Happy New Year!

Have a safe celebration, and best wishes for a wonderful 2011.

Carpooling to DFL State Central Committee Meetings

Fellow State Central Committee Members,

On today, my birthday, I wanted to present a new tool to you to possibly aid in SCC travel.

WHEREAS: In Minnesota we have a beautiful, and big, state to travel to get to State Party Meetings. AND

WHEREAS: To help aid in the travel of Delegates and Alternates to SCC Meetings I have created a Google Group that I believe could help facilitate travel within our beautiful state. AND

WHEREAS: We can help the environment and our pocketbooks at the same time! AND

WHEREAS: We all know what a pain it can be to drive for hours to attend meetings, that's just how big beautiful Minnesota works.

BE IT RESOLVED THAT: If you are interested in joining, either to request a ride or to fulfill a ride request, please go to this link http://groups.google.com/group/dfl-carpool-group and Click on "Join the Group" on the right side of the Home Page.

After you click "Join the Group" you will be prompted to login to Google Accounts. If you do not have a Google Account (different from a Gmail Account) all you need to do is Create/sign up for a Google Account with your own e-mail address and create a password.

Just as you do not need a Yahoo E-mail address to join the SCC ListServe (which is a YahooGroup), you do not need a Gmail E-mail address to join the DFL Carpool List

For now, the main function of this list will be to let people Requesting a Ride to post to the list.

A person wishing to Fulfill a Ride Request would then Reply directly to the person requesting a ride (this ensures some privacy, and prevents accumulation of E-mails that would otherwise go to the whole group).

I've tried to make the instructions very specific to aid in the facilitation of ride requesting and giving.

This is what the Instructions for Usage will look like, for now, on the DFL Carpool Group:
_________________________________________________________________________

To post a request to this group, send email to dfl-carpool-group@googlegroups.com

When REQUESTING a Ride:

Format the Subject: RIDE REQUEST: Your Name, Meeting Title and Date, Your Congressional District, City, ZIP Code

EXAMPLE: RIDE REQUEST: John Doe, DFL Business Conference 2/5/2010, CD1, La Crescent, 55947

In the BODY of the E-mail Please list:

Your Name,
Meeting Title and Date, Your Congressional District, Your City, Your ZIP Code
Your E-mail Address
The Best Phone Number to Reach You At
The Best time to call

EXAMPLE:
John Doe
DFL Business Conference 2/5/2010, CD1, La Crescent, 55947
johndoe@fakeemail._com
507.867.5309
After 5pm

When FULFILLING a Ride Request please REPLY DIRECTLY to the person at their personal E-mail Address to make arrangements for a ride.

When a ride has been ARRANGED, the person requesting the ride should reply to their original Request with ARRANGED in the Subject Line
_________________________________________________________________________

This could work, or it could not, but I think it might be worth it to give it a try.

I've created this group to help facilitate better usage of our available natural, human, time and financial resources. At some point we all have to travel somewhere.

Sincerely,

Jacob Grippen
Chair - Houston County DFL
CD1 Male Delegate to State AAC (CD1 Executive Committee)

Reach Me Through:
Website/Blog: http://jacobfordfl.blogspot.com/
Facebook (Personal): http://www.facebook.com/#!/jacobandersongrippen
Facebook (Campaign): http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Jacob-Grippen-for-State-DFL-Secretary/185288971488004
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jabezMcB
E-mail: jacobandersongrippen@gmail.com
Cell Phone: 347.834.1771
Google Voice: 507.724.8125

Qualifications for Secretary

SCC Delegate David Kaplan asked some questions to the Secretary candidates this morning via the SCC ListServe, and I wanted to post my response.

I understand your line of questioning, and I will answer it in this message. When I wrote to the SCC on Monday the 20th, I was laying out my vision and qualifications for the official role as Secretary, as well as some ideas on what I would try to help influence with the Executive Committee, Central Committee and Staff to improve how our party functions, and how effective our party is. I felt that laying out my vision would not only spur other people's thought and ideas, but would also show my passion for the party and its future.

As for your specific questions related to the Role as Secretary:

File Management: I have experience creating and sending out files to appropriate persons in need of the files. As soon as our County Convention was over, and I had all the data entered in the VAN, I created a Contact Spreadsheet to share with our Executive and Central Committees (still on the same day as the convention), so that we could hit the ground running with our new committee population. I also helped prepare and manage the caucus site boxes, making sure that each Caucus site had the appropriate documents, and specific precinct maps. Immediately following caucuses(that night, and the next day), I traveled to collect all the important documents, made sure they were data entered, and they are still filed in my extra room here at my apartment. Through AmeriCorps I maintained a Tutor Log for each student that I worked with, and made sure that it was always secure, and then passed it on to the next AmeriCorps tutor after I finished my service. During my years as an ingredient and inventory batcher at the food powder factory I had to keep track of each run of product, and what was in that product, on paper as well as in a computer database. These paper and electronic files would have to be presented to Quality Control, and then move on through the process to where the product ended up being shipped.

Minute Taking: I have 1 year of experience taking minutes for Church Council, as well as experience writing the minutes for our 2010 Houston County Convention, as well as aiding our County Secretary in preparing our Exec and Central Committee Minutes for presentation.

Listserv Management: I created and maintain (through a specific Houston County DFL e-mail that I created) the Houston County Lists: Central, Executive, and Volunteer/Event Notice (Including Candidates and Elected Officials). Related to ListServe Management I have 2.5 years of VAN/Voterfile experience (Something that Susan Rego suggested would be a need, if the Secretary continues to manage the ListServe, which I would be more than willing to continue to do) and can pull an appropriate list to aid me in maintaining the SCC and SEC Lists.

File Preservation: All the documents that I have created for Houston County DFL are preserved on my computer, backed up on an external hard drive, and physical documents such as our Constitution are filed safely in my apartment, in the same vicinity as the Caucus and Convention Sign-in Lists, as well as the 2010 State Convention Roster and 2010 Executive/Central Committee Roster. I tend to always save, rather than delete/throw out.

Added notes: When it comes to duties like the ones prescribed in the DFL Constitution, I am a very organized person. I like to get all the information together and make sure it's getting to the appropriate person or people, and as a person interested in history, I like to preserve things to look back on. Like I said, I save and hold onto things way more than I delete and throw out.

I hope that these answers will aid you and the SCC in your/their thought process about the Secretary's race.

Please continue to ask questions and I will answer them when I can (given the 2 posts a day rule).

I hope that everyone reading this will have a safe and Happy New Year!

Sincerely,

Jacob Grippen
Chair - Houston County DFL
CD1 Male Delegate to State AAC (CD1 Executive Committee)

Reach Me Through:
Website/Blog: http://jacobfordfl.blogspot.com/
Facebook (Personal): http://www.facebook.com/#!/jacobandersongrippen
Facebook (Campaign): http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Jacob-Grippen-for-State-DFL-Secretary/185288971488004
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jabezMcB
E-mail: jacobandersongrippen@gmail.com
Cell Phone: 347.834.1771
Google Voice: 507.724.8125

Just where exactly is Houston County?

Houston County (named after Sam Houston) is located in the absolute southeast corner of Minnesota. It is bordered to the east by Wisconsin (Mississippi River) and to the south by Iowa. Winona and Fillmore Counties surround Houston County on the north and west, respectively.

The County Seat is Caledonia (where I was raised). The largest city is La Crescent, where I currently live.

Here's a map:

Happy Holidays

May you all be safe, be warm, and find comfort with the people you choose to surround yourselves with this holiday season, and best wishes for a happy and productive new year!

The Announcement

This was originally e-mailed to the DFL State Central Committee on Monday, December 20, 2010
____________________

Fellow State Central Committee Members:

Over the past few years I have become more and more actively involved in volunteer and paid DFL political work, and in that time I have come to know and work with many of you. I can't say that I know all of you yet, but I write to you now to humbly ask for your support of my candidacy to be the next Secretary for the State DFL Party.

I want to first thank outgoing Secretary Susan Rego for her outstanding work.

A brief biography: I spend the first 18 years of my life in Caledonia, MN (Houston County) and currently live in La Crescent, MN (also Houston County). I attended New York University from 2002-2006 and graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Social Studies Education. I've worked in factories, I've worked on campaigns, I've tutored school children through AmeriCorps.

Having now served on the Houston County DFL's Executive Committee (currently as Chair), the First Congressional District DFL's Executive Committee (currently as Male Delegate to the State AA Commission), as well as working to organize in southeastern (SD31) and southwestern (SD21 and SD22) Minnesota during the last two election cycles, I feel that I have a unique perspective to add to the State DFL's Executive and Central Committee as its Secretary.

As a former DFL staffer and a Chair in a purple (and sometimes more red) part of the state, I know how hard it is to get people active in our party's work. I have worked in fairly friendly territory (SD31: Fillmore, Houston, and Winona Counties in 2008), and fairly Red territory (SD21 and SD22: Brown, Cottonwood, Jackson, Lyon, Murray, Nobles, Pipestone, Redwood, Rock, and Watonwan in 2010).

I have gathered thoughts from our last two DFL State Secretaries, Susan Rego and Dave Lee, regarding their perspectives on their role as Secretary: the constitutionally mandated work, the extra add-on work (such as managing this SCC list) that is performed, and the "day in the life" aspect of being the secretary for the MN DFL.

I believe that I am qualified to fulfill the duties required of the Secretary as prescribed by the DFL Constitution as well as the other extra work that has been performed splendidly by our former and outgoing secretaries, I have the organizational skills and previous relevant work experience required to perform these duties

My past work experience includes working in a factory that produced (among other things) energy drink powders. As the person (known as a batcher) that prepared ingredients to be mixed in mass quantities, I was required to keep a very detailed account of what ingredients went into what mixture for mass production via a paper trail and via computer program. Later on I became the inventory batcher for the small packaging line, keeping detailed track of the supplies with which our products were packaged. As a campaign staffer I was required to keep track of voter contact data, volunteer recruitment data and recount data. As a tutor for AmeriCorps during the 2009-2010 school year, I had to maintain very specific and confidential data relating to my MN Reading Corps service tutoring school children grades K through 3 with their reading skills.

I have non-political volunteer and board experience, I recently went off the board of Ye Olde Opera House Community Theater after 4 years (term-limited), my last year spent as President. And I have been an active volunteer with the YOOH since 2001.

I have experience taking and writing minutes, including one year for church council, and more recently at our 2010 County Convention. Through my research and guidance I was instrumental in helping Houston County maintain and amend a new party unit constitution at our 2010 Convention.

I currently maintain the e-mail list for Houston County DFL, and I am an administrator for the Houston County DFL page and First Congressional District group on Facebook (both of which I created).

I helped manage my friend Steve Kemp's unsuccessful campaign to unseat Greg Davids in 2010.

I also have over 2 years of experience working with the VoterFile database (aka the VAN).

Beyond the skills set needed for the position of Secretary, I believe I also offer the perspective of:

1. A younger DFL member
2. A DFL member from Greater Minnesota.
3. A former DFL staffer (most recently as a member of the Dayton Recount Committee)

These three aspects of my DFL involvement, I believe, would help to add extra insight to our Executive and Central Committee's decision-making processes to lead our party into the future.

I personally want to be able to reach out, not only to the people my age through active communication with the MYDFL and it's subordinate organizations (i.e. College Dems, and High School Dems) throughout the state, but also help keep open a line of communication between the State Party, the Metropolitan units, and the party units in Greater Minnesota - a line of communication built on mutual trust and understanding. We can build stronger relationships and connections throughout the state, so that we can all understand the perspectives with which individual members of the SCC are looking our party's decisions and strategies. Connecting with and understanding one another and gaining statewide perspective helps to make our party more successful as a whole. We all know the words of our late great Senator Wellstone ". . . we all do better when we all do better."

How do we continue to build these connections? We keep an open running dialogue, we listen to one another, we educate one another, we pool together our collective ideas and resources to continue to create and improve statewide trainings and training materials in key topics such as fund-raising, messaging (and its off-shoots: blogs, social media, local media, etc), party-building and community outreach (all races, creeds, religions, income levels, genders and sexual identities). We tell each other our "best practices" on these topics so that as local units we don't have to keep reinventing the wheel. Not everything will work exactly the same in all parts of the state, but we can surely share our ideas to adapt them to work for each local unit. Just as all of these topics are interconnected, we as a state party are interconnected.

If we build on utilizing our talents to train one another (and have our professional political operatives offer their advice) on how to frame our ideas, how to disseminate our principles and our message, and our talking points, through local papers, through the blog universe, and through social media, as well as having key federal and state talking points readily available to local and Congressional party units, we can all do better together, we can use these talking points from our Legislative and Executive Leaders to help aid them in the battle for public opinion. We can always do better to explain the principles behind why we're called the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Not only do we help our party by defending and exclaiming its principles and ideas, but we help to show potential new active members (the less active Democrats, and the general public) that we are the party that fights for their causes. We all do better when we all do better.

I am ready, willing and able to take on this new challenge as we continue to maintain and grow our DFL party, protect our incumbent State and Federal DFL office-holders, and work toward new DFL majorities in St. Paul.

Please feel free to ask questions via this list, through my e-mail which is jacobandersongrippen@gmail.com or by cell phone 347.834.1771 (my number is a souvenir from my college years in NYC)

You can also follow me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Jacob-Grippen-for-DFL-Secretary/185288971488004

I look forward to talking to you about my candidacy and to hear your ideas for continuing to move our party forward.

I once again humbly ask for your support at February's DFL Business Conference.

Sincerely,

Jacob Grippen
Chair - Houston County DFL
CD1 Male Delegate to State AAC (CD1 Executive Committee)

P.S. I want to wish everyone a Happy Holiday Season, and a Happy New Year!