DFA NYS CONFERENCE MAY 5-6

Written by: Carol Olszewski on May 4, 2007 8:11 AM EDT

Linked to groups: Democracy for the Hudson-Mohawk Region

DFA CONFERENCE May 5-6 BUFFET DINNER May 5 with Eric Massa

Everyone: Please try to attend at least part of the DFA CONFERENCE this weekend! As you can see from the schedule below, JIM DEAN, BO LIPARI, Sens BRESLIN and SCHNEIDERMAN and many others will be speaking as we shape the future of DFA.
A special event is the Saturday evening buffet dinner at 6pm with ERIC MASSA and special film:

SATURDAY EVENING a special BUFFET BANQUET at the Schuyler Inn, 575 Broadway, Menands. Just north of Albany. Cost, $15. 6PM cash bar. 6:30 dinner. 7pm Speaker and movie.
Speaker ERIC MASSA (Democratic Candidate for the NY-29 C.D.) Strong Iraq War Critic and fiery speaker.
Followed by presentation of TAKING THE HILL, a film by Brent Renaud and Craig Renaud about veterans campaigning to win seats in Congress. Film has excellent reviews.
For the Banquet, please RSVP to Carol at 330-0226


Here is the full schedule for this weekend's Democracy For New York Conference. DFA people from all over New York State will be attending at the SEUI Hall at 155 Washington Street in downtown Albany, near the state capitol building and Lark Street. This conference is FREE and open to all DFA members in the State of New York. Visitors are welcome.


Everyone who has attended these conferences will know they are worth the trip to Albany! This year's conference starts out with an address by DFA Chair Jim Dean. There will also be a special evening buffet banquet with Congressional DFA-List Candidate Eric Massa at the Schuyler Inn followed by the film Taking The Hill. This is a great opportunity to grow your activism and support a change in Congress!


For additional info and to RSVP, which we are really asking people to do, go to: www.dfalink.com/event.php?id=170...


Schedule:


Arrival and Registration
10 - 10:15 John McBride and Andrew White Welcome, Why are we here? Introduction
of DFA Chair Jim Dean


10:15 - 10:45 Jim Dean, DFA Chair


10:45 -12:45 Jennifer Wisniewski, Citizen Action, John Nonna, NY Democratic Lawyers Council, Bo Lipari, New Yorkers for Verified Voting


These three speakers will discuss the current status of their efforts to bring electoral reform to the state of New York. That is Clean Money Clean Elections, Election Protection, and Precinct Based Paper Ballots with Optical Scan. They will discuss what we can do to help with these issues. There will be a 30 minute open floor discussion or Q&A .



12:45-2 Lunch on your own


2-3 NY Sens Schneiderman and Breslin, Assembly Member Jim Brennan. The dysfunction of the NYS Senate and Assembly and what can be done.

3 -3:30 Brian Keeler: Four areas for reform. Rules reform, Election reform, Ethics reform and Budget reform.


3:30-4:30 Breakout groups We will break out into groups of about 10 to brainstorm on strategies to bring real reform to the NY State Legislature. After
20 minutes we will return with what we came up with.
Reassemble open discussion


4:30 - 6 Leadership meeting


Saturday Evening a special buffet banquet at the Schuyler Inn, 575 Broadway, Menands. Just north of Albany. Cost, $15. 6pm Cash bar. 6:30pm Dinner. 7pm Speaker.
Speaker Eric Massa (Democratic Candidate for the NY-29 C.D.) Strong Iraq War Critic and fiery speaker.
Followed by presentation of Taking the Hill, a film by Brent Renaud and Craig Renaud about veterans campaigning to win seats in Congress. Film has excellent reviews.
For the Banquet, please RSVP to Carol at 330-0226


Sunday May 6
9-9:30 Reconvene


9:30-10:15 Amy Little, Campaign Manager - John Hall for Congress What does it take to win an impossible race?


10:15-11:45 Take 19 All the strategies for winning important elections against entrenched incumbents


11:30-12:15 Patrick West, Sierra Club Global Warming. Patrick has an Al Gore trained follow up on Gore's oscar winning film An Inconvenient Truth.

12:15-1:15 Lunch


1:15-2:00 Break out groups Iraq War
Green Issues
Election Reform
State Government Reform
Presidential politics
Congressional Politics
Growing the Grassroots


2:00 Reconvene full group. What should DFNY be doing in 2007? Where are we going in 2008 and beyond? Create a plan for the structure of DFNY

Write up: courtesy of Larry Dudley

With additional exhortations by Carol Olszewski

Tags:
Location: Albany, NY