Proposed by the participants at the October 21, 2023 Membership Meeting to the entire membership.
Members should vote using the form at the bottom of this page.
1 – That we adopt this structure for our organization for the next year until September 30, 2024:
Our organization is directed by the will of the majority of its members, determined by vote with the following two leadership bodies:
Membership, the highest decision-making body, meets twice a year.
Coordination Team, comprised of 15 people as described below, which meets every two months to plan and oversee the implementation of the Membership’s decisions and its yearly work-plan. In doing so, the Team may form groups, sub-groups or teams charged with carrying out specific functions and may also launch national campaigns responding to specific issues that arise. Any RE member may attend CT meetings with full voice (but not voting) privileges.
The Coordination Team will establish various workgroups to carry out work that is not specifically mandate and/or directed by the CT. These groups must not contradict RE’s general membership-approved policies and must work implementing the program points of its mini-program.
The Coordination Team will establish a Rapid Response Team, comprised of five CT members, that oversees our organization’s response to issues, situations and needs that arise between CT meetings. It will schedule its own meetings and communicate via the CT’s mailing list. All CT members may participate in RRT meetings with full privilege.
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2 – The CT encourages members to suggest other members as potential CT members during our expansion. The CT already has a list, including the 11 current members. But we ask that you submit names of potential members you think we should consider to info@radicalelders.net. Please remember that we are intentional and prioritize women and people of the global majority. We will mail our final proposed list of CT members by October 18, 2024.
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3 – That we engage in this National Expansion Program
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Goals:
a – increase RE size to 300 members
b – increase the presence of our key issues in all movement program
c – expand organized “elders movement”
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Project: Expand RE Movement Presence
A — Develop workshop model and try to establish our presence at every movement conference during the year. Make a list of all upcoming conferences/events in a timely fashion. Distribute model among members and encourage members to attend conferences close to them or affiliated with their work and use the model.
B — Establish media team to aggressively expand media work by booking interviews with radio, tv, podcast and print outlets.
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Project: Form “safety net” workgroup
Form membership workgroup on “the safety net” which would engage similarly to the current working groups — health-care and climate justice. The safety net is the grouping of programs and rights that sustain us through our natural lives. These include the social security/medical care laws but may also involve other rights not yet recognized or acted upon by the government: housing, transportation, etc.
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Project: Continue Living Library Project
To capture in digital form the experiences and lessons of the lives of elder activists including our members.
Continue interviews with members and other elders.
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Project: Form elders group collaboration
Start with an informational project, like a web-page that has updates on what everyone is doing. Invite all the elders groups we worked with for the climate march to post their latest news and updates using a form and to publicize the web-page to everyone. We can use a page on our website.
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That we appoint to our Coordination Team the following members (bios will follow):
Zakiya Alake
Sam Anderson
Maritza Arrastia
Howard Ehrman
Marilyn Frankenstein
Sally Gellert
Ted Glick
Dave Lindorff
Alfredo Lopez
Dorotea Manuela
Angel Roman
and the following new members:
Kevin Norton
Kevin Norton is a musician based in New Jersey: a composer, performer and educator for over 35 years. As a composer he has written for jazz bands, chamber groups and movie soundtracks. His compositions can be heard on over 20 CDs (and he has performed on maybe 100 recordings) As a performer he has worked with Milt Hinton, Anthony Braxton, Joëlle Léandre, Fred Frith, John Zorn, Pat Irwin and Connie Crothers. As a community activist, Kevin is or has been a member of The Leonia (NJ) Peace Vigil, COFIA (Community of Friends in Action: working for immigrant workers in North New Jersey), Radical Elders, the North New Jersey chapter of Democratic Socialists of America (NNJ-DSA) (working groups: Immigrant Justice, Mutual Aid, CREW (Committee of Radical Education Workers) amongst others) and POP (People’s Organization for Progress). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Norton
Makani Themba
Makani Themba is a veteran organizer and movement communications practitioner based in Jackson, Mississippi. An author, social justice innovator, and pioneer in the fields of change communications and community-led, justice centered policy development, she has spent more than 40 years supporting organizations, coalitions and philanthropic institutions in developing high impact change initiatives. Her ideological influences are diverse, intersectional, and dynamic. Her main political “homes” over the years have remained the Black Liberation Movement, liberation theology, and “Third World” and eco feminism.
Phil Warlick
Veteran labor activist Phil Warlick worked for U. S. Postal Service more than 40 years and participated as his union’s California State Legislative Director or as a Legislative Department Grassroots Coordinator since the late 1990s. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Political Science and a Masters Degree in Public Administration, giving some depth to his analysis of the issues facing workers and marginalized communities in America. He joined the NAACP at age 15 and worked in the Black Students Union in college. Phils says he loves music particularly jazz, blues, and 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s rythmn and blues, but also European Classical music and those are among the resources he draws upon to try to improve the quality of life for people in this country.
Jose Alfaro
Since the late 60’s Jose has been involved in community struggles in NYC around tenant’s rights and housing justice, youth organizing, decent health care, equality and affirmative action in education, opposition to police brutality, as well as the struggle for a free Puerto Rico and against war, colonialism and racism abroad. He’s been in multiple Marxist and anti-imperialist organizations, most recently developing study groups to understand the key history of racism within the white supremacist U.S. In the 90’s he was a member of the team that founded an innovative high school, Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom H.S. in the south Bronx where he was employed for 17 years as the Director of Social Work. Presently I’m a retiring family therapist. Raised in the Bronx “by a white, Jewish Mother and a Catholic, Puerto Rican father”, both of whom were political activists, Jose is the proud father of a son who has trained him to run marathons.
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Voting on our priorities and Coordination Team has now closed. We are tabulating the vote and will report on it in day. Thanks all members who voted.
Radical Elders Coordination Team