Just chaired my first precinct convention. IT ROCKED!!!

[VelmaD]

I had SO MUCH FUN. There were only 4 of us there but we had a blast doing the basic work of democracy. (And there were 3 more of us than there were republicans at their precinct convention in the room next door. I felt really bad for their poor precinct chair.) Anyway, I highly endorse the whole precinct convention experience.

I just volunteered to be a precinct chair a couple of weeks ago so I was incredibly nervous. It went fine though. There was a guy there who is a parliamentarian and he was a huge help.

We caucused. We "elected" delegates - which is easy when you have 12 delegates to the county convention and there are only 4 of you. :) We passed 43 resolutions. Yup. 43.

I'm stoked. Ask me anything.

And thany you to everyone who encouraged me to do this. :loveya:

[SOteric]

1. You are the absolute best!

:hug:

[VelmaD]

2. That's funny...

I feel exactly the same way about you. :-)

[GOPisEvil]

3. Democracy is not a spectator sport!

:thumbsup:

[VelmaD]

6. Maybe a contact sport...

at least the way the Texas legislature does it. :-)

Hey...way to go you on attending your precinct convention too.

[leftist_rebel1569]

4. Welcome to the club

congratulations, fellow precinct chairperson! :hi:

[VelmaD]

7. Hee...we should run against each other...

for precinct chair of the Lounge.

I can just see the poll now. Who should be precinct chair of the Lounge?

VelmaD
Leftist_rebel
Robb is a dingbat

*snort*

[leftist_rebel1569]

9. lol

great idea...hmmmm, that's awful tempting to post...:P

[VelmaD]

13. I don't wanta have to...

pull out those pics of you in the genie costume from the Grotto. But I will do what I have to to to win. Bwahahahahaha :evilgrin:

[leftist_rebel1569]

16. OMG!

You are such a dirty campaigner! :P

Of course, I could bribe Short Bus or Dolo Amber so they'll get me the security camera videotapes of the grotto with you in them if you wanna play hardball...;)

[VelmaD]

17. Hey...I'm from Texas...

I learned from watching the best...Lyndon Baines Johnson. :-)

[leftist_rebel1569]

23. That explains it, then...

I don't have any Democratic, Minnesotan dirty campaigners to look up to. It's fairly sad...oh well, I guess i'll just have to be the first :P

[VelmaD]

25. Four words...

Jesse "The Body" Ventura :P

[JohnKleeb]

15. you guys can have me post on it

BTW congrads Velma. My state doesnt caucus like your guys states do and two my nana got sick the day of the VA caucus. If you want me to post a poll I can.

[VelmaD]

28. I don't think I ever got to tell you...

how sorry I was to hear about your nana getting sick. :hug:

Thanks for the offer on the poll but I figure that's just one more popularity contest the Lounge can do without. :-)

[ewagner]

5. Outstanding!!!!

Congrats on your committment. :toast:

43 resolutions? Any to impeach Bush? :evilgrin:

[VelmaD]

8. Thanks

Nope. None on impeaching Bush. But we did pass a resolution against the PATRIOT Act. And 2 on Black Box Voting. And one in favor of medical marijuana. And one calling for a moratorium on the death penatly in Texas. And one calling for Texas to stop executing people who committed their crime while a juvenile. And one supporting Title IX. And one that I wrote against the Iraq war. And and and...you name it we passed a resolution on it.

[KoKo]

10. Congratulations! I'm a Precinct Co-Chair. Just got the job tonight, also

So much good news about our DU'ers today. :toast: To DU for encouraging activism.

[VelmaD]

11. This place ROCKS!!!

I can't tell you how many people here have encouraged me and picked me up when I needed it. It does my heart good to see so many people getting involved, a lot of them for the first time. And it makes me feel evil glee to know that many of my fellow members of the underground are working their way into the cogs of the machine. On eof these days we'll take it over from the inside and they'll never know what hit them. :toast:

[ewagner]

12. By my count

that's at least 3 DUers as precinct chairs or co-chairs........

Pretty soon we're going to be running the party!

Again, congrats to all!

[VelmaD]

14. Yup...one of these days...

we'll reach critical mass in the party hierarchy and BAM - they'll never see it coming. Bwahahahahaha

[KoKo]

18. Starting out at the "grassroots" and making a change, like the repugs did

way back. They should be very afraid. Because they don't know who they are messing with here. These aren't your "old Repug Lite Dems.....these are internet-savy fighters. One has to be, to stay alive on DU! :D

[KoKo]

21. Thanks, and I hope other DU'ers who still have a chance will get out

there and get involved this way. It's really easier than you would think! We had to scrape around to get a Quorum my area is so heavily Repug. They need us, but they won't come knocking on your door. That's why those "meet ups" were important for some of us. It gave us a contact and a link to meet other folks who could give us the information to know how to get involved at the Precinct level.

[NoPasaran]

19. Congratulations!

My precinct convention had TEN people!

We didn't actually count up the resolutions, we just voted to have them all taken up at the county convention.

[VelmaD]

22. We did pretty much the same thing

We passed all the one's I ot in my precinct chair packet in one swoop. Then we had 4 from the people who attended and we did those seperately.

GO YOU! for attending your precinct convention. :-)

[NoPasaran]

26. All in all I had a pretty full day

I volunteered for Nancy Hohengarten at a precinct near Capitol Plaza this morning. Then I came back home, voted, emailed and called around the voting machine problem and took part in a flamewar in GD2004. Then I went back out to my precinct to wave a sign for my Main Man HoHo. Then the convention experience. Well, now, I'm tired, but it's a good kind of tired.

[VelmaD]

29. Earlier tonight a good friends told me this...

and I think it goes for you too. That once you amp down you will sleep better than you have in week...the "Sleep of the Righteous". I think you've earned it today. :-)

[silverlib]

20. You are such an inspiration!

I went to my neighborhood garage precinct meeting and am now secretary of the precinct. There were eight of us in that garage and we passed many resolutions, too. I think I am secretary of the smallest precinct in Austin - you know - the one without any public buildings. I am also a delegate (we had only 5.5 - I guess the alternate serves as 1/2 of a delegate). I think we had eight simply because of the anger of the garage thing. It stimulated interest in this very small area. No Republicans showed for their precinct meeting, so I may be in the most Democratic precinct, as well. It would have been rather crowded in that garage if there were two meeting going on at the same time.

Thanks for you inspiration and hard work.

[VelmaD]

24. GO YOU!!!

Sounds like y'all had fun. THe garage thing still sounds so weird. But congrats on being elected secretary. :toast:

[carpetbagger]

27. Clark gets 100% in the precinct convention I chaired!

My wife and I were the caucus, out of 2729 registered voters.

I voted for Kerry in the primary, and we will likely switch to Kerry in the district or state convention, but for now, Clark got every delegate.

[VelmaD]

30. Good on ya!

Nice to have another precinct chair chime in. I really am starting to think we're taking over the party one precinct at a time. :evilgrin:

My precinct was kinda out of whack too. Out of 4 people we had 2 for Kerry, 1 for Kucinich, and 1 uncommitted.

[WatchWhatISay]

31. One more new precinct chair here also

Though I didn't win any election, I was the only one to file for it back in January.

But I wasnt't able to go to my precinct convention tonight because I was the election judge for 3 combined precincts near my own. And here is the great part. In 2002 I was election judge for 1 precinct, couldn't find any clerks to help me, and did the job all by myself (6:15 am to approx. 10 pm by the time you drop you boxes off at election central). During the whole day all I saw were 6 voters. Today I had 2 clerks to help me (we had a good time getting to know each other) and we had EIGHTY-SEVEN voters. Even though every candidate on the ballot was running uncontested with the exception of the Presidential primary which, of course, has already been decided. And several other Dems let us know that they usually vote in our primary but were voting this time in the Republican primary because there is an attempt by the Religious Right (called the RLC here) to take over the Republican party, which normally gets about 75-80% of the vote. So there was really very little incentive to vote in our primary and good reason to vote in theirs. And most Dems knew that, but they just wanted to be on record as Dems. Several people who told me they had decided it was time the get active, where they never have been before.

Congratulation to all of you who won your precinct election. Who knows, the way things are going I may have to run myself, next time.

[VelmaD]

33. Same here

I was stuffing envelopes for the ACLU on Black Box Voting. We were sending them to all the precinct chairs in the county. So I thought...I should find out who my precinct chair is and see if I can volunteer to help out. Found out I didn't have a precinct chair. Called county Dem headquarters and volunteered about 2 or 3 weeks ago. :-)

Good for you for volunteering too. :toast:

[populistmom]

32. Awesome, Velma!

:yourock:

[VelmaD]

34. Thank you ma'am

:-)

[VelmaD]

35. I just want to say thank you...

to everyone who responded on this thread, especially those of you who went to your precinct conventions or who worked the polls today or who signed up to be a precinct chair or who worked for a candidate. I feel this amazing feeling right now because of all of you. I feel, in a more concrete way, like I have comrades at my shoulder in this fight. Thank you all. :grouphug:

[Lisa]

36. Way to go, Velma!

I've seen this up in Canada too -- a political party seems large and abstract, but in reality the local chapters (or at least the executive and long-term members) are often a handful of overworked people. If a couple of new members ... heck, even ONE person -- shows up and offers to do some work, they are absolutely thrilled! I ducked out for a bathroom break and they elected me Secretary. Anybody who is uncertain -- grab a friend and go to a meeting. If we can make Bush's legacy a continent-full of people who will fight like crazy to keep people like him from ever taking office again ... wouldn't it be worth it?

[VelmaD]

39. Never ever duck out...

that's always when they volunteer you for things. :)

[PDittie]

37. Trabajo bueno, senorita

Bookmarked this so I could come back and respond when I got unbusy.

We went to ours; there were five of us; we passed the resolutions the Progressive Populist Caucus initiated, then we went to Chris Bell's "victory" party.

Ugh. Downer.

But good news outweighed that: Doggett, Alma Allen, C. Rodriguez.

It was a boost to read your enthusiasm (and your sense of empowerment).

Keep swingin' the hammer.

[VelmaD]

38. Hey you

:hi:

We passed the one's from the Progressive Populist Caucus too. How fun. :-)

Sorry to hear about Chris Bell. :(

I'm still floating from Lloyd winning his primary even if he isn't my Congressman anymore.

[Randomthought]

40. That Rocks!

I just got elected associate precinct chair. Huge percinct (220 attended the caucus) so we have one chair and two associates.

[VelmaD]

41. WOWEE

220?!?!

If that many people had showed up at mine last night I woulda keeled over from sheer terror.

Congrats to you! :toast:

[Richardo]

42. VelmaD! Yes!

:yourock:

Glad to hear it went so well - our pct chair was a little addled, but we too had a political veteran who stepped in to assist.

I was NOT clear on how the number of delegates to the senatorial convention was arrived at - they told us 13, there were 7 of us at the pct convention, but the math formula showed we only got to send 1 delgate to the senatorial + 1 alternate. Is that right? :shrug:

I agree - it was an energizing experience. :headbang: My post of last night reflects that:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=450895 :D

[VelmaD]

43. Here's the way it's supposed to work...

You divide the number of people actually at the caucus by the number of delegates your precinct gets to the senate district convention...that tells you howmany people each presidential candidate caucus has to have to get any delegates.

Then you determine how many people are in each caucus and what percentage that is of the overall attendance. They get that percent of your delegates. (i.e. if 50% of the people at your caucus were Kucinich people then 50% of your delegates would be Kucinich delegates.)

So, it may have been a matter that your particular candidate of choice only got 1 delegate on to the senate district convention.

Hope that helped. If not, we can talk about it some more the next at the next gathering. Or you can PM me.

[flamingyouth]

44. You rock, Velma

Good for you! I did the same back in February and it was a blast. Now I'm a delegate to our district and county conventions in May, and I can't wait. So glad you did this - we need more like you!! :hug:

[VelmaD]

45. This is SO neat

I still can't quite believe the number of people who haved chimed in that they are a delegate or a precinct officer. Maybe that day when we take over the party isn't that far off at all. :)

Thanks and here's one back at ya :hug:

[BlueCollar]

46. See you in Houston...

precinct chair for two years now. We had a great turnout up here in Tarrant County for the primary and the precinct convention. District 12 convention on the 27th....and then...

HOUSTON...!!!

:kick: