National War Tax Resistance
Coordinating Committee Minutes
May 6, 2007 • The Peace Abbey, Sherborn, MA
Present: Pam Allee (OR Cty of WTRs), Susan Balzer (Heartland Peace Tax Fund), Ruth Benn (NY), Rick Bickhart (NM), Eszter Freeman (Sonoma County WTR), Clark Hanjian (MA), Paul Maresh (OR), Sallie Marx (NYC WTR & PLF), Peg Morton (Eugene Taxes for Peace), Robert Randall (GA), Daniel Sicken (Pioneer Valley WTR), Craig Simpson (NE WTR), Peter Smith (Michiana WTR), Nan Stone (ME), Daniel Woodham (NC)
A few other highlights linked here.
1. Finance Report (PDF report)
AdComm is asking Treasurer (Tana Hastings) to submit proposal to fall meeting for a set percentage to be kept in reserve. May fund appeal goes out next week and should boost income numbers. Lit sales are running low this year.
2. Consultant’s Report (written)
The position works well for Ruth and she is happy to be NWTRCC coordinator. Spent quite a bit of time on the video contest and film project in the last few months. Peg asks that referrals of new inquirees get to local groups ASAP and that the answering machine ask for phone and email too.
The ticket we bought for Milena from
3. Consultant Review
17 responses were received by Susan from the form that was mailed and emailed out. Ruth got an overall score of 4.5 out of a possible 5. Best scores on newsletter and information and referral. Lowest on fundraising (3.7). Glowing comments of the respondents are echoed by CC members. Ad Comm also recommends an 8% compensation increase for the next fiscal year, to be put in the budget presented to the November CC meeting for approval.
4. Video Proposal (written and more discussion at this link)
1. The committee asks for a go-ahead to do another short video contest, staring in the early fall for a longer timeline before tax day. Agreed.
2. Committee is open to volunteers, though no one offered at this meeting. Pam will be interested when we get to the distribution stage. She will help promote the final product.
3. “Intro to WTR” film – The written proposal contains a basic outline of what the committee is working on. In order to proceed we need to raise $12,000 cash and commit to much of the “in kind” tasks in the budget presented by Pan Left. We need some “deep pocket” donors; appeal to affiliates; seek grants (which is underway). Volunteers are needed for fundraising and production.
We’ve applied to AJ Muste Foundation, Unitarian Fund for a Just Society, and Samuel Rubin Fund. Others in the works such as Ben and Jerry’s. Suggestions welcome.
Anyone with footage related to war tax resistance that they think might be useful to a new film should let us know. If you would like to watch some of the archived footage and tag good sections, that would be helpful too. Contact Ruth at the NWTRCC office.
Pam says Portland will hold a fundraiser or two.
Susan Balzer might be willing to review some of the footage.
Agreed to continue this project. Committee can proceed.
5. Clerk Update
AdComm recommends putting fundraising clerk program on probation until November. Eszter is the Fundraising Clerk and will be working on getting new affiliates – one new contact and follow up on previous contacts per week between now and then. We will review the position again in November and decide whether to maintain the Clerk program. If not, we could separate the FR tasks and get volunteers for them.
6. Fundraising Discussion
We need to raise more for our general operating, in particular to add to the temporary help line so that we could hire hourly folks for specific tasks as needed. Some asked Ruth if she wanted more hours, but she suggested having some extra funds on this line; at the conference it was suggested that we hire young people for projects when we can. Here are some ideas we came up with to enhance fundraising:
• Affiliate potlucks or spaghetti dinners (Paul will send spaghetti recipe)
* “Fundraising goals” - set specific ones with a timeline and income goal to make clearer what needs to be done.
* groups raise an additional contribution for NWTRCC – keep some and give some to NWTRCC – send 10% of local income to NWTRCC
• Pledges
• $50/$100 plate dinners – perhaps in KS in the fall with 25th Anniversary
• Famous People/potential donors to make appeal on our behalf
• Create a fundraising kit for groups or individuals making appeals for NWTRCC
• Create a fundraising committee [not agreed upon]
• Promote Planned Giving/Bequests
• Major Donors
• Article in MTAP
• Article in fund appeal
• DVD/Video House Parties
• More info out about “NWTRCC” – not just WTR - Better distribution of the blue NWTRCC brochure
• Specific Project for Alt. Funds to support on Tax Day
• Specific project to be supported by resisted taxes
• More links (web) with other organizations
• More detailed donation page on web (specifying projects)
• Use MTAP for noting projects
Who will do what –
Paul will send out “recipe” for spaghetti dinner in next 30-60 days (send to Ruth at NWTRCC office)
Peg will work with local group to do fundraiser for them and NWTRCC
Ruth will list some of these ideas in the May fund appeal
Daniel will post the list on the listserve
7. New AdComm members
Don Kaufman (Kansas) and Mike Butler (New Mexico) are being recommended for the new alternate positions. Agreed!
Daniel and Susan complete their terms at this meeting.
Alice Liu, Robert Randall, Clark Hanjian, and Pam Allee make up the AdComm full members now.
8. Affiliate Evaluation Project (PDF)
The idea is to strengthen our relationship with affiliates via real conversation by phone and might lead to some changes in our structure. Questions remain about how to accomplish this survey; it is labor intensive. Hire someone, use all volunteers (1 volunteer or more – advantages/disadvantages to each)? Saturday’s small group discussion affirmed the concept but had no agreement on how to best implement it.
Robert feels doing some of this is better than doing none of it. We can’t afford to pay anyone, so let’s get criteria for who can call and then see who among those will volunteer.
Eszter says we can each “fill out” for our own group. Concentrate on the groups which are not coming to the meetings.
Ruth reminds us that we have a travel fund for the November meeting, so we can encourage groups to be there.
Volunteers to do 3-5 phone calls: Paul
Clark is wiling to collect call results, but to manage the project would require $$. Peter says he’ll manage front end. Ruth will help.
9. Survey Project (some results and discussion)
Robert shared the current status and recapped the ideas from our last meeting of using the survey to promote a WTR campaign in bigger groups, like United for Peace and Justice (which is meeting this June). Last November we set a goal of 5,000 surveys, but we have significantly fewer than that ~1,500.
Questions: do we have enough surveys to proceed? Yes, if they tabulations are completed by May 22 and the “yes to considering a wtr campaign” fall no lower than they are now.
Agreed: We’ll pay $13 x 15 hours = $195 to someone to do it. (from temp help budget line)
Participation in UFPJ conference:
Some feel NWTRCC should spearhead a campaign rather than ask others to do it. We should get support from Kathy Kelly and Voices.
We should pay for 1 person (Bill Ramsey if he’s willing) and a lit table. Agreed.
Rick will ask WRL to join us in lobbying.
Peter will coordinate our table.
The committee (existing survey project committee) will develop proposed campaign for presentation to UFPJ. Robert will be part of that committee.
10. Next meetings
November in Kansas – our 25th Anniversary. Amtrak stops at Newton at either 1:30 am or 3 am (coming from east or west) for anyone who wants to try that option!
May 08 – Birmingham, AL – ask David
Asheville once offered also; Albuquerque made a tentative offer recently.
11. Endorsements
Add general peace links on a new links page but add a disclaimer that the links do not represent endorsements.
Agreed to endorse NYC People's Life Fund Gala to be held in September in NYC.
12. New Resources
1st Fact Sheet for Counselors – Student Financial Aid (PDF). Everyone likes this and hopes for more.
Mary Lynn Sheets (Alterni-Tees in CO Springs) wants to make a new tee-shirt on Taxes for war. Will we buy them? YES. We’ll ask if they’ll put our website on them. Rick will ask them to come in November with their T-shirts to sell.
Evaluations
Schedule not too packed; Near-perfect meetings; Good Group; Accurate schedule; Too bad we didn’t know that Walden pond is only 10 miles away!; Very well-run; Good to meet new people who came; Felt rushed Saturday; ‘Twas good to do an action again (vigil with Natick folks); Regrets that so few people came form this area; Hosts were wonderful!; Link with Conscience award to Frances Crowe was great; “you guys are totally awesome!; Wonderful to spend time with Juanita, Frances, Lewis; We dealt with substantial things; Saturday focus on wtr issues was good; Mix of large and small groups was good; More physical movement would have been good; 13 people attended intro workshop!!