It's Ron-a Time!

Let's Do A Little Waste Diversion
Okay, first time at this and only because Ron twisted my arm and insisted I save him from the infamy of being the only blogger of the bunch. A moment to share a weird little idea I tracked down after watching a webcast of the founder of Waste Diversion Canada. Said organization has come up with a peel and stick label you can use to send to our infamous Environment Minister Ron-a all your best packaging nightmares. You know that plastic vault that your electronic toothbrush came in that was the size of a computer? Yup. Slap a sticker on that baby and forward it on to Ron-a. You can download the peel and stick label template (it takes standard shipping labels size 4" x 3 1/3" that you can buy at Staples, a pack of 750 for just over $35). I also recommend you check out www.wastediversion.ca. With the Carp Dump the issue these days....lets do our bit to shake things up!

Meet Elizabeth May

Elizabeth will be travelling the country by train. Leaving from Vancouver on Friday September 1st and arriving in Ottawa on Tuesday September 5th.

See the press release here: http://www.greenparty.ca/page68.html.

Official Council Election Results

Official Green Party of Canada Federal Council election results have been posted.

http://www.greenparty.ca/page266.html

CPAC Coverage of GPC Convention

If you couldn't make the convention and missed it on CPAC you can now download the entire coverage using BitTorrent.

Here is the torrent: http://www.mininova.org/get/409981

Go to Devon's blog for more information.

Garth Turner on Elizabeth May

Garth Turner, Conservative MP, talks about Elizabeth May and the Green Party.

Garth, a small tip, the name is Elizabeth not "Liz". I also suggest you give her a call and talk about what you can do to help.

Appointment to the Ombuds Committee

One of the last things to happen at the convention was the appointment of the Ombuds Committee.

The members are now:

Paula Boutis
Kathleen de Witt (returning member)
Sara Golling (returning member)
David Kay
Ronald Servant

Chris Bradshaw left the committee, he will be missed.

You'll notice that one of the members is in fact me, Ronald Servant.  So I will now be restricting any of my commentary to local EDA matters on this or any other public forum with respect to the GPC.

Convention Day 4

Morning proceedings, a little dry.  Council election results should be coming up soon.

Elections results, I didn't catch them all, but here is what I got:

Alberta: Cameron Wigmore
BC: Ben West
Man Kate Story
NB: Erik Millet
Ont: Lori Gadzala

Members at Large:
Steve Kisby
Amelie Gingras
Angela Reid
Andrea Caulfield
Christopher Ian Bennet
Kate Holloway
Andrea Caufield
Doug Anderson
Becky Smit
Silvaine Zimmerman
Jean-Francois Pinel

Chair:
Melanie Ransom

I am disappointed that my friend and excellent canidate Colin Griffits did not win his race for Chief Agent.  I believe that his lack of an active on-line presence was the big weakness in his campaign.

Update: Here is the complete council list taken from http://www.greenparty.ca/

Party Chair
Melanie Ransom

Administration Chair
Andrea Caufield

Chief Agent
Kathryn Holloway

Communications Chair
Christopher Ian Bennet

Francophone Secretary
Amélie Gingras

Fundraising Chair
Angela Reid

International Secretary
Silvaine Zimmerman

Membership Chair
Steve Kisby

Organizing Chair
Doug Anderson

Party Secretary
Becky Smit

Treasurer
Jean Francois Pinel

Provincial /Territorial Reps

Alberta
Cameron Wigmore

British Columbia
Ben West

Manitoba
Kate Storey

New Brunswick
Erik Millett

Newfoundland and Labrador
Fiona Roe

Nova Scotia
Thomas Trappenberg

Nunavut
William Gawor

NWT
Alexa Pitoulis

Ontario
Lori Gadzala

Prince Edward Island
Jeremy Stiles

Quebec
Almaz Aladas

Saskatchewan
Amber Jones

Yukon
Gregory Heming

Convention Day 3

We start the day with Frank de Jong taking over the chair duties.

Join Fair Vote Canada. Go here to join: http://www.fairvote.ca/. Help all Canadians get the representation they want. 

The GOTV session was a it of a bust, it was combined with election basics.  For us in Carleton-Mississippi Mills we have moved beyond this. We need more sessions like the Trippi conference.

Instead of the GOTV session I attended the new website demo.  I liked what I saw.  It could mean that this blog will be obsolete (or rather simply moved to another location). 

I'm back in the policy plenary now. Very interesting to see how policy actually gets passed.

Convention Day 2 - Opening Ceremonies

Adopting the rules of procedure: 174 ballots cast, 12 spoiled, rules of proceadures 156 - 6 adopted.

Threshold for Bonser Ballot results 1st round 2/3 received fewest dropped, 2nd round 60% option adopted.  60% threshold on votes adopted for this convention.

Discussion ensues re: 75% threshold required for amending the constitution. The main reason of concern appears to be surprise motions to amend the constitution be passed with only 60% of the vote.  This can't happen under either constitution.  Anything affecting the constitution (new or old) needs to be ratified by the membership.

226 bonser ballots submitted. 42 resolution received 60% green support. 0 resolution received 60% red. Therefore 85 resolutions move into the workshops.  ugh... I can't believe that not a single motion got received enough red votes to get tossed... I'm highly disappointed.

Constitutional mail in vote results.. drummmmmmm roooolllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll..............  please !  Oh wait, ombuds commitee report... coming out by e-mail!  should be out there already. Tallied August 24th, 2502, 20 spoiled, 2482 valid balots 2080 yes, 402 no. 83% yes. Revised constitution comes into effect at the close of this convention.

I spent most of the rest of the day in the Constitution resolutions workshop. In there I met Steve Kisby and Paula Boutis, among others. Steve and Paula are both very intelligent, well thought out, and well meaning people.  Both would be great additions to council.

I was on TV!  The evening roled around and the speeches began. I thought Elizabeth was passionate, David showed his family and community roots, and Jim auditioned for Second City.

Constitutional Reversal

I had a chance tonight to meet and talk with Bill Hulet.  He's really great articulate guy. He talked about the proposed new constitution and the process that it went through.  I also re-read it earlier today.

I have to say that I have changed my mind about it.  If I could I would vote to support it.  It takes the party in the right direction.  There are important things in that constitution (like delegate proxies) that need to be brought into the party.

Bill, I'm sorry I didn't vote to support the new constitution.

Opening The Convention

It is 7:30 PM and we're live on CPAC! We're on TV! 

The opening night is billed as a Tribute to Jim Harris.  We are getting a list of speakers.  Frank de Jong opened the night up and is the master of ceremonies.

Adrianne Carr on Jim:  "The best bloody fundraiser I've met in my life."

Steve Kisby was next, he looks a little stiff standing up there, reading his speech. I wonder if he's even read this thing before? This thing just keeps going on...   Steve on Jim: "He had this crazy idea to run 308 candidates."

David Chernushenko on Jim: "le grand fromage", "the ultimate opportunist", "he who cannot be denied".

Derek Pinto and David Kay.  Derek on Jim: "I've got Jim's blackberry right here."

Chris Walker: "I was a serious goof off."

Kim Warnke ran against Stephen Harper: "I got yelled at by strangers." "After you killed yourself for Jim, he presents you with a pin."

Jim Fannon "Are you freakin' crazy?"

Glen Hodgson "The hair probably couldn't of happened anyway." "He even impressed my mother."

Kevin Colton "...the second pin...at some point he must of run out pins, 'cause yesterday I saw him give out an umbrella."

Elizabeth May "I had a pin moment with Jim."

Jim then followed up with a great speech. I hope someone has some you tube action for this.  Let me know.

I Support Elizabeth May

I thought I'd come out of the closet and make it clear that I have voted for Elizabeth May for leadership of the Green Party of Canada. 

Why?  I believe Elizabeth is the right person at the right time. She has energy, is dynamic, has a command of the issues, is bilingual, has the backroom connections, and knows all the right people.  She has the right vision for the future of the party.  She is perfect for the job.

Trippi Day 2

The day was started with presentations from Adrianne Carr leader of he Green Party of BC, and Mark MacGillivary (candidate: Calgary Centre-North).

Adrianne spoke on getting into the leaders debate.  The key points, have a complete, printed platform. Know the content of that platform and be able to answer any questions about the platform in a short succinct way.  Screen your candidates, they may be called upon to be the media face of the party and the only face of the party.  Educate your candidates, ensure they know the platform as well as the leader and can answer any question on that platform.

Mark spoke on outreach.  He counseled us to consider basic human emotions when we are trying to get in touch with people.

This was followed by a questions and answer session for Adrianne and Mark.

The attention switched, the man, Joe Trippi.  We lined up and asked a series of questions, Joe listened and wrote them down and then went into a speech/presentation answering all the questions.

After a short break during Joe's speech, Jim came back and informed us that the greenparty.ca site will ask every Canadian who he should vote for in the leadership race.  He will be announcing this on live TV coverage that will kick off the convention tonight.  So go help Jim and vote here.

"We did it all in the open."  I think this is a key message from Joe.  I think it is how we should operate as a party and as a government.

Joe Trippi stepped out for an interview with CanWest Global.  If anybody finds sees the interview send me a link.

George, the national campaign manager, had a great presentation looking for leaders in this room to step up.

Ughhh... I'm going to pass out... bring on the lunch!... There is a fundrasing guy talking now... I have no idea what his name is... I've completely tuned out... this information looks interesting, but at this point I can only think about lunch.... mmmm lunch... bring on the lunch!

Please... stop... asking... questions!.... lunch, lunch, lunch, lunch!!!

Finally!!! Lunch!.. ok Lunch over, I feel better now. Focus and understanding has returned.

Film recommendations: End of Suburbia by Greg Green a member of the Green Party.

"central vs. de-central pisses me off", Jim Harris.  I totally agree with Jim on this point.  We all need to start co-operating, working together.  This need to change on both sides of the fence, but that can and will happen and you can help.  Be positive, keep communication lines open.  Wait an hour before hitting send.

Trippi Day 1 - postscripts

I didn't have my notes when I posted the last update.  So I thought I'd add a little more detail.

Joe's plane has been delayed an hour due some weather problems.  So the agenda for day 1 was shaken up a bit.  Joe did eventually arrive safely and he was well worth the wait.

A demonstration of an analysis product that we could use in the Green Party was presented.  It took data that we had gathered about our identified base of support.  The tool puts people into 'value groups', I won't go into the detail, because honestly I don't have it all.  Our number 1 value group, however, was identified as "Rejection of Authority".  Makes it kind of tough to organize a political party through the national office when your most numerous supporters are those that reject that very authority. :)

Joe's key message build a community. Build a community not a money grab. When you do ask for money make it for a cause.

It is simple, yet so powerful.  It allowed the Dean campaign to raise sum like $7 million in one week. Once the community is established, it will respond when approached properly.  It will spontaneously organize to solve problems not just raise funds.

In the afternoon Chris Coggan talked about his use of an auto dialer in his provincial by-election. He was able to reach 12,000 people.  The cost was less than  $0.005 per call.  Someone from the floor proposed a possible way to phrase the lead of the message: "This is a paperless flyer from the green party."

I sat down with a small group in a breakout session with Pierre Denis, the director of the GPC head office web team.  He spoke about the new web products that are being released for use over the next couple of months.  There will be a demo at the convention which I am looking forward to it.  I'll report more when I try the demo out.

Trippi Day 1 Report

Joe Trippi is a fantastic speaker. I could easily sit in a room all day and listen to him related all the very entertaining stories from his years campaigning... oh wait I already did that!

I met quite a few greens today that I had only read about or read online. Almost too many to mention.

The highlight for me was at one of the after parties were I joked about tossing someone in the pool on that cool, chilly night and someone else does my dirty work.

Trippi'ng

  

The Green Party of Canada 2006 Convention starts tomorrow evening, but before that there is an event organized by Jim Harris that I will be attending. Jim has brought in Joe Trippi as a headliner for a two day fundraising and strategy workshop. All sorts of interesting Greens should be there and I'm looking forward to meeting them and sharing my ideas, and mostly learning what they've got to teach!

If you happen to find me during the convention say hi and have your picture taken with me and I'll post it up here. That's me in the picture :).

Watch this space for regular updates on the workshops and the convention floor.

Welcome all! Some of us cant sleep in, even on Saturday mornings...

1. Great idea, Ron.

2. Concerned about the US site storage of our posts. My understanding is that the US Patriot Act will apply to whatever Google captures and therefore anything we say may be viewed by the US secret service agencies etc.

3. Prior to the Convention, there is another big event: the Elizabeth May campaign closing BBQ on the 23rd August, 6:30 pm at 3447 Carling Avenue, and 1820's vintage stone house. $20 minimum.

4. Dont forget to vote (and vote for the right people! (dig, dig, nudge, nudge, wink wink!) If you have not sent your ballot in, dont worry! Even if you mail in this week, it will surely arrive before the real deadline of August 24th. And if you are not confident of Canada Post, then find someone like me going to the convention you can trust to deliver the ballot in person.

5. The ballot was confusing for me and others when it referred to "clear stickers" with which to seal each ballot. There are no clear stickers included in the booklet! There are white stickers, found if you look very very carefully and in a strong light on the card in the middle of the booklet. If you did not seal your ballot, dont worry: the IEFC (Internal Elections Fairness Committee) will be looking at whether failure to do so will invalidate the ballot, and I expect them to rule in favour of accepting them.

Welcome

Welcome to the Carleton--Mississippi Mills Federal Green Party Association (CMMGreens) Blog!

Here members of the Green Party in the electoral district of Carleton--Mississippi Mills will post their thoughts and comments on issues of interest.

Our next big event is the Green Party of Canada's National Convention on August 24-27, 2006 being held at the Ottawa Congress Centre.