Meeting schedule - for after convention

[Andrew Amelang]

I'm proposing the following for a meeting schedule. Let's discuss after convention, and possibly at the 6/18 meeting if we need to thrash out some details.

Retain quarterly 'official' or 'business' meetings. Second month of each quarter. Two such meetings to continue as in-person meetings: May and November of each year. The February and August meetings to be relocated to video conferencing. (May of even years may depend on what national does with their schedule; we'll see.)

First and third month of each quarter: Brief video conference (one hour hard stop, probably typically shorter), not an 'official' or 'business' meeting (no attendance, no quorum, but people will notice if you miss a lot...). Basically a strategy/ops check-in to keep things moving between quarterly business meetings.

Again, more next week.

 

[Andrew Amelang]

Quick add-on: I thought I had mentioned 'first Saturdays' here as part of this proposal, but I see that I did not. (We've been doing 'first Saturday of the second month' since before my time as Chair.)

Just as well I didn't mention it; I can't make 8/1 due to a pre-existing commitment. In addition, our new Treasurer Robert will have an ongoing difficulty with first Saturdays due to work-related responsibilities. So going into our 6/18 call, let's start the discussion with second Saturday of the second month of the quarter for in-person meetings and see if that works.

Whatever happens for the rest of the term, let's plan on 6/18 and 7/13 for check-in calls and 8/8 for our first post-convention in-person meeting (venue TBD somewhere in Metroplex area) third quarter official business meeting on Zoom.

 

[Jacob Bradley]

Could we do 3rd saturday. 2nd saturdays are an issue for me. If not, i could make it work but it will be difficult

 

[Andrew Amelang]

Quick add-on: I thought I had mentioned 'first Saturdays' here as part of this proposal, but I see that I did not. (We've been doing 'first Saturday of the second month' since before my time as Chair.)

Just as well I didn't mention it; I can't make 8/1 due to a pre-existing commitment. In addition, our new Treasurer Robert will have an ongoing difficulty with first Saturdays due to work-related responsibilities. So going into our 6/18 call, let's start the discussion with second Saturday of the second month of the quarter for in-person meetings and see if that works.

Whatever happens for the rest of the term, let's plan on 6/18 and 7/13 for calls and 8/8 for our first post-convention in-person meeting (venue TBD somewhere in Metroplex area) third quarter official business meeting on Zoom.

Ever have a situation where you're driving somewhere and because of some distraction (conversation, phone call, thinking about something) you slip into auto-pilot and miss your exit because you're on a familiar road taking a familiar route to somewhere else? Yeah, I had a conversation a couple of days ago where I just slipped into "it's time to start planning a meeting mode" and forgot that August was proposed as an online meeting. Old habits die hard, I guess. Sorry for the confusion!

 

[Andrew Amelang]

Could we do 3rd saturday. 2nd saturdays are an issue for me. If not, i could make it work but it will be difficult

I think third Saturdays would work for me. I'll run the whole calendar sometime this weekend and see. Anybody have a problem with third Saturdays?

 

[Dave Marino]

I think third Saturdays would work for me. I'll run the whole calendar sometime this weekend and see. Anybody have a problem with third Saturdays?

Works for me. All my Saturdays look the same

 

[Nathan Polsky]

As long as we're talking about day time hours, then I'm good.

 

[Jacob Bradley]

Also, for the Nov meeting, make sure its after election day so our slec reps running for office can keep campaigning up to election day

 

[Andrew Amelang]

Also, for the Nov meeting, make sure its after election day so our slec reps running for office can keep campaigning up to election day

Yeah, that's been the protocol for awhile (first Saturday except November in even years its second Saturday) for exactly that reason.

 

[Amanda Gibbs]

No complaint on what is decided as most of us knew time commitment before throwing our names out to the body. I’ll make it work.

 

[Paul Darr]

Comparison of dates and keeping in a rotation through the triangle.

If second Saturday:
2026
8/8 Summer SLEC Meeting (e-meeting)
11/14 Fall SLEC Meeting (Dallas area)

2027
2/13 Winter SLEC Meeting (e-meeting)
5/8 Spring SLEC Meeting (Houston area)
8/14 Summer SLEC Meeting (e-meeting)
11/13 Fall SLEC Meeting (San Antonio area)

2028
2/18-21 National Convention El Paso, Texas
3/14 Precinct Conventions
3/18 County Conventions
4/8-9 LPTexas Convention

If third Saturday:
2026
8/15 Summer SLEC Meeting (e-meeting)
11/21 Fall SLEC Meeting (Dallas area)

2027
2/20 Winter SLEC Meeting (e-meeting)
5/15 Spring SLEC Meeting (Houston area)
8/21 Summer SLEC Meeting (e-meeting)
11/20 Fall SLEC Meeting (San Antonio area)

2028
2/18-21 National Convention El Paso, Texas
3/14 Precinct Conventions
3/18 County Conventions
4/8-9 LPTexas Convention

2028 breaks the rotation a bit as we get into National, Precinct, County, and State Convention.

Edit: My opinion: I just want to know the dates so I block them out on my calendar and don't double book myself.

 

[Dave Marino]

So our next in-person will be in November?

 

[Paul Darr]

So our next in-person will be in November?

If I understand correctly, that is what I gathered from Andrews post above.

 

[Dave Marino]

If I understand correctly, that is what I gathered from Andrews post above.

Ahhh yes, I guess I read right through the strike through

 

[Andrew Amelang]

To be fair, I didn't strike anything until the day after the original post....

Comparison of dates and keeping in a rotation through the triangle.

If second Saturday:
2026
8/8 Summer SLEC Meeting (e-meeting)
11/14 Fall SLEC Meeting (Dallas area)

2027
2/13 Winter SLEC Meeting (e-meeting)
5/8 Spring SLEC Meeting (Houston area)
8/14 Summer SLEC Meeting (e-meeting)
11/13 Fall SLEC Meeting (San Antonio area)

2028
2/18-21 National Convention El Paso, Texas
3/14 Precinct Conventions
3/18 County Conventions
4/8-9 LPTexas Convention

If third Saturday:
2026
8/15 Summer SLEC Meeting (e-meeting)
11/21 Fall SLEC Meeting (Dallas area)

2027
2/20 Winter SLEC Meeting (e-meeting)
5/15 Spring SLEC Meeting (Houston area)
8/21 Summer SLEC Meeting (e-meeting)
11/20 Fall SLEC Meeting (San Antonio area)

2028
2/18-21 National Convention El Paso, Texas
3/14 Precinct Conventions
3/18 County Conventions
4/8-9 LPTexas Convention

2028 breaks the rotation a bit as we get into National, Precinct, County, and State Convention.

Edit: My opinion: I just want to know the dates so I block them out on my calendar and don't double book myself.

Thanks for building that out, Paul!

Now for a new wrinkle: For the two quarterly meetings online, do we want to maintain the Saturday schedule or switch to the Thursday evening time slot? Admittedly, the business meetings can run longer, so maybe we really do need to block out a full day (or most of a day), even for the online meetings. But with monthly check-in calls and a more effective use of our forum voting capability, maybe those meetings don't need to run more than a couple of hours, which could be slotted for, say, Thursday 7-9p. Or until even later if necessary--as much as I hate to give up an entire evening, if the trade off is freeing up most of a Saturday, then maybe that's not such a bad deal. What do y'all think?

 

[David Constant]

I have vacation planned for the first week in August with my family, so, selfishly, I am in favor of any adjustments that will get us off 8/8, whether that be Thursday night, 8/13 or, Saturday, 8/15. More generally, I like the idea of shifting to Thursdays for our online sessions.

 

[Andrew Amelang]

I tend to agree—I'm leaning toward the Thursday plan for all online meetings, both check-ins and business meetings. At the very least, I think it's worth a try; if we hate it we can always try a Saturday online meeting and see how that goes.

Does anyone object to trying a Thursday evening online business meeting in August?

 

[Andrew Amelang]

In other news, we have a meeting scheduled for this Thursday, 6/!8, at 7:00p. Zoom link info is up on Discord.

Reminder: This is a simple check-in, not a business meeting. Just touching base on what everybody's been up to and what the summer ahead looks like.

In addition to anything else that comes up, Paul has a Strategic Ballot Access Report he's been working on (on top of everything he had going on related to convention!) to present at the meeting, Jessi will be updating us on the status of her campaign and reporting on a recent RLC meeting attended by several of our operators, and I'll be pitching some of the open staff positions for y'all's consideration.

Hope your week is getting off to a good start! TTYThursday!

 

[Dave Marino]

In other news, we have a meeting scheduled for this Thursday, 6/!8, at 7:00p. Zoom link info is up on Discord.

Reminder: This is a simple check-in, not a business meeting. Just touching base on what everybody's been up to and what the summer ahead looks like.

In addition to anything else that comes up, Paul has a Strategic Ballot Access Report he's been working on (on top of everything he had going on related to convention!) to present at the meeting, Jessi will be updating us on the status of her campaign and reporting on a recent RLC meeting attended by several of our operators, and I'll be pitching some of the open staff positions for y'all's consideration.

Hope your week is getting off to a good start! TTYThursday!

I may be a little distracted on this one, I have a walk through for our VBS at church at that same time.

 

[Andrew Amelang]

Not a problem. Listen in if you can; if not you can catch up with the notes later.

I may be a little distracted on this one, I have a walk through for our VBS at church at that same time.