[WPA]WPA Minutes and edorsements!

Sat, 16 Jul 2005 03:30:16 +0000

<html><div style='background-color:'><DIV class=RTE>Ladies and girls: sorry the minutes got out late--I'm running around a bit more at work. Feel free to add anything if something has been left out. Womens' Political Action Meeting Minutes, July 6, 2005 6:30 pm at Moorhead Public Library Present: Deb White, Mackenzie Taylor, Lysa Rinquist, Amy Jacobsen, Ruth Meberg, Julia Oxenreider, (new member) Jolene Thorne. Absent: Esther Allen, Mary Davies, Kate Olsen, Anita Bender Meeting called to order by facilitator of the evening, Ruth Meberg. Discussion on endorsing the mission&nbsp; statement: Deb White suggested we change the "multi-partisan grass roots organization" to "non-partisan grassroots organization," as we are not specifying that members of our group are from all political parties. The group unanimously agreed to change the phrasing and 
endorsed the statement as such: "A non-partisan grass roots organization, Women's Political Action's mission is to change the face of political power by increasing the numbers of women in elective and appointed offices through identifying, recruiting, and supproting progressive women candidates." Next agenda item: Discuss and finalize core values. The group discussed what introductory statement and purpose the core values will hold. The statement accepted unanimously was" We as members of WPA will afirm and promote:" our eleven core values were edited to: 1) Equal representation of women in all levels of government. 2) Equal access to education. 3) The inherent worth and dignity of all people. 4) Self determination and control over our bodies. 5) Access to affordable hosing, food, healthcare and other necessities that sustain general 
welfare. Agenda item 3: Mackenzie presented and distributed her draft of the WPA structure. Group proposed adding our "core values" to the Membership clause, and small wording issues with a few other sentences to clarify specifics. Mackenzie will present the corrected draft at the next meeting. Agenda 4: Women's Equality Day. Amy Jacobsen, reported that the Women's Network of the Red River Valley woul dbe meeting with the Women's Business Association in town, to discuss partnering on the annual Women's Equality Day on August 28th. Amy will be updating us (she has reserved Gooseberry park for the 28th and has been working with the Women's Business Association. Please see her last e mail for her information). The group discusses using the event as a coming out party for our future female candidates. A suggestion was made that we invite 
our current Moorhead reps, Diane Wray Williams and Nancy Otto, to introduce the women running for school board and city commission this fall. They include: Ward One: Tammy Yak, Chris Thompson, and Alicia Rodriguez. Ward 2: Laurie Winterfield-Shanks. Ward 4: Yoke-Sim Gunaratnee. School Board: Sonia Honadel, Lisa Gallegos, and Karen Dulsky. The group split up names and decided to contact them for availability after Amy has secured a date. Deb will be contacting Chris Thompson and Sonia Hohnadel, Mackenzie will contact Laurie WS and research Karen Dulsky, Lysa will contact Tammy, ALicia, Yoke-Sim, Lisa, Nancy Otto, and Diane. Our next meeting, July 13 at 6:30 at the SOUTH Atomic Coffee (right by the interstate on 8th Street South), will focus on this project. Questions to consider: How do we build our base? Who should we invite to Women's Equality 
Day? How should we invite them? How do we ensure that these are progressive female candidates? Do we want to? Future agenda items: Please bring nominations for Pres, vice pres, sec, and treasurer. We will continue to focus on the Equality Day project and discussion and action on structure. </DIV>
<DIV class=RTE>(Ruth will not be at the next meeting) </DIV></div></html>