September 2021 Membership Meeting
| Happy Continuing Summer, Cumberland County Democrats! I again hope you are not too overheated to make a membership meeting. In June membership voted that our next meeting would be in September, and so we will be meeting Sunday, September 12, from 3-5. It will be by zoom, like the last few meetings. A link will go out soon. This will be a meeting with one primary focus, and two secondary focuses. There is much more to do which is why we will be meeting again probably in October (!!), so save your excellent ideas for meeting topics till October. For September this is what we need to do.  1. I am having to make this announcement each month. This time it is Lois Reckitt who is stepping down from the State Committee. Lois is serving us brilliantly in Augusta, and wants to be able to devote her time to the Legislature. This means there will be an election for a non-male identifying member of the Democratic State Committee from Cumberland County. There may also be a second election too. If Meghan Casey, our present Alternate, chooses to run for the open seat and gets elected there will be an election for Alternate. This can be filled by someone of any gender. Think if this is a way you would like to serve the Cumberland County Democratic Committee.   DSC spots can be filled by anyone who is registered as a Democrat in Cumberland County. You do not have to be a member of the CCDC to be on the State Committee. If you know that you would like to run for a spot on the DSC you can let me know and send me a brief biography and I will circulate it to membership before the meeting so they know something about you when it is time to vote. Nominations will also be taken at the meeting. If you run for but are not the winner in the first election and there is a second election you can run for Alternate. The State Committee meets every other month, a two hour meeting on the 3rd Sunday from 1-3. Recent meetings have been by zoom, but at some point meetings will go back to in-person. Most meetings are in Augusta, but meetings may be hosted by other counties. It is not known now if remote participation will continue to be an option, so interested persons should assume that once every other month they may need to leave Cumberland County. Materials for meetings are circulated by email in advance. Reading the materials and attending meetings are the primary duties of State Committee members, but members are always welcome to find other ways to assist and strengthen the Maine Democratic Party.  Only established CCDC members will be allowed to vote. If you are not sure if you are a voter you can check with your town Democratic Party Chair, or with me. If you know that you are not yet a voter it is easy to become one, just attend a CCDC meeting, at the end say that you would like to be voted in as a member. Once I confirm that you are a registered Democrat living in Cumberland County you will be eligible to vote at the following meeting.  2. The CCDC will have a booth at the Cumberland Fair, unless Covid shuts us down. Two years ago we let the public vote on issues that were important to them. It was very popular and brought lots of people to us. (Last year we were shut down by Covid.) We’d like to get ideas that will be just as popular this time. Tell us what you’d like to see Cumberland County Democrats do at the Fair. As always we will need volunteers to run our booth so please find times during the last week of September when you can be the smiling face of CCDC Fairgoers see. 3. The primary focus of this meeting will be discussion and decisions about how the CCDC facebook presence will be conducted. Issues that arose recently forced decisions to be made by the CCDC Chair. At the earliest opportunity the CCDC Executive Committee replaced the Chair’s decisions with its collective decision. In September membership will decide how our Facebook presence should be operated. Again, only CCDC members will be permitted to discuss and vote. I understand that this is an issue of interest to persons who are not members, but if you have not bothered to become a CCDC member, or are not eligible to become a member, you should not expect to have a say in how the CCDC operates.  The meeting will be Sunday September 12 from 3-5. It will be by zoom. Details will be coming. I hope to see all of you there. If you want to contact me please use my personal email address given below. I tend to forget there is a CCDC email and don’t check it very frequently. Seth Berner CCDC Chair 775-2452 sberner@gwi.net |