Agree absolutely with your last point. Riding associations around the province, for the most part, need serious renewal. We have a somewhat skewed view here in the Lower Mainland, because we see the activity in East Van, or in the West End, we think that riding associations want to do things but are held back by the party somehow. In reality most riding associations have few if any people actually doing anything.

Fundraising is simple, shitty work that anyone can do if they just commit to it. In the run up to the election there was one riding association that held a fundraiser and charged $5 for a hotdog lunch. Are you kidding me? We don’t need fundraising systems, we need commitments to fundraise, full stop. Every MLA should be holding events like Jenny’s scotch tasting, or Libby’s (canceled) 100-mile lunch. Most MLAs don’t, though, because they’re busy, they don’t want to keep asking the same people for money again and again, and so on. Easy to find a reason not to, far harder to actually do it.

But I do know that the debt belongs everyone and informing ridings that their fundraising money won’t be coming to them is not democratic or inclusive, regardless of whether there is a precedent or policy.

I have no idea how the dialogue would have gone if the provincial office decided to open it up and let its entire membership in on the predicament. We’ll never know how that would have gone because of choices not made. I can’t even predict how it will go if the executive gets all inclusive and democratic starting next month.

What I do know is that members deserve to be able to participate.

And it’s a bit of a brain twister that people criticize the ridings for doing so little that requires money, yet criticize them for not developing 85 robust fundraising systems.

Ridings have a hard time fundraising. They lack skilled and interested people. This needs to be addressed and put on the table for solving.

At the September Provincial Council meeting, in discussing the PAC decision, many people said that the party belongs to the members and the debt belongs to the members. So all the members deserve to be part of the solution.

I’ll leave the discussion about the actual campaign aside, as it is far too big an issue. As I wrote above, those constituencies are deep in debt now because most did little to no fundraising between 2006 and 2009. Many (the ones that I interacted with, anyway) went into the election with a few thousand dollars that they had raised starting in January. So of course they are in debt now. Unless we change this approach to fundraising, we are going to repeat the same mistake again in 2013.

Having the Open Space session is a beginning, but interest from non-delegates to participate [which they can only observe] indicates that the party MUST expand opportunities for dialogue both among members and non-members–on the riding level and on regional or even provincial levels.

What if the party sponsored a webcast. Get a great speaker, like the woman here for the gala dinner next Saturday night.

The speaker can present to a group in a venue that is webcast around the province. Then ridings can have house meetings or community meetings with the internet feed to watch the speaker…then alas, there you have it, a ready-made town hall for member engagement.

Who KNOWS what kind of wisdom can erupt from such things!

I think both approaches to conventioning are valid, and the one you favour is obviously more inclusive (so in theory democratic). Logistically I think it would be a nightmare, and cynically I’m not sure anything is accomplished at conventions. Lots of talk, debate, and then everyone back to their communities to leave NDP business for another three years until they get some shit together to have a riding association meeting and think about finding a candidate. Obviously there are exceptions.

There are [at least] two competing goals with convention.

One is to hold a grand showcase of the party to stir up excitement with big rallying speakers and hoopla!

The other is to be widely inclusive and maximize participation to increase discussion and debate among as many people as possible, even if only only 4% of members are voting delegates.

Many riding associations are broke or in debt and have no capacity to subsidize anyone.

If convention took place at the Agrodome instead of a hotel we could increase the number of people attending and taking part. Then again, the Agrodome means way more people, yet still only one person speaking at a time.

So maybe a big high school at spring break a day after the BCTF AGM meets would be a good time to run convention. That way we could use the gym, an auditorium and maybe a nearby ice rink, and we could billet delegates…all of which enhances community.

What we miss is a swanky hotel experience, but I’d trade that for more engagement and access instead of massive fundraising for such an expensive convention.