Since the day a couple months ago when two men appeared at my front door to ask me to attend a precinct meeting for the purpose of establishing a quorum to organize our precinct, I have had some interesting and fun experiences. There is definitely a learning curve, but I feel I’m on my way with it.
At that first precinct meeting, we were met by a Vice-Chair of the County Democratic Party, who got us organized, and helped us elect officers. I showed up as part of a quorum, and left as the precinct Secretary (I’ve always been stuck with those jobs nobody else wants, why should this time be an exception?)
While I was pondering how to write the minutes of that first meeting, we all got an email from the Vice-Chair telling us of a second meeting of several precincts together, a “cluster meeting”. I don’t think I have to tell you where my mind went after that first word, “cluster”. I can’t help it.
These meetings are held at a local Mexican restaurant who gives us a deal on their private room so we try to encourage people to show up and eat. Fortunately the food is good. There were people from three other precincts at the cluster meeting, as well as a few others who had heard about it and were just interested in what we were doing and how to do it in their own areas. It was explained to us early on that if we belonged to an organized precinct, that we would have voting power in local matters and on matters that were referred to State and Federal representatives for their consideration in their decision-making with their votes at their levels.
The good part about that meeting was that the Vice-Chair had forgotten to put place cards for the precincts at different tables, so as we all staggered in, we just sat where we pleased and started talking about anything and everything. By the time he showed up, there were several active, lively discussions going on about a few hot topics. People in the know shared with those who had questions; there was a lot of cross-talk and information swapping. When the Vice-Chair arrived, he was delighted at the scene that greeted him. I said, “Well, what did you expect, did you think we’d all just be sitting around looking at each other?” He started laughing, pointed at my margarita glass and said, “and how many is that?” I said, “That depends. You buying?”
But the best was yet to come. I think I have figured out one reason I was not really aware of all this for so long, I just wasn’t on the right email lists! But since I signed up to take voters to the polls during the midterms, I have gotten all kinds of emails from the local Democratic Party and their cohorts. So I got this email about the Guilford County Fourth Annual Legislative Breakfast. The Breakfast is mostly a fundraiser, with the business meeting (free to attend, of course) in the afternoon. I read the email and I SO wanted to go. I talked to Mr. CI about it since I would be completely dependent on him (for chair pushing and tank switching), and I think when he saw how excited I was, he couldn’t bear to say no.
So I reserved and paid for the breakfast part for us both. I talked to our precinct chair who lives conveniently across the street from us (!), and she had also planned to go. She wasn’t there but her sister recently had a serious medical emergency so I really wasn’t surprised not to see her there. When we first arrived to sign in, there was a display with a wonderful variety of buttons (and good lord I’m a junkie!), all proceeds to the party. There’s a lady there who makes them. I bought one for my husband to wear that says “This is what a feminist looks like”. Because he really is; he’s always said that women should be running the world; it wouldn’t be in such a freakin’ mess.
The breakfast meeting was great; I actually got to meet a few favorite local politicians for whom I’ve been pulling levers for quite awhile. And one of my all time favorites, used to be one of our congresspeople until they did all that re-districting junk. She now represents a good part of Charlotte, NC. Her name is Alma Adams and she has been in politics for all her adult life. She’s (don’t quote me on this) about 72 years old and as feisty as ever. She is known for stylish hats in which she appears everywhere. She is one of my heroes and was the keynote speaker. She had me in tears, talking about our beautiful blue state that used to be. And will be again, if she has anything to do with it, and that we all must work for it. She said, “service is the rent we pay for living on this earth”. And what a thrill it was to meet her. I thanked her so much for being all about the people, always, because I am just one of the people. Her speech was fantastic, I wish I had had a video camera to record it (the sound wasn’t great and I even missed a word here and there), but Alma never leaves any doubt about what she is saying. She doesn’t mince words at all. Her last couple of minutes were sort of a pep rally for 2020 then she said, “What we gonna do?” I elbowed Mr. CI and said, “here it comes”, and she shouted into the mike “We gonna turn.that.mutha.OUT!!!” As hard as it is to stand, I did it, clapping and whistling with everyone else.
The weather was beautiful and warm outside so we took a break, then went back in to sign in for the business meeting, otherwise known as the Guilford County Democratic Party Convention. This is where we would elect Guilford County Party officers (those whose terms were up), vote on the aforementioned resolutions, and any other business that may come up. At the entrance, there was a straw poll set up with all the Democratic Presidential candidates. Each had a jar under their picture and we were given a piece of candy to put in the jar of our choice. Kamala was looking decent, Bernie was doing well, and Buttigieg was leading at the time we were there.
The County Chair sailed to easy re-election. I should mention that there was not exactly strict adherence to Robert’s Rules of Order. But it was close enough for government work, gak did I just say that?
There were only three of us present from our precinct, fortunately one was our own co-chair who’s an old hand at all of this. I’m still not sure of the math where it is decided how many votes each precinct gets, but he got all that straight and said we had nine between us, three each. A lot of the voting ran quickly, several people ran unopposed, so that part went pretty fast. Out of 30 resolutions to be referred to the State level, there were six to which there was opposition, each of which required debate and a vote. There were several more resolutions that were sent back to their original precincts or groups for more clarification and discussion before being brought to a vote. i had a few last minutes with Pete, the County Vice-Chair who organized our precinct, and told him I was still working on the minutes of our first precinct meeting. I told him I figured it’d go something like this- “The first meeting of the 60th precinct of the Guilford County Democratic Party was held on___. at _____ at (time). A quorum was established for the purpose of organizing and electing officers. A copy of Robert’s Rules of Order was produced, and promptly thrown out the window.” I thought he would pee his britches laughing!
That was pretty much it, it was the most exciting day for me in I don’t know when. And the most exhausting. I have not been fully engaged in anything non-stop for an entire day since my last day working, which was about 10 months ago. We got home about 4:30 pm and I was ready to sleep.
I am still a babe in the woods. Yesterday a man asked me why I was there (he wasn’t being rude or anything). I held up my cannula line and said, “Well, I’m a short-timer. And I don’t know how short. But I hate the way it is. And it may still be that way or worse when I do leave, or not. But I want to leave knowing that at least I did whatever I could to make it better.” He smiled, asked permission, then leaned down to hug me.
I’m looking forward to the next meeting/conversation/convention/whatever. And love to all you Kossacks, who have helped to push me this far. Love, peace, solidarity.
Update: I couldn’t upload the pic for awhile until Beseme sent me a tool to convert the file type from .maccrap to .jpg. Thanks Beseme ((((((()))))))
Update #2 — since there was some confusion about my referring to myself as a “dude” in the caption above, I just changed it to “yours truly”. Comments are still welcome! :)
Update #3 — Originally the pic was captioned as “Alma Adams and some dude”. Since some of my female friends and I address each other as “dude”, I thought nothing of it, sort of like, “you guys” (and we’re a bunch of girls, you know?). So I explained it then I changed it. So if anyone is afraid to comment out of fear of offending anyone, that would be pretty silly. Otherwise feedback would be appreciated, and if you’ve read this far, that’s appreciated too! :)