On Forming a New Local Green Party Chapter
Okay. Pretend you come across some Green Party literature one afternoon and you are excited about their policies such as their support for single payer health care and equal marriage to name a few. You want to get involved with your local Green Party but to your dismay you discover there isn’t one in your area. This is probably a situation that many Greens around the country find themselves in. What is a Green to do?
Answer. Start up a local GP chapter yourself!
This post is meant to be more of an open discussion on local organizing rather than a “how to guide” to forming a new local Green Party chapter. I am bringing this up because I am thinking of starting a local chapter in my area and I’m mulling over some of the details. Here are just a few things to keep in mind if you want to form a local GP chapter in your area.
- Is there a state Green Party where you live? There may be a few self-identified Greens in your local community you may not know about. Contact your state Green Party and tell them you want to form your own local and they may provide some logistical support and have a list of members in your area. But don’t expect too much help. It’s better to anticipate no help from a state party and take the initiative to organize a local rather than wait for help that may not come.
- Advertise your first meeting by contacting sympathetic friends and activists personally, posting a notice on public TV and public places, writing a letter to the editor to your local newspaper, using social media such as facebook, twitter, and myspace, etc. There are tons of ways to advertise that first meeting.
- From your first meeting, you should decide on what the group wants to do. How do go about running candidates? Is there a current local issue that is “hot” in the community? How can we get more people to join the party locally and get involved? The number of things that the local group can do is endless!
- Be mindful that as important meetings are, they can be a turn off for some people especially if they are too business orientated. That is not to say that they aren’t needed, they surely are. Remember, the REAL organizing and work happens outside the meetings. I learned that from a fellow Green.
- Does the group want to affiliate with the state Green Party? If that is the case, then it would be advisable for the group to produce a set of bylaws. In any case, it would probably be a good to produce a set of bylaws anyway to cover the legal stuff. You never know.
- Will you collect money? You may want to get a bank account for the local party after filing as a political committee with the appropriate government body. Some local GP groups don’t bother, but I find that if the local chapter gets big enough or becomes very active in elections then you are gonna need a checking account and form a political committee to cover your collective assess just in case. Refer to your local elections official (usually it’s a city or county clerk) for information.
Be advised that what I presented is just a fraction of things that you may have to think about before organizing a local. What are some other things to be mindful of when starting up your own local GP chapter? Got any tips that you found useful or successful? Please share your experiences in the comments section below so that we can all learn!
Great starter article. Nice to get back to basics and speaking to people who may be new! or thinking about us…
Some other thoughts:
-If you are in a state where you can enroll green, you can go to the local Board of Elections and file a request (a Freedom of Information form) to get a list of all the enrolled greens in your area. You could pick a certain district, the town, or even wider if you want to put the word out wide. The official list of enrolled greens is a great list for a meeting or activist group. And, fairly necessary if you want an official, electoral group.
-I think I would wait until at least meeting 3 to think about money. Unless the person organizing wants to be the Treasurer, and understands a bit about what to do. Probably need the critical mass of at least 5 or so committed people to undertake such an endeavor and make pointed decisions about purpose and treasury. (Just a kind of guess and opinion.)
Also, the most basic organizing principle – have food! Sharing food/breaking bread is a natural bonding experience. It also makes the event look interesting and appealing. Even if you say “light refreshments”, or “lemonade” in the summer, which will give your announcement flavor! Remember college? Every time someone really wanted your attention, they held a pizza party?
;)