Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 06:50:21 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Herwatt Subject: Minutes of the meeting, (Email/plain text) Gay and Lesbian Americans Summit Minutes Prepared by Jeffrey Herwatt Saturday *HIGHLIGHTS* The day was filled with heated and lively discussion ranging from analysis of the faults with the current Gay and Lesbian Groups, to the current apathy griping our movement, to how to structure a grassroots organization, to mandating the use of recycled paper, on non-paper communications. Perspectives: From an activist in Colorado: Colorado is dying, devastating people. We are in trouble if we think that the courts are going to introduce change. Need to put our issues on the offensive. We are the strongest people that there is. But this is not being translated to politically power. Religious Right is getting stronger. These laws are an invitation for these groups spread hate, and to bring in more people and money. We have to directly confront this thread, with one voice, and soon. From an activist in California: We must keep a narrow focus, and always seek the synergese from within our own movement, and when we outreach to other Civil Rights Organizations. We can not do this alone, we have to build bridges, Rainbow Bridges if you like, but bridges that pull together our various movements by the synergese, and we must learn to ignore the differences, and *ALWAYS* focus on the common ground, it is that only way we will succeed. Discussion of the Strengths/Weakeness of the Gay/Lesbian Movement Our movement has some of the most dedicated, and creative people that the world has ever know. They have the drive, and the ability to focus on issues, form inception to resolution. AIDS is killing our people, and we have found creative ways to capture the attention of the media, and get our message out. But in the halls of Congress, AIDS is a joke. Our numbers are not there. We have our rage and anger and we must demand that our government must support and help us, because the most horrific of all things is beginning to happen, AIDS is moving into the bedroom communities of America, and having dealt with this disease now for 10 years in our community, we have the knowledge and obligation to take a leadership roll in getting AIDS addressed, as a societal problem. We have excellent organization skills. People are coming out across the country. The laws are brining people out of the closet, due to outrage, and we are defining ourselves, and not letting the press define us. Weaknesses Invisibility. Small groups of people stand up and say that we have political clout, when in fact we don't. The military issue last year showed us that the religious right is better organized, and has the numbers to impress Congress. We have to organize so that we too can impress Congress, with actual real numbers, not with threats of disruption. We don't have voters on our side, and these issues don't belong on the ballet. We have to take this from being a issue of "lifestyle choice" to a Civil Right, and a privacy issue, the right to allow consenting adults to live as the want, without the government looking into their bedrooms. Closeted court cases. Do we deserve protect class status? We are discriminated against, we need court challenges, we need to take the next step, and show that we must be protected. Fight to hard to maintain status quo Fear of labeling a bad situation. We must call a spade a spade, Amendment 2 was a hateful bill, say it. We have a reluctance to learn from other and past movements, and we spend a great deal of time re-creating efforts. We must outreach to other Civil Rights organizations, and form Coalitions to demonstrate that we all stand united. We need to identify ourselves. Outing public officials is necessary. Fear or confronting organized religions. We must confront organized religion that preaches hate, and end anti-womyn and queer Strategies that work. Keep pressure on Congress, keep AIDS fight in the front and center. Keep building on structures that are there. We can not allow ourselves to be diverted. We must end the patch work quilt of civil rights. We need to build our movement, and we must stamp down the fear of failure that is keeping us from advocating a Gay Civil rights bill, but we need to work with People of Color, and Womyn to advocate a complete package of Civil Rights and Equality. We must celebrate our cultural differences. We are not just like them. We must celebrate the differences. We need to surmount fear, fear of controversy and failures. We are afraid to fail, and it is time to change that. We need to be ourselves, Gay and Lesbian Americans, a diverse quilt of people, with very different concerns, issues, and perspectives, and we must allow that to be OK, and to gain strength from that. What is right and Wrong with our movement. 1. Gays and Lesbians are locked out of the process 2. Leaders on boards meet in private. No publication of agenda. 3. No open lines of communications. No way to provide input. No way for existing groups to tell us what they are working on. Consider Town meeting across the country, get new blood involved, create a "grassroots network" that will allow us, and all Civil Rights Leaders to communicate directly with the effected people, without the filter of the media. 4. We have not formed a nationwide grassroots organization, and the religious right is beat us up because of it. Activist in Mississippi have no way to tell the activists in Idaho that they are under attack, and to get resources to them. The Colorado Boycott was an excellent example, it worked despite the media, and proved one last time that there is no effective way to Local and State activist to inter communicate and pool their resources. Need to share our financial and technical expertise across the nation. We need a nation wide grassroots organization. Right beats us with more phone calls and letters. We must energize people to get involved. Open Discussion (Main veins of topics transcribed) Carl: Don't want to De-gay the issues. We see this happen time and time again. We need to provide positive homosexual images. We need to confront the polarization head on. Need to use the platform to discuss our issues, [...] Ken: Coalition individuals/groups/leaders. Anger requires a coalition of leaders. Federal or local, grassroots gay or straight. Pro-outing and anti religion will ring hollow to a straight crowd. Aggressive towards national groups. Do we slap other groups in the face. Craig: Who is in this room, 50 white people, one person of color, 5 women, this causes outrage. Call a spade a spade, or is call a Niger a Niger. We need to understand that how we represents ourselves will effect who will want to be involved. - We have limited resources - We need votes - We need to be Proactive, and not reactive as we are now - We need to Outreach to other groups - We need to stop being mainstreamed, we need to be who and what we are and be proud of that - We need to look for the gaps in the current organizations, and fill those gaps - The Gay and Lesbian movement spends a lot of time attacking "its own", we need to address that, and be supportive of other groups, and build coalitions with them, so that we don't all have to work on the same issues. - We need to keep at the forefront of our minds the difference between having a narrow agenda, and narrowing who can participate in a movement. We need to reach out to the straight and people of color communities. - We need to build the idea, and the actuality of community, and we need to build communication bridges of normally disenfranchised populations within our "community", we need the Leather Queens talking to the Dykes, talking to the People of Color talking to the Preppies, talking to the Sunday Brunch crowd. We need to be the glue, and string that connects the many corners of our movement. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- **** PROPOSALS - SYNOPSIS AND DISCUSSION POINTS ONLY **** (Entire proposal availble on request, and on the correct color paper for that matter!) Pink Proposal (Synopsis of Proposal Only.) 1. That the name of the organization be changed to something more inclusive. 2. Sexual Orientation be defined directly. Request that we adopt the standard legal definition from Minn. be adopted. Blue Proposal A wonderfully written proposal on the reasons and need of supporting community centers. What they would like to see is that a National organization with fundraising clout provide seed money to community centers, the that the job of community building can begin, and then turn into community activism. Genesis of the idea. Three events that have been significant. In all three of the situation they have had great legal aid, and so forth, but they haven't been able to pick up the phone and request funds and support. This proposal is about building a community, and about grassroots organization, and what do we need that is hard to find. It takes time in a place like Mississippi to build a foundation in rural areas, and there needs to be a way to spread the " big city" funds out into the rural area. The proposal is to build community first, and see an organization that can fund community centers and the like, seed money. Yellow Proposal Queer Across America Action 50 Press Conferences in front of Every State Capital across the nation. We need to get away from the confrontational politics. The date would be set at least 2 months out. We would have a simultaneous conference across. The knocking on the door needs to happen at the state and local level. We need to start having actions on weekdays, instead of having the actions on the weekends. The issues at the state level should be Gay political issues, the first object needs to be political, and why not have the press conference. Help to build the GLA coalition. Press conference can be used to announce the State and local Chapters and their Platforms. Non-confrontational in order to attract people - QN was not the forefront, it was the entire movement. Now's the time for people who said "if not for those radicals" to show up. GLA is about building coalitions, about working together. This action is the perfect start to that. Verbal Proposals How do we build the "grass roots". The mission statement needs to be amended to develop grass roots, mobilizing and empowering and educate gay people and society, with the ultimate goal of defining homosexuality as a positive thing. Develop "grassroots" by fostering gay self-awareness and community responsibility. In order to mobilize and empower like minded gays and lesbian people to build community from within - development the "roots". Develop by encouraging personal direct action and involvement. We must foster community by: 1. Ways to encourage gays and lesbians to comeout. 2. Build personal networks of support, 3. Develop community through personal direct action/involvement in our community foundations, fostering gay social/community responsibility. Suggested concept to be added to the Mission Statement. (typists note: I think that the proposal is to have "foster community activism/involvement" added to the mission statement.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *** OPEN DISCUSSION BEFORE BREAKING FOR LUNCH *** Discussion Topics: Sodomy laws and such, we need to encourage people to become involved in any and all different types action. Endorse outing as a valid and useful tool to gain our objectives. Encourage action at the grassroots level. Get people involved, get people to feel that they can have an impact, and make them see the impact that there action is having. Select small finite goals on the local level so that people can have the feeling of accomplishment, the feeling that "It was like that, and if we did nothing it would still be like that, but we did something, and it changed it!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *** NEW ORGANIZATIONS STRUCTURE *** Open Discussion to get a sense of the room. Each organization is independent, the GLA organization would be an umbrella organization that facilitates information sharing, and is a coordinating body that will help to facilitate actions. Group could opt. out of actions, and groups could come to GLA for assistance, money, or what ever else. There may well need to be a division of labor. Coalition only means the sharing of information. The organizations will have the responsibility of providing their membership with the GLA information, and the membership of the organization will have the option of joining in the action or not. The only way that you can get national level agreement, you can not insist that the grass roots do or perform an action. The top down control would be information, and requests for support and manning of an action, each group would have the ability to join or ignore an action. Each coordinating group would be able to outreach to the local "grass roots" gay and lesbian social and political groups, getting softball and bowling teams involved, get ACTUP and Queer Nation involved, getting NOW and the ACLU involved.. The definition of coordinating is the sharing a information and providing background information for actions, to provide a brain trust, and a well that the Coalition Organizations can come to for assistance, to get information out to other coalition members, to help disperse funds. Use NOW model for the organization? Positive: It is a time tested organization. We can learn from the feminist movement, and can over come a great deal of the problems, without having to recreate a wheel. Weaknesses: Spotty in how active a region is. Too broad of a focus. Different Strategies in different regions there isn't a policy on the types of activism to be done. Membership enacted bylaws that require only non-violent CD. Recourse for rebel actions? National officer corrects situation.The Red Proposal ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *** QUEER LIBERATION FRONT THINK TANK *** Think tank creation to be announced. Listen to yourselves, to what we said today, what we think, and how that is not really based in fact, but are political Exp. We make broad sweeping generalization, and we need the facts to back them up. QLF Queer Liberation Front. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *** DAYS END OPEN GENERAL DISCUSSION *** (This is a collection of expressed sediments that were expressed during the days closing discussion. Please don't think that when the doors closed that the work was done. Many "Caucus" formed, and met late into the night to address some of these issues.) We have been asking the wrong question, What we should be asking is "Why isn't this room full?", and "How can we fill it?". We need to encourage the existing media to come in, that is a given, but maybe what we also need to do is ask ourselves why we don't own the camera, why don't we have the stations? Why are we unable to get our constituents here, and HOW do we get them here. We need to take some of the discussion offline. We need to workout the organizational structure question before tomorrows the morning meeting. Do we want to be a strict individual membership organization, and a coalition of groups that feeds the member organizations information, or a hybrid of both? Local control vs. national control. This is a locally controlled organization, and maybe we should put the national stuff on hold until we have an organization. Building an infrastructure must be done after. We have the need to go out and seed political organization to come in with resources and money. A staff that moves around from one town to another would be an asset. There is a lot of long hard work, that needs to be done before we can address a National movement. Let's keep people alive, and then decide who does what next. The AIDS pandemic has killed many of our people, and we need to make keeping the remaining Gays and Lesbians infected with HIV alive, so that they can do some of this work. (Minute takers notes: From what I heard a few caucuses formed to deal with the topics brought up during the day. There seemed to be a strong feeling that the following should be discussed in depth offline: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *** SUB-COMMITTEE FORMATION AND FOCUS GROUPS *** - Information/Technology was a key, and so an Information Systems and Services Committee was formed, - Membership/Outreach Committee was formed to look at better representing the diversity of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities, - Local Issues committees were formed, especially among "Rural Gay Cultures" - {and it is my hope that this committee continues into the future} - - Federal Issues - To include the Military and AIDS issues And such was the beginning of focus groups. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *** INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND SERVICES COMMITTEE *** (Obviously I am a computer nerd, so I attended, (formed? drove? pushed? manipulated? - all adjectives that are likely to be used in the future to describe my participation in this committee!), the Information Systems and Services Committee (ISSC), the following are the notes from the first meeting, the second notes are being published as ISSC's mission statement - it was decided that ISSC should continue to be a Nation Level Committee, providing Information Services to all of the Regional and affiliated organizations, and structurally the Committee would have a Chairperson, and the National Communications Coordinator would have a chair on the committee. It was further decided that the committee would use Email, and Email re-distribution as its primary method of communications, therefore all committee members must have Email, and if they currently do not have access to a computer or Email ISSC would work as a body to provide that access to them, {No committee volunteer, willing to work, will ever be turned away due to lack of computer resources!}) Action Items: Prepare a list of current resources available to Gays and Lesbians, and how to use them, and suggested lists to subscribe to. Research QueerGlobalVillage, what they are doing, and how and why, what is their agenda. Out reach to Gay oriented BBS's, to reach a broader Don Jones: Find a resource available in the Aspen area to provide Internet Mail access, (possibly Sun, or commercial, or Gay BBS.) Prepare a proposal and action plan for the membership to endorse, publish this as the ISSC mission statement/action plan.Sunday: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *** NEW DAY, BACK AGAIN *** ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This section move at a quick pace. All of the motions on the floor are preceeded with a small "o" in the left margin, the decision of the vote is preceeded with a small "d" in the margin. Introductions (42 attendees, what can be considered the founding membership (FM - for the rest of this Email)) Sum up of yesterday, a lot of revocalizing of yesterdays closing statements. Minor Break Down while we Decide on Process, and time limits. d: The Roberts rules of Order apply, and at 10:00AM EST we all agree to be bound to Robert's Rules of Order, and forgo ACT-UP style consensus as counter productive. We also agree to be bound by strict time limits, so that we can start to get work done. o: Proposal: To form an organization around the Mission statement presented yesterday, with the name to be announced. 10:10AM EST Call for Vote, Call is hear by noted, a majority supports the call. d: Major votes decrees that the Group, based on the Mission statement proposed yesterday be created, with name and amendments to the mission statement to be decided in separate votes. 10:17AM EST, the new group is created to a round of applause. o: Proposals for Name of Organization Proposed Name # Votes ----------------------------------------------------------------- Gay Americans Inclusive. 0 Gay American Inclusive 5 Gay & Lesbian Americans 33 Queer Americans 17 Gay and Lesbian Americans Inclusive 5 Gay, Lesbian and Queer Americans Inclusive 6 National Association for Sexual Minorities 12 Queers Across America 16 Fired Up Queers United (FUQ-U) 27 EQUAL Equality for Queer Americans under Law 6 National Association for Diverse Sexual Orientation 12 National Assn for Sexual Diversity 0 Americans for Sexual Diversity 13 Gay Americans 15 (1 hour debate limit imposed by majority vote) Discussion ended by Call at 10:46, majority votes for the call of the question. d: 10:56 Gay and Lesbian Americans clear winner, o: Proposal on the Floor: Have it noted in the official record that Fired Up Queers-United was a close second, with 27 votes. Be it therefore recognized that a Direct Action Committee be setup, in the future, called Fired Up Queers-United. This committee should be at the National Level. d: Proposal is seconded, and the question is called. Be it noted that at 11AM EST the founding members of Gay and Lesbian Americans setup provisions for the National Direct Action Committee be so named Fired Up Queers-United, and the proposal was accepted by unanimous voted. Mission Statement o: Proposal on the floor: To adopt the Mission Statement on the white paper presented yesterday as the New Organizations mission statement. Friendly Amendment: That changes to some of the wording be allowed, and each be presented as a separate proposal, to be voted on. (Friendly Amendment accepted.) d: The question is called, and seconded, and approved, the White paper is voted on as the mission statement, and adopted By a majority vote. Amendments to the Mission statement. O: Proposed, Update the first paragraph of the Mission Statements Salmon proposal 1 with Salmon piece. Friendly: change reflecting to reflect, accepted by authors. Friendly: Gay and Lesbian is a diverse coalition of grassroots advocates for gay lesbian, bi-sexual, transgendered persons of the United States. Process Question: I would like to propose that we list words that we list words, phrases, and ideas to be listed in the first paragraph, and vote on each. Motion is hereby accepted by unanimous vote; Words for fist paragraph Vote --------------------------------------------------------- nonpartisan yes Civil Rights and Health Care No and to a cure for AIDS No living with HIV & AIDS No Do we include Health Care and AIDS in first paragraph Yes Do we send to subcommittee to decide on the wording Yes Mission Statement Committee Report Back o: Proposal 1: Gay and Lesbian Americans is a nonpartisan coalition of grassroots advocates committed to civil rights for people of sexual orientations reflecting the true scope and diversity of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people of America. Proposal 2: Gay and Lesbian Americans is a diverse, non-partisan coalition of grassroots advocates committed to a civil rights for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, and to cure for AIDS. Vote 10 for Proposal #1 Vote 28 for Proposal #2 Abstain 1 D: Be it so noted in the official record that Proposal #2 was selected by the Founding Membership as the first paragraph of the Mission statement. ---------------------------------------------------------------- O: Proposal on the Floor: Add the phrase "and to a cure for AIDS" to the end of the first paragraph of the mission statement. D: Be it so noted that the founding membership of Gay and Lesbian Americans voted by majority vote to accept "and a cure for AIDS" on the first, and defining paragraph of the mission statement. O: Proposal on the Floor: To have the first line of the mission statement printed on the bottom of all stationary, and letter head, and be used as the official sound bite defining Gay and Lesbian Americans as an organization. D: Be it so noted in the official record that the majority of the founding members of the Gay and Lesbians of America supported this. O: Proposal on the floor: Second line of the Mission statement read as such: Through community-based chapters, GLA will foster a grassroots advocacy network to act locally, regionally, and nationally. D: Be is so noted in the official record that the majority of the founding members of the Gay and Lesbians of Americans voted to support this as the second paragraph. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Mission Statement Committee O: Proposal on the Floor: That a Sub-Committee be created, reporting to the Board of Directors to finish work on the wording of the Mission Statement, and when this work is done, have the entire statement presented to the membership for voting. Friendly Amendment: That this be a volunteer Committee, National in level, thereby existing across regional lines. Friendly Amendment: That the Committee be tasked to work with the ISSC committee to do this work electronically, and thereby save trees. D: Be it so noted in the official record that a national volunteer committee was voted into existence to work on the Mission Statement, and is being tasked with creating this statement electronically to reduce the use of trees. --------------------------------------------------------------- Mission statement *DIRECTION* to Sub-Committee D: By unanimous vote the founding membership hereby tasks the sub-committee with the following directions: D: Need to build community to take the actions. Change all references to "listed types of persons" to "our communities". D: We need to include language that promotes outreach, and makes outreach reflecting the diversity of the Gay, Lesbian, BI, transgender experience. D: Re-write to include more "strong statements" on AIDS and Health Care Issues, that effect our communities. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Structure The a modified "NOW" structure has been adopted at 2:35PM EST, (separate structure document will be sent to all attendees.), with a Board of Directors that will have two reps from each region, plus three at-large members of any gender. Transgenders can select their gender. It is noted that the Board of Directors will be elected by the Regions, and the entire membership at large will elect the 4 member EAT team. A National Level Outreach Committee will be created to insure diversity at levels of GLA, and will strive to ensure that a true reflection of the diversity of the GLBT communities is represented in GLA, be it also noted that any and all persons interested in working on Outreach and Diversity may take part in the Committee, there will be no limits on the number of participants, but the Chairperson of the Committee will be a Paid position on the Executive Action Team, and will be tasked with running the committee, and outreaching to any and all communities, to ensure representation within GLA. Friendly Amendment: Any and all communities should be read to include the straight communities (accepted) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Platform O: Proposal on the Floor: Accept the Platform that was written by the DC chapter, and make changes, where needed to reflect the sediments of the founding members. (2:39 EST - all voting Yea). D: It is hereby noted that the following strong positions where held by the founding members of GLA, and should be considered guiding principles: We need to fill the gaps of what they, (other Gay and Lesbian Rights Organizations), do not do, but we must always remember to try and focus on the gaps, and fill the gaps. Other organization maybe misguided in their approach. We need to build our network, and listen to the voices of the unheard Gay and Lesbian Americans, and we need to get some wins under our belts. We need to work to open up the process of the Gay Civil Rights bill, so that we, and all Gay and Lesbian Americans can take part in the process. We need to take bold leadership, we converse with the other National Gay and Lesbian Organizations, we don't need to be invited in, we need to walk right through the front door, pull up a chair and sit at the table, and start building bridges. We need to do *ACTIONS* to draw the grassroots people to the table. We need to listen to them, and we need to empower them. We have a mission statement, and we have Platform, let's do it. O: Proposal on the floor: To have it noted in the official record that we understand that there are a lot of other issues that we have not touched on that are important to Gay and Lesbians. While this is not the place and time to deal with these issues, we need to say that there are other issues that need to be addressed, like Domestic Partners, sodomy, criminallized sexual act between consenting individuals, the Military Issue, Gay and Lesbian Community Research, add the military issues and support for the Reading Room Project, expand sodomy into the Judicial Branch, [...] D: Be it so noted in the official record that the founding members of GLA recognize that they have only touched the top of the ice berg of issues, but considered it important to have one or two major rally calls, while allowing individual chapters the ability to set their own priorities. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Founding memebers of GLA recognized the importance of the following, but defer discussion to the Board of Directors, after its creation; be it noted that majority vote of the founding members tasks the Board of Directors with looking into and prioritizing the following: - Milestones and Strategies for meeting the milestones - Finalized 1994 Platform - Encourage the opening of other organizations process, and how GLA can work with existing organizations - build GLA to be open to/for all - reduce scope so as to keep the focus narrow, while still allowing local chapters the ability to prioritize, and decide how to utilize limited local resources. - How to strike a balance between Nation Priorities, and participation in actions, and local topics and priorities. - How to request resources from the National Organization to confront local or state initiatives. - How to categorize and classify the skills and abilities that people have, to leverage that for the good of the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------- O: Proposal on the Floor: Move the second paragraph of the Mission Statement to the 1994 Working Platform. It is implicit in the organization that the direction will come from the grassroots, truly. D: Be it so noted that the founding members of the organization passed this proposal, and therefore the second paragraph of the Mission Statement should now replace the first paragraphs of the Platform. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Membership Diversification Goals O: Proposal on the Floor: Move the purple proposal to the membership committee, and task them with designing a way to ensure outreach and diversity at all levels of the organization without direct implementation of "quotas".. O: Be it noted that the purple proposal has been moved to the Newly formed membership committee, reporting to the EAT OutReach/Membership Coordinator. --------------------------------------------------------------- Change Local and State Issue wording to allow chapters to select best approach O: Proposal on the Floor: Change all of the wording in the Local and State Sections of the 1994 Platform to not include how these goals can or should be achieved, this should be left to the local chapters, add solicit co-sponsors, to AIDS laws. D: Be it hereby recorded that the wording on the 1994 Platform shall be changed, per the majority of the votes of the founding members. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Membership/Outreach Coordinator O: Proposal on the Floor: To add a forth paid position to EAT, the position of Outreach/Membership Coordinator, and to create a National Level Committee, which the EAT-OMC will chair, to ensure diversity through out the organization. Lastly, all minutes, records, organization charts, and so forth coming from this meeting will reflect these changes. D: Be is so noted that the founding membership of GLA unanimously voted in this proposal, be it also noted that all official records have been modified to include these changes. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Create Outreach Committee O: Proposal on the floor: Create an Outreach Cmt, which tries to ensure a diverse membership. Provide a very strongly worded statement that will be approved by membership, report back to the membership twice a year. Commit to establishing a fund that we commit to establishing a fund that will help people with less fund be active. There should be a time set aside during all of the of the annual meetings that will be for a report of the Diversity outreach program. 1. Such cmt would be composed of a diverse group, 2. Your cmt is charged to set a set of Goals, (quotas) 3. Fund people that can't afford it 4. require 2 of the 3 at large positions be dbl disenfranchised positions 5. Report on success evaluate compliance. Friendly Amendment: Task the Newly created Membership/Outreach Committee with coming up with ways to ensure a diverse audience gets our message, and a diverse audience is encouraged to participate in our organization. (Accepted) Friendly Amendment: That this committee be formed now, with man power from the founding membership, and that a EAT-OMC be selected before breaking, tasked with resolution of these issues. D: Be it hereby noted that the founding membership of GLA unanimously voted to task the Outreach Coordinator with these issues, and that someone would be selected to head up this important position. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Funding Raising Committee Report Back O: Setup a 900 number to allow members to request membership information. The charge for this call would be $1 which would be refunded when the completed packet is returned. (This would discourage the religious right from using the membership line for a direct action!) D: Be it hereby noted that the founding membership agreed with this move. O: Within 30 days each new chapter would be required to Send to GLA $100 and a list of names and addresses of people to add to the list of members. D: Be it hereby noted that the membership accepted this proposal O: After the Queers Across America, have each chapter have some sort of a fund raising event, which will also be announced at the press conference. D: Be it hereby noted that the membership thought this could be a suggestion to local chapters, but that the National organization had no authority to "impose" this on local chapters. O: A co-sponsor the national "Balls across the Nation", fund raising balls. D: Be it hereby noted that the membership requested more information, and tabled this. O: Individual membership will be set at $35, but no one will be turned away due to lack of funds. D: Be it hereby noted that the founding membership agree to this membership price, and the clause that no one would be turned away due to lack of funds. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Formation of Steering Committee O: Proposal on the Floor: That an Interim Steering Committee be set up to work out the last of the details of the formation of the organization, be it empowered to authorize the use of GLA resources to accomplish GLA work, (by a majority vote). The steering committee would be populated with founding members wanting to do the work. The Steering Committee would also be tasked with recruitment of Board Members, and Setting up the initial elections. (The term of the steering committee was set at 6 months.) The committee was also tasked with looking at Incorporation issues, and location. D: Be it hereby noted that the steering committee was formed by unanimous vote of the founding membership at 5:15PM EST. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Executive Action Team - Elections 4 staff positions. O: Proposal: To fill the 4 staff positions for a period of 6 months with elected non-paid persons. The Interim steering Committee will have the ability to replace members of EAT with a 2/3s majority vote. The Steering Committee will have to approve all expenditures of funds, and review proposals for office space. D: Be it hereby noted that the full membership of the founding members voted unanimously to accept this proposal. Per the elections, the following persons fill the following non-paid positions: Kim Edwards is appointed as Outreach Director JonCarl Jewis is Communication Specialist Steven Reichert Network Cord. Mickey Wheatley Chief Finance Officer ----------------------------------------------------------------- This concludes the minutes of the founding summit of the Gay and Lesbian Americans, as reported by Jeffrey R. Herwatt. A dated, notarized hardcopy of this report is available upon request. %%% overflow headers %%% To: Gay and Lesbian Americans , boy.scout@glib.org, CFJustice@aol.com, CraigAB@aol.com, CueBoy@aol.com, GeorgeCE@aol.com, IMOUTRU@aol.com, Jerry.Trowbridge@glib.org, jherwatt@netcom.com, ken.s@glib.org, lisa@fedvax2.ninds.nih.gov, Marbina@aol.com, phil.attey@glib.org, QueBoy@aol.com, Queerray@aol.com, ReneeNo2@aol.com, RobtW333@aol.com, rogerk@queernet.org, Scudder@glib.org, shawm@baltelle.org, stephen.smith@glib.org, Steven.Reichert@GLIB.ORG, WesofGLA@aol.com, XE605C@gwuvm.gwu.edu %%% end overflow headers %%%