At our January meeting we will vote on the following:
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2018 Officers for our Club
Our Budget for 2018
Our general calendar of meetings for 2018
Delegates to the California Democratic Council Convention
OFFICERS
As Immediate Past President, it is my responsibility to recruit members to run for the officer positions. Here are the current officer candidates (* indicates incumbent):
Executive Vice President – Mister Phillips *
Treasurer – Greg Lyman *
Vice President of Membership – Champagne Brown
Vice President of Records – Rosa Esquivel
Vice President of Communications – Mollie Hazen *
Vice President of Programs – Paul Fadelli
Our current president, Peter Chau, has agreed to continue as Interim President until we are able to recruit someone else to run.
We are still trying to recruit someone to agree to be Vice President of Publications.
BUDGET
We will have a proposed budget for your consideration by Friday; however, we wanted to give notice that the budget will be voted on at our January 23 meeting.
PROGRAMS
As in the past, once our new officers have been elected, the Vice President of Programs will chair the discussion about our program calendar and topics. However, since 2018 is an election year, there are several meetings that will be focused on endorsements. Here is the tentative schedule for endorsement meetings:
February 27 at Harding School Auditorium – Candidate forum with the 9 candidates running to fill the 15th Assembly District seat currently held by Tony Thurmond. Assemblymember Thurmond is running for State Superintendent of Schools.
March 27 – Consider state wide candidates and ballot measures that will appear on the June primary ballot
July 4 — Club participation in celebration at Cerrito Vista Park.
August – A Saturday meeting at El Cerrito High School for local races (City Council, School Board, regional parks, etc.) Date to be announced.
August – Regular Tuesday meeting to consider ballot measures and propositions that will appear on the November, 2018 ballot
October – annual dinner; speaker to be determined
December – Holiday Party
We will be able to propose program topics for the regular meetings in April, May, June, July and September.
DELEGATES TO THE CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC COUNCIL CONVENTION
The ECDC has been a member of the California Democratic Council (CDC) since its founding in 1952. There’s a good article about it on Wikipedia; you can see it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
For the past few years, the leadership of the CDC has been in disarray, and its activities have been erratic. However, there is a new effort to re-vitalize it, and as an affiliated club, we can participate in the election of new officers to the CDC. That election will take place in San Diego during the California Democratic Party Convention on February 23, 2018. Since we have 198 members we are entitled to 20 delegates. Delegates must be present to vote. We can elect our delegates at our January meeting. Delegates will have to attend the CDP convention in order to participate. Travel and accommodations will be the responsibility of the individual delegates unless our members vote to subsidize these expenses as part of ratifying our club budget.
Several members of our club are also delegates to the CDP Convention, so attending the CDC meeting would not entail additional expense should any of them decide to volunteer to run as CDC delegates.
Voting delegates must supply their email address to the CDC in order to receive election related communications.
Hilary Crosby
Immediate Past President, ECDC