February 10, 2011
In attendance 7:08 pm: Billie and Martin;Stephanie, Roger, Kyle, Stan, Rachel, Manny and Joyce.
Martin moved to accept minutes as presented; Steph seconded; ayes have it.
Billie moved to accept Treasurer's report as presented; Stan seconded;ayes again.
Old Business:
Kyle explained domain name strategy--sites offer domain names separately for $10-$12. An eco friendly domain site offsets maintenance energy usage (servers), for instance, Fat Cow.com has a wind energy offset of 100% for $12.99/year.
Suggested farmingtonnhdems.com or .org. A .com is slightly cheaper than .org. Consensus is to try for the .ORG, after discussion: motion by Martin and second by Rachel. So, the site url would look like this: farmingtonnhdems.org and would not be case-sensitive.
Kyle:blog stats to date(one month)=279 hits with 53 in the last 10 days, mostly in the USA. He asks that people write some political limericks or cartoons for the blog, because the lighter stuff gets more hits. Steph will compile some economic cartoons and send them to Kyle. Do we want to be connected to the Farmington Town website? Stan thinks we should ask if it could happen. Also connect Steph's site to the Farmington Dems. Steph suggested we open a Cafe Press shop for democrat paraphernalia like t-shirts and mugs. She currently has one design.
Who wants to become a blog author? Stephanie and Manny do, so far. Kyle will post stuff for us if we want, or we can post our own. It might be faster if we post our own due to his work load.
Our Facebook page has links to smart vote, etc.Do we have any causes or campaigns to be featured? If we currently have none, he will take the page down for now so it doesn't seem stale.Rachel:can we go to the committee section and it will give you the list of what's in committee currently? Yes. A permanent page tab added to nh.gov for bills listed.
For all of us to do:
Please "like" Farmington Dems facebook page. We need 25 fans/likes to get a shorter url.
{Joyce needs to email all member email addresses to all members so we are connected.}
New Business:
Activities for the next 6 months
Community Garden idea-could the dems sponsor it? Manny will contact Conley at the Conservation Commission to find out the best location for a garden. We will need selectman approval to use it, also.
Stephanie to do: check on availability of grant funds for this community garden. Stan moved we pursue the garden idea, seconded by Rachel,agreed.
Letters to the Editor-Kyle. Pertaining to upcoming bills and votes. email connections to other activists is cross marketing for our blog/site and widens our audience and other groups' audiences. Blue Hampshire site-you must pay to get on there. How about UNH's Young Democrats? Yes, connect,Kyle, please!
Petitions:Kyle change.org changed their site for the better. Pools petitions. Look at petitions there. Tools there to help a person create their own petition.
Important local events:vote on March 8. Town Meeting March 9. Can we get help
For the library budget? How about CAP and the COAST system?
Kyle will call the Town Clerk to find out when the annual report will be available. He'll check on whether there'll be an electronic copy also.
Steph-can we get Carol Shea-Porter to speak? How about a Pot Luck meet and greet for us? Community Art Project, ie a mural somewhere. Day in the Life of Farmington digipix...grant money available?
Martin-in April discuss some of these ideas (put on the agenda)
Billie-how about George Bald, economic director of NH.Martin-how about Governor Lynch? Let's all work on these topics.
Kyle can create a sub-blog for private musings if and when we want it.
Next meeting will be April 14 and then June 9 and then August 11, at 7 pm at the Old Town Hall aka Rec Dept.
Motion to adjourn by Martin, seconded by Many, adjourned at 8:50 pm.
