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March
28, 2008
Our aim is to consolidate the communications you get from the national
office into one weekly format, and to keep our focus on the activity
and work of the clubs.
The party-builder will not add to your “to do” list – rather, it aims
to keep you up to date on our political focus -- the elections – and
provide food for thought with articles on the experience, what works
and what doesn’t, of the Party organization, especially the clubs.
In this
Issue:
The Challenges of Growth - And Youth
By Lawrence Albright, Chair,
Tampa Bay Club
Our club and district has faced numerous challenges over the past
several years. These challenges have included the death of our
long-time district organizer as well as several other experienced and
valued comrades; the need to consolidate several clubs into a single
club; and substantial geographic distance. There are no doubt
other clubs and districts that have had to face similar or identical
challenges.
 Since the last national convention in the summer of
2005, the Tampa Bay club has grown in membership by 110% to become the
largest club in the Florida district. In the process, the average
age of club members has dropped from 62 years to 51 years as a result
of 50% of our increase in membership being comrades younger than the
age of 30. Our youngest member in 2005 was 46 years old; in 2008,
our youngest member is 20 years old. In 2005, the club members
had an average of 24 years in the Party; in 2008, that average has been
cut in half for the same reason.
As a result, our club is starting to explore new ways and methods to
conduct meetings. Just a few years ago, the level of Party
experience allowed us to conduct meetings based on a number of
comfortable assumptions. We had political points, educational
points, and good and welfare. Since we meet once each month due
to issues of distance, meetings were often overly long -- sometimes in
excess of three hours. When I was elected club chair in 2007, one
of my goals was to run a more efficient meeting that would not exceed
two hours, and we've been fairly successful in attaining that goal.
But the addition of newer and much younger members has meant that we
have had to jettison those comfortable assumptions and insure that we
devote more attention to the educational component of club
meetings. What this has meant as a practical matter is that we
include historical background -- including Party history -- in our
discussions. At the same time, and in order to avoid being overly
pedantic, we've started to get away from a "report-comment" format to a
"report-engagement-comment-action" format that encourages the broadest
discussion amongst all club members followed by assignments for those
items requiring action.
There is a general understanding among club veterans that we had to
change in order to make our meetings more interesting and stimulating,
or risk losing our newer and younger comrades. One of the things
we've chosen to do is to make the majority of our meetings "open" so
that our newer comrades will feel free to invite their friends -- and
this has taken place. Our club meetings have recently come to
include non-members who are interested in our Party and what we're
about. While it is too early to assess the long-term merits of
this approach, it has certainly invigorated our club meetings in the
short term and there has been value in flexibility.
We would be interested in the ways in which other clubs and districts
have dealt with similar matters.
(back to top)
 Listen
to Voices of our Party
Both Erica Smiley
and Scott
Marshall appeared on
some talk radio stations this week. They spoke about a wide range of
issues affecting
the American working class today and the concrete work the CPUSA and
YCLUSA are doing to address these issues. Smiley also answered
questions from listeners.
Also, in case you missed this week's other new posts, check out this video
highlighting actions Communist Party USA clubs and districts took part
in to mark the 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq.
(back to top)
2008 Fundraising Plans
 The 2008 PWW Fund Drive and Party Fund Drive goals have
been set at $200,000 and $50,000, respectively.
Districts received the proposals on their share of those goals last
week.
Although the drives will have dates (May 1 – July 4 for the Party, and
Labor Day through December for the PWW) everyone is encouraged to make
fundraising plans starting now through the end of the year.
A few districts will be using a different schedule, with the aim of
shifting the major fund raising work to earlier in the year, to avoid
getting behind during the intensive election period in the fall.
During the Party drive period, a special effort will be made to enroll
people in the automatic sustainer program.
A new committee will work on both drives and on helping districts with
fund raising generally. The committee is chaired by Sam Webb and will
include Dan Margolis, Elena Mora and several others, to be finalized
soon.
(back to top)
JwJ Conference
 The
annual Jobs with Justice Conference will take place in Providence, RI
May 2-4. The Labor commission is organizing our participation there; if
anyone in your area will be going, please contact scott
*at/* rednet |dot*| org
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