March 2007 Local Meeting
From SP Boston
The Socialist Party of Boston met at noon on Sunday, 25 March 2007 in the Lucy Parsons Center. We the April 19 March for Jobs and CORI Reform and the Spring regional meeting (full minutes below).
[edit] Agenda
- Introductions and agenda approval
- Reports on recent events
- Take care of any remaining issues related to planning the New England Regional meeting on April 21.
- Action or workshop afterwards -- who, where, how?
- Future events and actions
- The Student Labor week of action, 3/28-4/4.
- The Boston Workers' Alliance's March for Jobs and CORI Reform on 19 April.
- Fair Food Actions, especially the CIW's mobilization in Chicago in April and our response to it here in Boston.
- May Day 2007.
- Consider organizing additional campaigns such as counter-recruitment work, more regular fair food actions, or restarting the Democracy Commission.
[edit] Minutes
- Introductions and agenda approval
- The meeting was attended by Matt A., Norah K., Billie M., and David S.
- Reports on recent events
- We discussed the day of action against the war on the Common the previous day (March 24), which we felt went well in all aspects. Some 5,000 turned out, making it the largest demonstration since the start of the war. The cooperation among diverse groups with a common goal of ending the war in Iraq and bringing the troops home now was another positive feature.
- We made some money at the demonstration and at the fundraiser a couple of weeks before, leaving us with enough to set up a bank account without having to pay any fees.
- Regional meeting planning
- David reported that a room in the AFSC building has been reserved for the regional meeting on 21 April. AFSC requested a donation of $25-50, which he will take to them on the 20th when he picks up the key.
- Matt agreed to contact locals about submitting written reports and compiling them into a meeting booklet.
- The main unplanned feature of the day is the public event to follow it. Matt has contacted Marc Rodriguez about getting a speaker from the CIW or SFA, and David agreed to look into getting space at Harvard or in Harvard Square around 3-4 pm.
- More outreach needs to be done to get in touch with those throughout New England and encourage them to attend.
- Norah brought up the issue of food; David will make sure to get bagels, coffee and orange juice in the morning while Matt will look into donations for the event in the afternoon.
- Future events and actions
- We agreed to endorse the Boston Workers Alliance's April 19 March for Jobs and CORI reform and discussed what contributions we could make to organizing it. David returned the organizational resources survey to Aaron Tanaka at the BWA.
- May Day -- Gran Paro Americano II. Everybody had heard that something will be happening, but nobody knew of any specific details. We agreed to stay on the lookout and pass along any information as it came in.
- Matt mentioned that Jamaica Plain has an annual May Day festival that we should look into getting involved with.
- Matt announced an IWW Spanish class for radicals, which meets Mondays at 4:30 in the Jamaica Plain library (12 Sedgwick Street).
- David alerted the meeting to a possible hotel workers strike that could begin as early as April 1. Matt mentioned that he had been contacted by a comrade who might need solidarity support, and proposed that we think about organizing a rapid-response team to help out with things like that.
- We began planning for a series of summer seminars on socialism, similar to those organized by Matt a few years ago. He will see if he can find his old plans.