Minutes of the 2018 ISPC Annual Membership Meeting

Annual Meeting, June 16th 2018

Attendees:
Donna Janovsky
Anna Carvlin
Tom Panello
Bill Bianchi
Mike Brenner
Clarice Hearn
David Meimers
Anne Scheetz
Mark Johnson
Pam Gronemeyer
Sean Zolfo
Anne Scheetz
Giudi Weiss
 

1. New board members elected!

1. Anna Carvlin

2. Lauren Kadziel

3. Susan Arup

2. Committee reports - for further details, please see the committee reports at the end of the notes

1. Elections

1. 47% of eligible members voted

2. Suggested that “get to know you form” be mandatory

2. People with Disabilities

1. Sent letter to director of healthcare movie lacking disabled folks

2. Formed long term care working group to educate public about need for long term care services

3. Labor

1. Attended Labor Notes conference

2. Presented workshop at labor fightback conference in Chicago

3. Sent letters in favor of fair contract for grad students

4. Maintain relationships with Jobs with Justice

5. Created slideshow specifically for labor audiences

4. Legislative

1. Thornton, IL city council passes resolution supporting Medicare for All

5. Website

1. Revamped “contact us” page to find active groups and activists

2. David Baldwin, website consultant, has begun work on new discussion group that will be hosted by our site as opposed to Yahoo

3. Nora Grunberg introduced us to Amy Guth who has expertise in interface between websites and social media

4. Discussed need to reformat website to be usable on mobile devices

6. Finance

1. Had budgeted around $21,000

   1. Spent about $12,000

2. A lot of it is maintaining the website, fees to gov, organizational memberships, healthcare now

3. This year also had economic impact study

4. Also for nat’l Medicare for All May 19 townhall

5. Still have about $15,000 in bank

6. Most revenue comes from membership dues, donations, periodic fundraising drives

7. If folks have great ideas about how to spend all this cash, bring them to July board meeting!

   1. People need reason to give money

      1. Not just to be ask

8. May be worthwhile to hire someone to do fundraising

7. Membership

1. Need to establish some sort of follow up procedure

   1. New members need to be welcomed/onboarded

2. Bill -- need administrative assistant to formalize some of these things

8. Social media

1. Worked with Amy Guth in anticipation of the May 19 townhall event

2. Markedly increased our reach, both in google searches and in tweets

3. Regional reports - for further details, please see the regional reports at the end of the notes

1. Chicago

1. Tabling and speaking with lots of people

2. Champaign-Urbana

1. David Johnson principal contact (World Labor Hour)

   1. Both he and his wife joined new DSA chapter there

3. Southern IL

1. Farmers’ market every month

2. Green Party in STL

   1. Had talk on public access TV with record store owner who

      1. Bill: “may need to start PR committee at some point”

3. Trying to get new head for executive committee

   1. Were interested in Laticia Wallace

4. Looking Ahead

1. Update on economic impact study

   1. Been year and a half now

      1. Taking longer than thought

   2. Focusing on finishing up the draft

      1. Have copy editor, rewrite person

      2. Original authors were Bill and his son

   3. Most important thing now is good graphics and whatnot

   4. Hope to have text finished by end of the month

      1. Then sit down with graphics person

         1. How do we render major ideas in visual terms?

   5. Trying to get as many stories as possible to illustrate certain points

      1. Turns out we have a lot on website

   6. Would like to contact some nurses

      1. Only group not included as far as he knows

   7. Should be coming out this fall

2. Expanding interactions with other groups

3. Expanding social media presence

4. Create and curate database of stories

5. Hire administrative person to focus on some of the above tasks

6. Following up from May 19 town hall

   1. 100+ people signed in

   2. A number of which were interested in working on specific committees and whatnot

   3. Want to reach out to both individual folks and orgs

      1. Jordan to coordinate with Sheila Garland (NNU)

7. Susan -- we really need long term care services in single-payer bills

   1. Going to Healthcare-NOW! conference in Minneapolis for this reason

8. Donna willing to help out with newsletter

   1. Would like to have partner for it though

9. Should also look into upgrading our conference call capabilities

Committee & Regional Reports

ISPC Board summary of our activities:

1: Hired a contractor to assist specifically with planning the May 19 town hall event, and all that this entailed

2: Ongoing work by Bill Bianchi and others on interviewing people to develop a “white paper” on the financial implications of single payer for the state of IL

3: Financial support for the makers of “The Healthcare Movie,” as well as additional donations to Healthcare-Now!

4: Continued discussion about who we are as a non-profit, single issue organization: how do we interface with other groups? Should we also initiate (or become) a 501c4? How do we think about the work we do in direct legislative advocacy?

5: Supported Michael Milligan’s run of his plays in September: Mercy Killers and Side Effects

Nominating/Election Committee

There were three candidates for three seats, all of whom were elected: Susan Aarup, Anna Carvlin, and Lauren Kadziel

Number of eligible voters (individual plus organizational): 88

Number of voters who participated: 41

• individual: 37

• organizational: 4

• percentage:47

Problems and recommendations:

• "​S​uggestion:​ r​emove the wording “optional” from the  candidate application

​

​It weakens the importance of the questions, in my opinion. Perhaps add the language, “we’d like to get to know you, please tell us...” Include CV?

• State time as well as date when election will close for benefit of those doing it at the last minute

Documentation for the election is stored on the ISPC website.

Committee members: Anne Scheetz, Sean Zolfo

People with Disabilities Committee

Submitted by Anne Scheetz

From July 2017 to June 2018 members of the ISPC People with Disabilities accomplished the following:

• Sent a letter to the producers of the movie "Now Is the Time" about the absence of people with visible disabilities

• Provided panelists for a post-performance discussion of Michael Milligan's "American Mercy Tour."

• Addressed disability rights issues at the Labor Notes conference; ISPC sponsored Susan Aarup to attend.

• Formed a Long-Term Care Working Group to educate the single-payer movement about the need for long-term care under national improved medicare for all, and for effective input from users of long-term care services.

• Took part in the Illinois Poor People's Campaign day of action in Springfield around health justice and ecological justice, including speaking at the rally and getting arrested; educated IPPC leaders and participants about disability issues

Members of this​ committee are active in many other organizations, including Access Living, the Alliance for Community Services, Autism Speaks, Chicago ADAPT (which remains an organizational member of ISPC), Chicago Jobs with Justice, ​Jane Addams Senior Caucus, Northside Action for Justice, They educate people with disabilities about ​single-payer, and also educate single-payer activists about disability-related issues.

​Anne Scheetz, Secretary, for the Committee​

Labor committee

Submitted by Hale Landes

From July 2017 to June 2018,

​The Chair and/or Members of the ISPC ​

Labor Outreach Committee accomplished the following:

• attended the Labor Notes conference, where they spoke about Medicare for all and disability issues

• presented a workshop at the Labor Fightback conference in Chicago

• sent letters in support of a fair contract to the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana Graduate Employees Organization, which has endorsed single-payer; turned out for their rallies; and sent money as individuals​

• sent a letter thanking the Decatur Trades and Labor Assembly for endorsing HR 676

• ​by personal phone call thanked the Vermillion County Labor Council for endorsing HR 676

• joined and spoke at a rally organized by the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes [​correct spelling]​, a supporter of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer

• presented Medicare for All on World Labor Hour broadcasts

• maintained​ relationships with Central Illinois, Chicago, and Northern Illinois Jobs with Justice and took​part in their activities

• supported​ groups that include single-payer as an issue in worker-community organizing

• created a slide show for labor audiences

In solidarity,

Hale Landes

Member IBEW LU 134

Chair Labor Outreach Committee

Legislative Committee

From July 2017 to June 2018, members of the ISPC Legislative Committee:

• proposed a letter of thanks to the Thomson IL Village Board for their resolution in support of Medicare for all, which Phil Verhoef, as President of the Board, sent

• provided Healthcare-NOW! with information on IL candidates for Congress who supported Medicare for all on their websites (none of these candidates won their primaries)

• communicated regularly with Senator Dick Durbin's legislative aid about problems his constituents face in getting health care, and about Medicare for all as the solution

• spoke to a meeting of the Chicago chapter of the Illinois Alliance for Retired Americans about the need for long-term care under national improved Medicare for all, with non-universal buy-in plans as proposed by Caring Across Generations being an inadequate substitute

• maintained a list on the ISPC website of bills in the Illinois General Assembly that would not be needed if we had Medicare for all

​Anne Scheetz, Chair, for the Committee

Website Committee

Submitted by Giudi Weiss

This year Anne revamped the "Contact Us" page to make it easy for people to find active ISPC groups and single-payer activists throughout Illinois.

David Baldwin has begun work on a new discussion group, hosted by our own website instead of Yahoo, so we can free ourselves from at least one evil corporation.

Nora Gruenberg introduced us to Amy Guth, who has expertise on the interface between websites and social media. We have contacted her about working with us on this in the near future.

We have also discussed the need to format our website to be more readable and appealing on mobile devices, and will look into this in the near future.

Membership Committee

ISPC Membership Committee Report-

Fiscal 2018: July 2017 to June 2018

The Membership Committee is responsible for building and maintaining ISPC’s base of paid members and supporters; planning and overseeing outreach activities approved by board such as emailing or mailing.  It also maintains individual and group member lists as well as the ISPC email lists.

Membership Committee Members:  Bill Bianchi, Chair; Sonja Rotenberg; Pam Gronemeyer; Mark Johnson, David Meimers, Donna Janovsky.

Activities (fiscal year 7/17 through 6/18), While the membership committee held no formal meetings, its members were active in building our mailing list and mobilizing ISPC supporters to attend single payer events and actions.  

1. During the fiscal year, ISPC sent out 23 emails to the big list of supporters.

2. We increased our email supporter list from 3822 to 4104 names and increase of 7%.  Special thanks to Anne Scheetz who continues to gather single payer supporter names.

3. Contacting members and supporters.  Membership committee members helped build attendance for these single payer related events:

   1. Everyone body Institute – 4/17

   2. Protest in Federal Plaza Chicago --  7/17

   3. Protest outside Cong. Mike Quigley’s office – 2/18

   4. JASC Teach in on Single Payer-- 4/18

   5. Medicare Townhall   -- 5/18

4. The committee can now track memberships via the CiviCRM.  It is now accurate in expiration of memberships and the renewal notices now go out automatically.

5. Membership (dues paying) and Supporter base

   1. Goal for total individual dues paid members by June, 2018: 100

   2. Actual paid members 80, about the same as previous year.

   3. Organizational membership: 6, no changes from last year. Current organizational members: PDA – IL, PNHP-IL, the Green Party, West Suburban IL DSA, NI-JWJ (Northern Illinois Jobs with Justice), SIPP (Southern Illinois People for Progress) and ADAPT

6. Plans for coming fiscal year:

   1. Work with Ben Day of Healthcare Now to improve CiviCRM ability to segment our list by zip and legislative districts.  That capability would enable us to target email efficiently in support of educational and lobbying activities.

   2. Plan to gather at least 1000 new supporter signatures at various outdoor events.  In the past we lacked the people to organize and carry out these events. But now with a part-time admin assistant we should be able to carry them out.

   3. With the assistance of the administrative assistant, conduct a series of regular fundraising activities and appeals.

Social Media Committee

Submitted by Phil Verhoef

Overall, our contractor worked with Amy Guth in anticipation of the May 19 townhall event. She and Nora (the contractor) were given access to Facebook and Twitter and markedly increased our reach, both in google searches and in Tweets. Nora recommends we meet with Amy to further understand how to improve our reach in social media.

Lauren Kadziel has expressed interest in participating in social media as well.

Below is a summary of how our social media use evolved around the May 19 event:

Since Townhall, tweets from day-of live-tweeting, as well as evergreen resources continue to be

widely shared by network. Momentum is excellent on these accounts right now, and a social

media and SEO maintenance strategy is highly recommended to allow this momentum to

continue and build ahead of next event or push.

Since onset of campaign, Twitter impressions are up 606.7% over average from @ILsinglepayer

account, and link click-throughs (within tweets) are up 92%. Facebook post engagements are

up 471% and organic reach is up 79%. Movement in SERP (search engine results page)

significantly improving, with ISPC site moving into top position, and Twitter and Facebook

accounts continuing to move up several positions on initial SERP.

5/28/2018

Tweets sent: rate at 997% over average as of 5/24

- 3,100% over average after Townhall live-tweeting

Twitter impressions: 6.1k (up 727.9% over average)

Twitter profile visits: 947 (up 180.2% over average)

Twitter followers: 804

Facebook post engagements: 96 (up 71%

Regional Reports

From ISPC-Chicago

ISPC Chicago meets monthly. Meetings have included a presentation and discussion on Modern Monetary Theory; and a discussion on "To Help Us Persuade Decision-Makers."

ISPC Chicago members have worked, tabled, and spoken at events, educating people about Medicare for all, with the following groups: Alliance for Community Services, American Mercy Tour, Blocks Together, Bughouse Square, Chicago Anti-War Coalition, Chicago Jobs with Justice, Illinois Poor People's Campaign, Jane Addams Senior Caucus, March for Life counter-protest, May Day, Refuse Fascism, Right Care, Right to Heal.

Members have participated in call-in days, townhall attendance, constituent visits, and actions directed at Senator Tammy Duckworth, Senator Dick Durbin, Representative Luis Gutierrez, Representative Mike Quigley, Representative Bill Foster​

Members work with other groups working on Medicare for all, including Chicago and West Suburban DSA, Health Over Profit Single-Payer Action Camp in Washington DC, National Nurses United, and Northwest Illinois Indivisible Rebels.

Members organized or participated in tabling, film screenings and discussions in DeKalb, Naperville, Northbrook, Oak Lawn, Oak Park, St. Charles, West Chicago, as well as various neighborhoods of Chicago.

From Champaign, IL

David Johnson is ISPC's principal contact in Champaign-Urbana.

His wife Heidi is also active with promoting single-payer in her union, Champaign Public Schools Support Staff Union, which has endorsed single-payer.

Both joined the new Democratic Socialists of America chapter that formed recently in Champaign.  

At a DSA meeting on Memorial Day weekend, David, Heidi, and members of a Unitarian Church and other churches, Heidi's union, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Graduate Employees Organization, and other groups made initial plans for their Medicare for All Campaign. They have reached out to medical professionals. They are working toward a public townhall.

From Will County

ISPC members from Will County have organized or participated in activities in Oak Lawn, Naperville, and St. Charles, including a Resistance Resource Fair, film screenings, and forums.

Ed Cole made a presentation in Frankfort; it was filmed by a TV station, which promised to make it available to the public but has not done so to date.

July 6, 2017 Congressman Bill Foster’s Health Care Forum at St. Joseph’s Hospital, Joliet

I was one of four panelists, along with the president of the Illinois Hospital Association, a substance-abuse staff physician at St. Joe’s, and a representative of a community-based health agency.

The purpose of the forum was to save the ACA from Republican repeal attempts, so I was advised not to turn my statement into out-and-out advocacy for single-payer. However, I strongly stated my position at the outset, promoted SP during the Q&A session, and found the audience extremely receptive to SP. Jordan Centers was in the audience and used the Q&A session to provide valuable information about SP.

July 27, 2017  Meeting with Senator Durbin’s Aide in his Chicago office

Four Will County residents joined a meeting of eight SP advocates with the Senator’s aide Tran Nguyen to present information and documents. Each person offered experiences with the health care system and reasons for supporting SP.

I followed up by sending her additional articles.

Sept. 8, 2017  Meeting on Our Revolution with Rep. Bill Foster’s Aide, Joliet office

Five Will County residents met with the Congressman’s aide, Brian Robb, to advocate for the Our Revolution agenda. HR 676 is the first item on that agenda.  We presented a petition signed by over a hundred Will County residents in support of that agenda. I also asked that Foster co-sponsor HR 2472 Disability Integration Act and gave Brian a printed copy of the legislation.

Re HR676 Foster has stated that he believes health care is a human right, and Brian said that he supports sections of HR 676 but wants to see a CBO score, and would not co-sponsor any bill without a CBO score.

Presentations and updates on single-payer at various meetings of Will County Progressives and Illinois Democratic Women of Will County

There is considerable overlap between Will County participation and legislative activities.

From Southern Illinois People for Progress

Submitted by Pam Gronemeyer

Southern Illinois People for Progress continued to work on educational activities to inform groups and individuals about Improved Medicare for All  and ISPC. We had a booth at The Goshen Market once a month from June until October in Edwardsville. We collaborated with Indivisible 12 from Belleville,IL for healthcare rallies at Congressman Bost Il 12's office and Congressman Rodney Davis IL 13's office. We continued to request town halls without success. These two congressmen will only have telephone town halls. Pam Gronemeyer gave a well attended talk for Indivisible 12 in December. In addition we worked to get radio time on a program in St.Louis on a public access channel. Pam gave two half hour interviews on Medicare for All on the program in February.  Pam also joined with Our Revolution IL to run for the Democratic state central committee from IL13 on a platform dedicated to Improved Medicare for All. Unfortunately, only one member of the Our Revolution group won. We will continue to work in 2018 and will have our first day at the market on June 30.