Green Focus Minutes
Sunday, March 28, 2004
San Francisco Plenary

Notetaker: Karine Megerdoomian

PRESENT
Robyn Oetinger, Stuart Bechman, Russell Kilday-Hicks, Laura Wells, Karine
Megerdoomian, Jim Barton, Don Boring (on phone), Paul Encimer, Mike Cordova

NEXT TELECONFERENCE
Tuesday, March 30th (at 7pm?)
Robyn Oetinger will send out info as soon as teleconference is set up.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERSHIP
We approved the following board members:
* Don Boring: Co-editor. In charge of general coordination of Editorial
Board and submissions, making sure paper is published in a timely manner.
* Larry Cafiero: Co-editor. In charge of editing, proofreading aspects.
* Russell Kilday-Hicks: Layout editor
* Stuart Bechman: GROW coco member
* Robyn Oetinger: GROW coco member
* ???: GROW liaison to CC [Note: Chuck Reutter was not reelected as at-large
cc member.]
* Craig Peterson: In charge of distribution to and from plenary (i.e.,
driving bundles in truck)
* Jim Barton: Coordinates liaison with Clearinghouse such as mail received
for Green Focus, forwards subscriptions, etc.
* Laura Wells: editing? layout?
* Andrew Nguyen: editing? submission recruitment?

NOTES:
- Webmaster = Eric Barr (not part of editorial board)
- One position is left in the Editorial Board. Kyra Moore volunteered for
this, mainly as editor and proofreader, during the GROW meeting. Her email
is ivyleaguetutor@hotmail.com.
- The editorial board members are to serve for a term of two years (with
possibility of renewal)
- Karine is now officially off the board.
- I am not sure, but I think the editorial board needs to be affirmed by the
General Assembly (at the Sacramento plenary). Can someone please confirm?

DECISION-MAKING WITHIN EDITORIAL BOARD
Besides the decision-making on content outlined in our policies (cf.
http://cagreens.org/greenfocus/editorialboard.html), we agreed to have a
more "directive" style, meaning that the two co-editors will guide and
coordinate the rest of the board through the publication process. The
editorial board shall hold a teleconference to address any issues that they
feel needs further discussion.

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSIGNMENTS
* Coeditors will take on the updates sent out to GROW (and to CC via GROW
coordinators) by email and will also participate in the monthly GROW
teleconference.
* Russell will send the final versions of the articles and photos to Eric
Barr (with subjects) for each issue, in order to be put up on the website.

DISTRIBUTION
This has been our biggest issue last year, so a decision was made to move
this away from the party system and/or the Clearinghouse as much as
possible. We agreed to the following:
- Subscriptions: maintenance and mailers to subscribers will be taken over
by San Diego County for a small compensation.
- Distribution at plenaries: Craig Peterson has volunteered to continue
delivering the bundles to plenaries. San Diego County and GROW will fill the
table with volunteers who will be in charge of the Green Focus bundle orders
and sales (sold at cost to locals). San Diego County will probably also take
care of requests to locals to pre-reserve bundles.
- Distribution post-plenary: Remaining bundles will be stored in couple of
places [I am not sure about this part?] ... in Oakland and at Craig's,
perhaps in LA? ... but post-plenary bundles shipments will be done at the
cost of $32 (vs. the $16 at plenaries) and should be discouraged and kept to
a minimum if at all...

PUBLICATION SCHEDULE
Keep as is for now since it facilitates distribution. We have enough things
to deal with!
Currently, it is geared towards the plenaries with approximate publications
in
  Dec/Jan -- Winter issue
  March/April -- Spring issue
  June/July -- Summer issue
  Sept/Oct -- Winter issue
We start from the plenary date and work our way backwards to determine
various deadlines for each issue.
We keep the same printers since they have recycled, union and soy ink.

NEXT ISSUE
For June plenary in Sacramento (June 5th and 6th). Deadline for submissions:
May 1st.

OTHER
- Action Item: Proposal that GROW ask for Green Focus to be a
"self-sustaining project" so that the revenue we raise remains within the
project. This was discussed during the impromptu meeting we held on
Saturday, March 27th with the following members present: Robyn Oetinger,
Stuart Bechman, Chuck Reutter, Laura Wells, Karine Megerdoomian, Craig
Peterson.

- Formatting: A number of items were discussed but nothing was decided.
Suggestions were: making font size bigger, add a section for mailing labels
so that we don't have to send the paper in an envelope, expanding the size
of the paper (pros/cons), more pages/smaller height, etc.
  I think Russell agreed to think about some of these ...?