Galloping Greens Newsletter – May 2019 – Green Party of Washington

Volume 2, Issue 3 – May 2019

Welcome to your new Green Party of Washington State bi-monthly newsletter. If you have information to submit for the Newsletter, please send it to GPWANewsletter@gmail.com.

SPRING GATHERING 2019 REPORT

The day started with a warm welcome from Mary Ellen Knoop, our State Coordinating Council Co-Facilitator. Margot Faubion from Green Party of Southwest Washington then reviewed recent updates to the Green Party website and solicited ideas and suggestions for further improvements.

Claude Ginsburg from GP of Seattle gave a presentation and led a discussion regarding work that the Campaign Committee had done with hopes of banding together Greens from around the state to volunteer and support 1 or 2 campaigns in order to better help them get elected in 2019 and 2020.

We watched/listened to 3 different Workshop/Webinars during the day that can all be found at GPUS.org under the Coordinated Campaign Committee (CCC) page: gpus.org/committees/coordinated-campaign/ccc-webinars. The GPUS CCC actually has quite a variety of Webinars available for GP members to view in order to help candidates run their campaigns effectively. Below are the links to the ones that we watched and discussed.

We also shared a “Costco” lunch of sandwiches, salads, chips, veggies and fruit before commencing our business meeting.

Mary Ellen did a quick review of the work done by the State Coordinating Council (SCC) over the past year.

There was a lot of discussion of our one bylaws amendment presented by Claude Ginsburg. Although the proposed amendment did get a majority of votes, 62%; it needed 70% and therefore it did not pass.

We nominated members for the 2019 SCC and National GPUS Delegates and Alternates. If you are a member you should have received your ballot with candidate bios in a separate e-mail. Those ballots need to be returned by May 18, 2019 either on-line or postmarked by that date and mailed.

Jody Grage led the final workshop — Electoral Politics as a Means of Building the Green Party.

Finally, we ended the day discussing Jody’s thoughts on “Volunteer Economy”.

All in all, it was a great day of learning and camaraderie. If you were not able to be there, we missed you and we hope that you can make the next one!

Local Chapter News

Come meet other Greens and find out how you can help promote the presence of Green Values in your community and your local government!

Green Party of Southwest Washington

Contact Margot Faubion to find out more about where and when future meetings will be held. You can email her at Margot@greenpartywashington.org

Snohomish County Green Party

Snohomish County has changed their monthly meeting to a Zoom meeting, usually held on the 1^st Monday of the month. This meeting will be followed by a movie night later in the month. Our May movie will be on Monday, May 20^th at the Everett Public Library, 2702 Hoyt Ave, Everett, WA 98201 from 5:30PM-8PM. We will be showing Fahrenheit 11/9. For more info please contact Kathryn at GPWANewsletter@gmail.com

Green Party of the Mid-Columbia

Their chapter meets usually on the 3^rd Thursday of the month at the Richland Library. Check out their Facebook group at Green Party Friends of the Mid-Columbia to find out more details regarding upcoming meetings.

The Green Party of South Puget Sound

Please contact Noah Martin for information on activities of this local chapter at noahtimmartin@gmail.com. You may also check out their Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/gpsps

Upcoming Events

Snohomish County Green Party Movie Night! Monday, May 20^th Everett Public Library, 2702 Hoyt Ave, Everett, WA from 5:30 PM-8PM.

Get to know your Olympic Peninsula Green Party! Thursday May 30th, 5:45 PM – 7:45 PM at the FinnRiver Farm & Cidery, 124 Center Rd, Chimacum. Food and drink available. Come early to order refreshments and pizza! For more info: Jody Grage, GPWA Chapter Coordinator – jody@greenpartywashington.org

Meet the Green Party of Kittitas County! Thursday June 6th, 6:30-8:30 PM at The 1891 Bistro, 807 N Walnut St on the Central Washington campus in Ellensburg. For more info: Sarah Syverson – SarahSyverson413@gmail.com

GPWA VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

GPWA IS LOOKING FOR A FEW VOLUNTEERS FOR 2019 TO HELP MOVE US INTO THE 2020 ELECTION CYCLE IN A STRONGER POSITION WITHIN OUR STATE AND TO HELP GREEN CANDIDATES WIN SOME POTENTIAL OFFICES.

Campaign Committee – Research Coordinator

The GPWA Campaign Committee is looking for a Research Coordinator!

The 2019 and 2020 election seasons are upon us and the Campaign Committee is preparing to make good use of them – despite massive efforts of the corporate parties and the media to get in our way.

Our goal is to have a Research Coordinator develop a system that can be passed onto volunteers at the local level and who can then become a resource for each local in evaluating potential green opportunities for local candidates.

If you are interested in being the GPWA Campaign Committee Research Coordinator or working with a Campaign Research working group, please contact Jody Grage at jody@greenpartywashington.org.

GPWA Volunteer Coordinator

GPWA is looking for a Volunteer Coordinator!

Our biggest asset is our people! There is much Green Party work to be done here in Washington state! We have supporters who are able and willing to work, but we need a Volunteer Coordinator to get them connected, directed and organized!

The Volunteer Coordinator will:

Develop with GPWA committees and working groups goals and objectives for their group of volunteers
Educate people in the GPWA database of the needs and opportunities to serve in the Green Party of Washington
assist the committees and work groups in finding the human resources to help them be successful
Encourage member use of the volunteer form and using information obtained from that to coordinate with volunteer members to connect them with committees and work groups in their areas of interest and skills.

If you are interested in further defining and clarifying the role of a GPWA Volunteer Coordinator or working on a Volunteer Committee, please contact Jody Grage at jody@greenpartywashington.org.

GPWA WEBSITE UPDATE!

We are continuing to update the GPWA website. Members may now renew their memberships and choose to pay their dues annually or make a monthly donation to GPWA. You can see the new changes here: https://www.gp-wa.org/membership_gpwa.

And we now have a “members” page for info pertinent to our members. From there we also have a link to our local chapters. From this link you can view your chapter’s page and join or renew your membership to your chapter. This will make it much easier for local chapters to maintain memberships without having to deal with a lot of paperwork. Currently we have a Snohomish County Chapter page and are looking to add pages for the other local chapters soon.

The media content committee is also working on updating our Website to be more current and user friendly. If you’d like help with this project and be a part of the media content committee you can e-mail Margot Faubion at Margot@greenpartywashington.org.

OUR NEWSLETTER NEEDS A NAME!

Please send any recommendations for a name for our bi-Monthly Newsletter to GPWANewsletter@gmail.com and we’ll have the SCC choose the best suggestion!

GPUS VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

There are many committees of GPUS that need people to help them to achieve their goals. Members don’t have to be an elected delegate to the National Committee to serve on many of these committees. You can go to gpus.org/committees to find out more about all these and see where you might be able to lend your talents.

Green Party of WA State Coordinating Council

Elected Members:

Mary Ellen Knoop – Co-facilitator, GP Tahoma (Pierce County)

Kathryn Lewandowsky – Co-facilitator, GP Snohomish County

Scott Thompson – Treasurer, GP Whatcom County

Lisa Canar – Deputy Treasurer, GP Seattle

Jody Grage – Member at Large, GP Seattle

Charles Law – Member at Large, GP Olympic Peninsula

Richard Redick – Member at Large, GP Mid-Columbia

Local Chapter Reps:

Margot Faubion – GP SWWA

Noah Martin – GP South Puget Sound

Liam Turnmire – GP Spokane County

Don’t see your chapter represented? Give us a holler. Our goal is to have an elected representative from each local on the State Coordinating Council! We have a conference call at 7 PM on the 1^st and 3^rd Sunday of each month.

Contact Us

https://greenpartywashington.org

hello@greenpartywashington.org

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/GreenPartyWA

Green Party of Washington State: Grassroots Organizing & Discussion Group

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/GreenPartyWA

The End!

But wait! No, it’s not! There’s plenty of room for more!

Send in your pictures, stories and ideas to Kathryn at GPWANewsletter@gmail.com.

We hope to publish this newsletter every other month on the odd months