we cancel the event as was done last year. It was stated by Betty Weir and Richard Yamagata that the club barbeque made over $500, the last time it was held in 2002. Two suggestions were made. The first was to make it a precinct work event. The second suggestion was to make it a “Dave Costello event or Davis for Dave Costello. It was suggest that we center this event as one for the club and the precinct workers. We would set-up the barbeque grills in the parking lot and invite the campaign workers to come down for a meal. We would also purchase some items from the Taqueria and the Pizza Guys to keep peace with them, so they will not complain. People interested in being part of this event and the subcommittee should meet at 8PM after the meeting. BEAN FEED It was again stated that Lois’ Luau was on an adjacent date. October 1st is Lois’ Luau. October 2nd is the Bean Feed date. The Bean Feed will be held at the Veteran’s Memorial Hall on 14th Street in Davis. Once again it was stated that legal constraints are such that only checks from individuals, not from corporations be given to the group. The price for admission is $25/person. Sponsorships at this time are being planned for individuals and pricing has not been established. In past years, it has been $100, $250 and $300 sponsorships for individuals and corporations. Again, it was stressed by Scott Lay that sponsorships will be taken from individuals only, not corporations. There will be three separate committees at this event. There will be a program committee, a food committee and an raffle/auction committee. If you would like to be part of the planning for this event, the August Yolo County Central Committee meeting will be on the 23rd at The Next Chapter in Woodland. BEAT BUSH 2004 Lyle Smith reported that there are over 400 people volunteering for work at or through the headquarters. He stated that is it time for people in leadership to belly up for the Democrat Party. For Mike Machado, there will be a training session at 9AM and will probably take about 2 hours. Right now in Davis, 70% of the voters have been contacted at least twice. That number needs to be upped to 80%. The Reno program to reach out to that community, there were problems. Low attendance for this event was cited and there were problems with getting people out to designated precincts. There are solutions in the works. In Winters, there is a group of Democrats that meet on Wednesdays to view movies. The group is moving this weekly event to Saturdays. Lyle says that we now have the volunteers; we now need to double the number of phones, increase the precinct walking and increase the tabling events. We also need to have more fundraising parties. We can put together events like this with only a few days notice. Rhonda Gruska suggested that we have a “Pass the Boot” campaign to “Give Bush the Boot,” using a cowboy boot. Lyle agreed that this was a great idea. Lyle announced that he has been hired by a group that has a state proposition on the ballot. He announced that with this job, he will be handing the reins to two other people, Joe and Linda Schwartz. Lyle stated again that some people will be having a shadow convention during the Republican National Convention. More information on this will be forthcoming. There will also be a Veterans for Kerry event. It was reported by Lyle that Move-on was going to have a rally at the headquarter on September 11 for Fahrenheit 9/11. The event is scheduled for 7 to 8:30 PM. NEWSLETTER Dan Kehew, the newsletter editor gave his report. The newsletter is 8 pages this month and will come out in about a week and a half. He stated that the format is a tabloid format. The newsletter will follow the July issue’s format and will have all the board members, club donors and sponsors and officers listed. It will also have all of the advertisements in it for the people that are up to date in their payments. This month’s issue will feature articles about Lois Wolk, her ledger publication and her mobile 8th Assembley headquarters van. The newsletter will also contain Yolo Beat Bush updates, Kerry-Edwards updates and list links to the Kerry-Edwards web site, so people can be armed with facts. The last article will be about places to donate mone, like the Democrat legal fund, Tom Daschel, Move On, the Davis Democrat Club and the County Central Committee. It was stated that Mike Machado will have recurring content for fundraising in the newsletter. It was reported that the newsletter coverage has produced donations to the Mike Machado campaign. Also in the works is a question and answer piece where Helen Thompson will ask question of Mike Machado. This is a friendly event and piece. Dan also plans an article about Mike Thompson and Dave Costillo. Davis Costillo is running against Dan Lungren and needs support in that Republican district. The current US Representative is Doug Ose. Other events covered in the newsletter are the ice cream social at Jerry Kaneko’s, the coffee on August 24th and the Barbara Boxer event on the 14th of August. At the bottom of the calendar will list people and their contact phone numbers with e-mail addresses. YOLO COUNTY FAIR BOOTH The time slots for volunteers is being coordinated by Katie Villegas. She is in charge and needs help. Her phone number is 916-375-1132 or katievillegas@charter.ent Contact her if you wish to volunteer for a time slot or to help her. The days that the fair booth will be open will be from August 18th through August 22nd from noon until 10 PM. OTHER EVENTS Another event will be a fundraiser next week, sponsored by Barbara Slemmons, Betty Weir and John Chendo. NEW BUSINESS AGENDA ITEM introduced by Betty Weir. It is Betty’s concern that the Yolo County Beat Bush 2004 is burying the Davis Democrat Club. The club is paying for the rent and the phone bill. Betty stated that if it was not for the Davis Democrat Club, Beat Bush would not even have a place to hang at hat. What Betty is asking for is that credit be given to the club. She stated that we need to be careful about giving the club equal representation. Scott Lay replied to these statements that we need to drop our differences and come together to Beat Bush. Beat Bush was created for two reasons. One was to comply with the new campaign finance laws. Two was to bring in the people that wanted another Democrat candidate for president, like the Howard Dean supporters. The DNC was placed in a negative position through posturing over the are in Iraq. There has to be some recognition that 93% of the delegates slated to attend the DNC convention at one point or another supported the war in Iraq. It is the majority view of these people that we now need to get the troops home. To do that, we need to first “Beat Bush.” Scott went on to say that once the DNC convention has taken place, that there is talk about changing the name of the organization. But, we need a name that recognizes that we need to bring all the people into the fold that want the current administration out of office. The last fundraiser held at Cantina del Cabo was surprising, because there were 200 people there that he did not know, that turned out to “Beat Bush.” The problem is that we have brought people into the campaign through these fundraiser events, but we have not been able to harness them into a volunteer labor force, even at the local level. This is not happening. The leadership needs to learn how to train the people and harness this energy. Scott Lay went further to say that we will have a banner for the Davis Democrat Club made to be hung in the headquarters. Scott Lay said that he will donate $125 for the banner to be made. Bob Bockwinkel made the motion that the club accept the donation from Scott and that the club will cover any additional fees over the $125 to have this done. Dan Kehew seconded the motion. NEXT CLUB MEETING It was suggested to have the meeting on September 6th at 7 PM, as long as there were not other events scheduled at the headquarters. In the case of a headquarters event, the meeting would be pushed back to 8 PM. The meeting was moved to adjourn at 8:04 PM by Rhonda Gruska and seconded by Bob Bockwinkel. The motion passed unaminously. These minutes are respectfully submitted by:
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