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19th General Meeting

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Allowing in-person General Meetings

23/02/2024 13:44  
Rejected
Introductory Statement
At the last general meeting, during the height of the pandemic, an amendment was made that prevents the Party from holding in-person only General Meetings. While that may have made sense at the time, over 2 years later this needs to be reviewed as in-person meetings are a critical part of social organizations such as political parties.
Emergency Motion Statement
Article 8.7 be amended to read: "A General Meeting may be held in person, online, or a hybrid of online and in person."
Type of Emergency Motion
A constitutional amendment to change the constitution or bylaws
Benefit
This amend gives the Party flexibility to host General Meetings in a way that makes sense for that particular cycle, either online, in person, or a hybrid of the two. Currently technological and organizational limits make hybrid meetings nearly impossible, hence preventing any in-person get togethers. The lack of in-person gathering hampers the ability of members and volunteers to connect with one another, forming bonds and connections, sharing stories and experience in formal and informal ways. So much happens outside the official programming of a meeting that can't be replicated in an online environment.
Who does this motion impact?
Party members, volunteers, and staff
Impact on exisiting GPC policy.
Not applicable (e.g., directive to council, constitutional amendment)
Green Values
Sustainability
Social Justice
Participatory Democracy
Supporting Evidence
Jurisdiction: Is this proposal under federal jurisdiction?
Unsure or Not applicable (e.g. directives and constitutional changes)
Please indicate the language the proposal is being submitted in.
English

This proposal has been rejected because:

This motion failed to meet the 66.6% threshold of support needed to be considered as an emergency motion. Therefore, this motion was not presented for consideration by membership.

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Reference: PVC-PROP-2024-02-5887
Version number 2 (of 2) see other versions
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Conversation with Constantine Kritsonis
Avatar: Constantine Kritsonis Constantine Kritsonis

It is a horrible idea to ban greens with no money for travel and accomadations from attending general meetings. This _emergency_ motion wants to bring us back to the elitist stone age of the _conference bunnies_ as Bill Hullet used to call them, where members with time and money control everything and members without money were left behind. I don't buy the _logistical problems_ argument of a hybrid meeting. There is software *specifically designed * for hybrid in person-remote attendence of meetings. Here is a list of 15 to choose from: https://spotme.com/blog/hybrid-event-platform-guide/

Avatar: Eric Gilmour Eric Gilmour

Hi Constantine,

This does not ban Greens without money from attending. First, the CMD proposal will open up participation and make attendance not necessary for participation in decision making processes.

Second, Central Party and EDAs can fund people's travels to General Meetings to provide equity. In fact, this is how I attended my first General Meeting in 2016.

Hybrid meetings would be great, and this motion doesn't prevent them, but they're difficult and expensive. It's hard to find software that serves the unique needs of the Party's plenary session, and all the software is very expensive. I haven't spoken to the GPC's organizing committee but I imagine this is why neither this GM nor the last has been hybrid.

We're not going to win an election from behind our computer screens. These online meetings are horrible. Where's the personal connections? Where's the trading of experiences? Where's the workshops? The hallway chatter? How do you meet people?

Not every meeting needs to be in person, this motion just allows for the flexibility for the Party to decide how to host them based on its needs in any one particular year. The Party could, for example, alternate in-person or online General Meetings, since they're supposed to happen every calendar year now.

Avatar: Constantine Kritsonis Constantine Kritsonis
Edited

The purpose of general meetings is to conduct party business and that means making decisions. By having _inperson only_ general meetings members with no time and money to travel will be barred, in violation of the value of participatory democracy. By all means lobby ccouncil to have "in person" members with money meetings, but it cannot be a _general meeting_ that includes party business of any nature that the rest of the members can not share in real time.

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