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September 9, 1997
Rockbridge Regional Library
Present: Stephanie Porrass, Eli Fishpaw, Eric Sheffield, Daniel Metraux,
Sherry Stanley (note taker).
1. Minutes --- Eric read the minutes and we approved them.
2. Treasurer's report --- Rockbridge Greens have $461.37, but $178 of that
is for the campaign ad we are planning to run in the News-Gazette. The
Greens of Virginia have $23.48, but we have paid for all the costs of the
9,000 copies of the newsletters we had printed.
3. Labor Day --- Eric said he thought our breakfast and parade had gone
well. Eli said that in the future we need to work on our logistics. The
Lexington News-Gazette covered the story although other newspaper and TV
coverage was nonexistent. With more than a dozen people in the parade, we
distributed about 1400 newsletters.
4. Community Festival --- Eric said this went well too. Eli did lots of
campaigning, and we had three candidates in attendance --- Eli, Sherry, and
Daniel. On the same day, Dale Diaz had a fundraiser at a farm in eastern
Rockingham County. She had three different bands playing but very low
attendance and made some money from it but barely enough to justify the
time and money paid for ads.
5. Web site ---- Eli expressed his concern that he has seen no change on
the web site; we are still announcing events that happened five months ago.
Eric said that Charlie has had some problems that prevented him from making
progress on this. He said that at least the platform is there. We asked
that we at a bare minimum delete the outdated material. We made up a list
of prioritized items for Charlie to handle and agreed to look for someone
else to serve as a back-up and possible replacement as our web site
manager. We asked that Charlie delete the old material and add the
candidate contacts, if nothing else.
6. Riegel --- Eric informed us that former professor of journalism at W&L
and member of Rockbridge Greens Tom Riegel died last month at the age of
94. Riegel came to the Greens late in life but his support will be missed
and our condolences go out to his wife Jane and the rest of his family.
7. Congressional election proposal --- Eric made the following proposal:
1. The Rockbridge Greens will nominate a candidate to run for the
6th Congressional seat in the 1998 elections.
2. The preferred candidate will be a woman or minority from one of
the population centers in the district who has a record of community
activism for social justice and/or the environment.
3. We will begin petitioning as soon as the forms are available.
We discussed this proposal. We would need 1500 signatures to get someone on
the ballot. Sherry said that it was essential that we find a candidate who
has the time to run a committed race. She also said it was essential that
the candidate have a willing group of volunteers to campaign. She felt that
she had no energy after three years of campaigning for first Elise, then
Nader, and now herself to put into this and we should wait until after
these elections to make this decision in order to think about possible
candidates and to see if the present campaigns generate some energy. We
agreed to consider this at a later date.
8. Soil and Water Board --- Phil Welch from Buena Vista has agreed to be a
write-in candidate in his district. We nominated him.
9. Campaign bumper stickers --- We have the $200 needed to buy bumper
stickers that could serve for this campaign and for general use. We decided
to order 1000 3" x 11 1/2" bumper stickers saying VOTE GREEN for $200. Eric
will order these in the next week.
10.State meeting --- We reminded everyone of the state meeting to be held
in Staunton at the Staunton Public Library on October 4. We will have a
short business meeting, a guest speaker speaking on the national forest,
and a candidates' workshop.
11.Next meeting --- Our next meeting is October 14, 7pm, Rockbridge
Regional Library.
Rockbridge Greens
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