Homework page
Below are three initiatives that were discussed at the business meeting on June 20th. The first initiative is about engagement events for July, and the following two initiatives involve financial matters. My hope is to have a discussion online and get a sense of the direction the committee should go.
Initiatives that are financial in nature will need to be approved with an official vote at a meeting that has a quorum. These two initiatives will be brought up for an official vote as part of the July 18th meeting.
The first initiative that I talked about on the list below does not require any money, instead focusing on what engagement event to host in July. Committee members can discuss the initiative and vote on whether the committee switches events.
In the next couple of days, share your thoughts using the link after my synopsis of the initiatives. The deadline for sharing your thoughts will be at the end of the week on June 28 at 5 pm..
No Place for Hate
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The Marshfield DTC and the town of Marshfield as a whole have strived to be inclusive and welcoming to newcomers. There have been a few incidents recently that have left marginalized groups feeling less than welcome in our community. The committee should try to be as supportive of these groups as possible and let them know that they do have allies in our community. To do this, I am proposing switching our civic engagement event for the month of July to "No Place for Hate" sing-holding visibility.
Originally, the committee had planned on doing a beach cleanup for our July civic engagement event. Instead of doing this civic engagement event, what do members think of switching it to a "No Place for Hate" sing-holding visibility? The visibility would be from 10 to 12 on July 13 or 20th. To make the event successful, the committee would need between 5 and 10 volunteers to come hold signs with a welcoming and supportive message. I have created a survey for people to share your thought and vote if committee should do this.
Biden/Harris lawn signs
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You may remember that the weather at this year's presidential primary (March 5, 2024) was absolutely horrible. It was cold, raw, and rainy all day—not ideal weather for an election. There was very little to encourage voters to show up to vote, with the media pretty much guaranteeing the president would win the Massachusetts primary. With all that being said, still, 1,912 Democrats cast a ballot for Joe Biden on that day in our primary. The reason I bring this up is that I think our committee should try to engage these voters by doing outreach about lawn signs.
The committee usually takes a passive role when it comes to lawn signs, waiting for voters to request a sign from the committee. Last year, I was talking with Matt McDonough about an idea he had for building democratic visibility in Marshfield and engaging voters before the election. The idea is that the committee would call democratic voters in high-visibility areas to ask them to host a lawn sign. Anyone that showed up on March 5th is definitely a democratic voter, and I bet they would be willing to take a lawn sign. The committee can sell the signs for between $10 and $15, which is a good price because they are currently being sold for over $20 online and ours are union-printed.
I grouped the list of 1,912 Democratic voters into 506 households that live in high-visibility locations throughout Marshfield. The list is divided into neighborhoods of 50 houses, grouped by the villages of Marshfield. I am looking for volunteers to reach out to these housekeepers and ask them if they would like to host a lawn sign. This does two things for the committee: build awareness of the committee among this vote block, and get the committee sign location in high visibility.
Please share your thoughts on this idea and let me know if you will be interested in volunteering to do the outreach. Because this involves money, the committee will talk about it at our next meeting.
Raising annual dues
Our committee gets all of its funds from membership dues. Our committee has not raised the dues since 2010, and the cost of everything has gone up. At the next business meeting, the committee will discuss raising dues. Before the meeting, please share your thoughts.