Category: Meeting Notes

Good afternoon comrades,

As you are aware, tomorrow we are going to have a special meeting for the elections and the accompanying constitutional review. I have yet to create the polls on the voting booth because I have some relevant updates that I’d like to share with you, and because I’d like to list the positions and nominees for those positions as well as their duties as described by the officers in those positions where possible.

First I must start with rescinding my first proposal from last week’s meeting to formally merge our Labor Relations committee with our Theory & Education committee. I have a multitude of reasons for this, not the least of which being that as a communist organization, it is our duty to not only include labor in our guiding ideology, but in our praxis as well.

Practically speaking, the committees do not cost us anything and do not drain each other of any sort of resources to speak. It behooves us to maintain our organizational structure rather than obscure that organizational structure, even if it is for the sake of holding co-chairs accountable for inactivity. But this has always been the long game, and should be a tenet of any self-respecting socialist organization.

Along with some long-needed voting reforms to be discussed at Sunday’s meeting, Labor Relations co-chair Liam has guaranteed me a renewed commitment to our efforts and involvement in organizing the working class, starting with a meeting to work on the “Immigrants Are Not Taking Your Jobs” pamphlet in our Meeting Room at some point this week. The time and other details are still TBD and will be announced it in the #labor channel.

This renewed commitment also comes with the news of Labor co-chair Chris’s agreement to step down from his position so that current sitting Theory & Education David can step in and help. David obviously is probably one of the most qualified people around when it comes to understanding the intricacies of running a CJS committee, but more importantly, has experience in staging workplace actions in New Brunswick during his time in the food service industry.

It was a mistake on my part to impose such a massive change to the way that the organization should formally and ideally work without consulting the people who the bulk of the work would fall on, so I take full responsibility for that.

Now, without further ado, our nominees for election:

• General Secretary(vacant seat): Arly
• Mutual Aid(vacant seat): Pat
• Treasurer(vacant seat): Danny
• Outreach Officer(if Arly is confirmed): Ming
• Labor Relations: David
• Theory & Education: Johnny

The vote to confirm them will begin after this Sunday’s meeting.

12/27’s passed proposals:

1. the creation of a Direct Action Committee. Ming and Danny have nominated themselves for officership.
2. Having co-chairs attend other committee meetings as a requirement for officership
3. Collaboration with Food Not Bombs Asbury(and having Doris speak at one of our general meetings)

Tentative Action Plan for the Week:

1. Sunday, 1/3 @ 8PM – Constitutional Review/Election Confirmation meeting(optional, attendance not mandatory, but important org business)
2. Next week @ TBD – Labor Relations meeting
3. Next week @ TBD – Mutual Aid care package assembly
4. Sunday, 1/10 @ 8PM – General Meeting(with a focus on Lincoln Annex fight)
5. Monday, 1/11 @ 7PM – Lincoln Annex Parking Deck Demolition planning board public hearing

And be sure to pre-order a t-shirt! Thus far, Pat is the only person who has put in an order! If we don’t get enough pre-orders, we won’t be able to get any made!

In solidarity,

Nishad

General Secretary

CJS

Good afternoon folks!
As the weather gets colder, daylight becomes more precious, the holidays roll by, and we move to Discord for our general meetings, it’s gotten a little bit more difficult to organize as quickly as we have in the past. Not to worry though – there are some ongoing fights that are ramping up now, and here’s how we can get involved in them:
This Sunday, December 13th, we will be taking our general meeting to Zoom so that we can have it open to the public as we will be joined by our honorable comrade Charlie Kratovil. He will be addressing us and providing a tactical plan of action for the Monday, December 14th Planning Board hearing for the Parking Deck portion of the Lincoln Annex School demolition project. Please join us and make sure to tell your friends. Will send a follow-up email with a flier for the meeting. 
In other news, we now have a PayPal account! So if you know someone who’s been trying to donate to us, please direct them to the account associated with this email address! This will be good in case the proposal to have our donations matched by Chubb Insurance goes through – as they only match contributions that have a paper trail(this means, unfortunately, cash is out of the question). We also have our Cash App account that is specifically for Mutual Aid, $CJSocMA.
The following proposals were put forth at the 11/29 meeting:

1. Joining the Edison for Racial Justice Central NJ Coalition
2. Food and Toy giveaway for the Holidays
3. Chubb Insurance contribution matching
4. Electing Johnny as our Marxist Center delegate
5. Zoom meetings to plan our Solidarity Rally on off sundays
6. PayPal Account
   

And remember, we had a homework assignment – to talk to at least one person who has previously expressed interest in membership and having them come to the next general meeting! This, along with the ideas to flyer at Brookdale and Middlesex community colleges should help grow our numbers. We can also join ongoing local protest movements! Lindsay, Danny, and I attended a rally in Hackensack to protest against the horrible conditions that ICE detainees at Bergen County Jail have been conducting a now 25-day long hunger strike against. This is definitely something we can get more involved in and more heads out to with our flags.

In solidarity,
Nishad
General Secretary
Central Jersey Socialists

Don’t forget the upcoming events at the bottom! All information will also be posted on the blog which will be linked in the Discord.

*Apologies on the new format, Lindsay is helping Nishard out with the emails, if you hate it please let me know! Happy to adjust to whatever is best.

1. Lincoln Annex School Update

• November 12th Meeting was cancelled, next School Board Meeting is scheduled for December 14th

2. Dr. Emma Bushong scheduled to *potentially speak* at next meeting on November 29th
3. Marshal Training has been approved, but we need to decide a date, Johnny will coordinate with his contacts
4. Marxist Center call is scheduled – Johnny, Arly, Nishad to attend
5. Nishad is ordering stickers
6. Anakbayan call was great, many contacts made, if you want to be added to their signal ping Nishad
7. We will begin organizing BLM rally for channel, a Discord channel has been created and we are pending a proposal to schedule a planning meeting
8. Care packages are being put together Monday, November 16th at 7pm please message Lindsay for an address if you would like to attend
9. Mutual Aid is continuing the River Walk project and food distribution please message Eric if you would like to get involved

10. Martial arts classes with Jorell are still scheduled – please attend! Details and updates are in the Discord channel
11. Theory watched this lecture.

• If you have questions on the lecture please feel free to post in the theory channel!
• Ming is doing a separate reading group for the Wretched of the Earth please dm her for details

12. Agit-prop will be flyering Thursday at 10pm please message Pat or Ming for details
13. Don’t forget to take a look at the proposals and vote via Discord! Note that voting is reserved for dues paying members
14. Upcoming Events to attend!

• A November Feast – hosted by Refugee Center on Nov. 26th at noon by Pitman Park please dm Ming for details
• Mutual Aid Not Thanksgiving – a month long solidarity project benefiting local relations at the Refuge Center please dm Ming for details

If you have any questions, please feel free to respond to this email or post on the general Discord.
Have a great week ya’ll!
Lindsay

Good evening comrades,

We had a big weekend. We made our presence known at Tormel Pittman’s BLM rally, led by Terrance Floyd and with special guest speaker appearances by Zayid Mohammad and Larry Hamm. Their speeches were incredibly moving, and I’m glad we were able to send representatives of our group. Huge thanks to the Theory Committee for making the pamphlet for us to hand out – it was really well-made and had a good little primer on capitalism and its inextricable ties with police brutality.

For those of you who joined us for the first time at the meeting the following night, a quick introduction to the group: we are a multi-disciplinary(all are welcome) Marxist group that aims to do the true work of socialism: that is to say, the work that is often difficult, time-consuming, and not necessarily sexy. In order to have a successful revolution, we must have a strong foundation of mutual aid, labor and tenants’ rights organizing, and of course a clear and focused ideology. Our area of focus is the 6(and a half, if you count the very top of Ocean County) counties of Central Jersey, namely, Middlesex, Monmouth, Mercer, Somerset, Hunterdon, and Union counties.

As of right now, we chiefly operate out of New Brunswick, with a bi-weekly general meeting, and weekly Theory and Mutual Aid committee meetings in person and on Discord, depending on the meetings. Unlike many of the groups associated with the area, we aim to be the first-of-its-kind radical leftist group that is uncompromising in its message and is concentrated on organizing the proletariat and the new left. This is not a group that is comprised chiefly of university students or other such bourgeois intellectuals who are not interested in praxis. And it’s not a group that gets bogged down by too strong a focus on the work of any one of our individual committees.

We use dialectical materialism and completely horizontal, democratic participation from all of our members to come up with the ways in which we instantiate Marxist theory. What we do not partake in is adventurism, as we are no use to our class or our comrades if we are dead or in jail, or electoralism, as we believe the capitalist class will never truly capitulate to our demands with the way things currently are in our country.

Most of our organizing work is done on our Discord server. If you are interested in any of our individual committees’ projects, drop into their channels and ask away. Currently, our Mutual Aid Committee, chaired by Kate and Eric, are making headway in their Rt. 18 Riverwalk cleanup project, and have amassed a huge Food Pantry with tons of contributions of non-perishables and other goods for open and free use and consumption. Our Theory and Education Committee has thus far read The Communist Manifesto, Wage Labour & Capital, and has done work on a number of pamphlets that will soon be available on our website. Make sure to introduce yourself on the #welcome-and-rules channel when you join!

Proposals Passed At The Last Meeting:

• Collaboration with Food Not Bombs
• Discount on Annual Membership Dues – $20, down from $24 at the regular rate of $2/mo.
• General assembly working with Theory & Ed to create working class history and other assorted infographics
• Coat drive for the impending winter weather

Mutual Aid has pretty much completed their clean-up of the Albany St. side of the Riverwalk, and are ready to begin planting garlic, spinach, and lettuce in the area by the underpass. They will be collecting coats and other warm articles of clothing at the next meeting, and please bring any plastic bins or other weatherproof containers as well. Many of the houseless community have told us that one of the biggest issues they have down there is keeping everything in tact from rain and humidity. Plus, we will be able drop our coat drive collections there from time to time. Additionally, we are trying to put our own trash cans down there, as the city has all but abandoned theirs. Finally, we are almost ready to start distributing our care packages. For more info on what the Committee needs before they are able to distribute them, please use the Discord server.

Theory & Ed is going to be synthesizing a pamphlet of new material based off of their readings of the Manifesto and Wage Labour & Capital in addition to their collaboration with the greater group at large. They will also be working on a glossary of Marxist terms that will soon be available on the website. The next reading will be an essay by Friedrich Engels on family structures and the way they exist in different cultures. Their meeting has been pushed back to this Wednesday at 9PM on the #meeting-room channel on Discord.

Lance gave his informative speech on Rojava, complete with a handout with all of the information he presented. Jon-Luc gave their presentation on the concept of New Urbanism and why it relates to us as socialists and radical leftists. And I gave a brief primer on the indigenous movements in Bolivia and how they are fighting back against the white, fascistic interim government, plus the fantastic news that Jeanine Áñez and her ‘Democrat Social Movement'(see how far right movements LOVE stealing our verbiage?) pulling out of the upcoming election. ¡Viva Evo Morales!

That just about covers it. Once again, thanks very much to all of our new members for joining us. You all bring something new and unique to the table and I look forward to collaborating with you all in building the future that we deserve to live in. And of course, thank you to all of our dues-paying members for showing up and continuing to fight the good fight!

In solidarity,
Nishad
General Secretary
Central Jersey Socialists

Good afternoon folks!

Yesterday’s rally was awesome, as always. Brother Tormel Pittman is a great speaker, but Zayid Muhammad and Larry Hamm knocked it outta the park – even directly quote Marx and Malcolm X. Zayid even went so far as to call for socialism as a response to our oppressive system, and I was able to hand out Theory’s awesome pamphlet to a lot of interested folks. Hopefully some of them will make their way to tonight’s meeting.

The meeting tonight will be back at Cookie’s Jar(my place; reply individually if you need it, or hit up the Discord) – please make sure that you bring your monthly membership dues. Cash is preferred but if you need to do it digitally, let me know. We’ll work something out. 
Also be sure to wear layers or bring a blanket or something – it’s gonna be kind of chilly tonight! Maybe I can get a fire going.

For presenters who are going tonight – just remember that we do not have to capture all of the nuance of the political situations in the places we’ve chosen. The reason why we chose these places is for their revolutionary tactics. There are a lot of things we can learn, even from our ideological enemies.

In solidarity,
Nishad

Good afternoon comrades!

First of all, let me start off with an apology – it’s been quite some time since my last correspondence with you all. Things have been super crazy, not only in my home and professional life, but also in regard to our group! We’ve been doing a lot of stuff lately, but finally, we were able to finalize the details on and solidify the first edition of our group’s constitution! This is a document that we created from scratch in a fair and democratic way. We received input from each of our members and created something that is far greater than just the sum of our ideas – this was the synthesis of something that goes beyond all of us here in New Brunswick, Middlesex County, or even New Jersey for that matter.
We created a document that will guide our work as a group and serve as just one of the many ideological vertebrae that we are constructing for ourselves. By considering the unique conditions of our environment and our values as socialists, communists, and radical leftists, we made something that when each of the individuals who is in our group now fades away, we will be able to pass on to the next generation of revolutionaries. And we did it together. May we remain committed to refining it by making additions, redactions, and corrections as we continue to move forward as a group. Mark every September 6th down in your calendars moving forward as “Constitution Day”(or just every Sunday before Labor Day lol).

On our August 30th meeting, we discussed Theory & Education‘s reading of Wage Labour and Capital, which they have since concluded and have decided to, combined with their reading of the Communist Manifesto, begin work on creating a glossary of theoretical terms, which we all hope to contribute to further as we do more group readings. There was also discussion of creating a pamphlet on the exploitative nature of capitalism and the Manifesto as well as taking Spanish lessons so we may more adeptly unify the working class in Central Jersey.

Mutual Aid gave us more updates on their cleanup project for the riverwalk in New Brunswick. They found a solid amount of spots and had discussions with a bunch of people who live and hang out down there. They received a big donation of various things, including 100 masks, from a friend. We should look into getting a bunch of weatherproof containers for clothing storage because that seems to be a big issue, which will probably get worse as the winter sets in.

David gave us a presentation on Belarus, Nick presented on the Yellow Vests, and Pat presented on the Zapatistas. We will resume our presentations at our meeting next week with speakers discussing the situations with Rojava, Bolivia, the FARC in Colombia, and we will enjoy a presentation on New Urbanism as well.

Coming up soon:

• Saturday, September 19th – there is a BLM rally in New Brunswick being led by family members of George Floyd. 230PM at Feaster Park
• Saturday, September 26th – an action at the warehouse that they are going to be using as a “school” in the continued fight for the Lincoln Annex School, details forthcoming

As always, keep your eyes peeled in the Discord. If you’re not on there yet, you are missing almost ALL of the organizing that we do as a group when we are not at our meetings.

In solidarity,
Nishad S. Datta
General Secretary
Central Jersey Socialists

Good evening comrades!

We had an extremely productive meeting this weekend due in part to the use of our new general meeting rules of order. David and I made a pamphlet that details how the general meetings might work from here on out, and I have included that pamphlet as a PDF attachment to the email version of this message in case you want to print yourself a copy.

Mutual Aid met up before the general meeting to begin the cleanup of the riverwalk. It went off without much incident apart from a truck crashing into the walkway at one point, running over some of our trash bags. A few of the folks who hang out there and inquired about our work there seemed to be excited about it. It should be noted that if anyone has any grabbers, they would be very helpful. We made good progress and are looking to send staggered groups down there to continue to maintain it. Mutual Aid’s next meeting time will be hashed out on the Discord, and will occur in our Meeting Room channel.

Theory and Education examined passages from the Communist Manifesto. We will be reading the Manifesto more closely in the future as well so that we can know it as well as possible before we try to teach it. For this week’s meeting, we will be reading Wage Labour and Capital. The reading is available on both our Discord server and our website. Please have it read by this Thursday(tomorrow) at 8PM so that we may discuss it at the Theory and Ed meeting on the Discord Meeting Room channel. Don’t worry, it’s short! We will also have to decide what our next reading will be and will be making more pamphlets to summarize our readings and make them accessible for mass consumption.

Due to the recent Patriot Front sightings, and the increasing presence of armed right-wing paramilitary groups, we passed a proposal to gather intelligence on potential ideological adversaries on a new Discord channel, #intelligence. It’s up now, so please post anything you see that is unsettling. We can use what info we gather here to aid ourselves and other similar groups.

We also passed proposals to work with Philly Socialists and Bergen County Socialists. We all agreed that we could learn a lot from the former group about organizing workplaces and tenants, strategies for mutual aid, and resources for printing materials for actions. Our outreach officer Arly has a paid version of Zoom so we could do it over that. We can then open the floor to questions from other members.

We agreed that working with Bergen County Socialists would be more of a mutual collaboration sort of thing. This is a much newer organization that claims lineage from the Silk City Socialists. David and I will schedule a call with them.

Next meeting we are going to be taking a look at other resistance movements happening globally right now – this was an idea suggested by Kate and David then suggested that these presentations take the format of our proposal time. The six presentations are as follows:

1. David will present on Belarus
2. Nick will present on the Yellow Vests
3. Pat will present on the Zapatistas
4. Arly will present on Hong Kong
5. I(Nishad) will present on Bolivia.
6. Lance will present on Rojava at a later meeting – he has to be elsewhere this coming Sunday but will be able to present at the general meeting after our BBQ. 

Additionally we will be discussing alternative meeting places, how we will continue to meet as it gets colder out and meeting outside is not always possible, etc, as well as vote on formally adopting the rules of order, and finalizing the details for our BBQ(which will fittingly be the Sunday before Labor Day)! Arly has already assembled this handy little spreadsheet for it!

In solidarity,
Nishad
General Secretary

Good afternoon Comrades!

It’s been an exciting(and somewhat frustrating) few weeks for us as we are ramping up the drafting process for the first edition of our group’s constitution. At the last general meeting on the 9th, we passed the following proposals:

• A mission statement from each committee
• A process for amending the constitution, which at this point includes limiting proposals to general meetings, as well as limiting voting on proposals to one per general meeting.

There were more proposals that were introduced and had votes and decisions deferred to a later point in time than were actually voted upon. We got bogged down by a lot of deliberation, as we seem to have encountered at a ton of meetings. So we’re going to start exploring what the proper rules of order for our meetings going forward will be. David suggested looking into Robert’s Rules of Order, which is how a lot of organizations operate in the United States.

On Monday night, we had the Theory & Ed meeting on our Discord Meeting Room channel,  here are some notes from co-chair David:”Theory & Ed Committee’s August 10th meeting was centered around a discussion of the communist manifesto, its contents, and its relevance going forward. Section by section, we examined first how the relationship between workers and the bourgeoisie developed as the western world transitioned from feudalism to mercantilism and then capitalism. From there we discussed section 2, and the role of communists and the proletariat, and Marx’s emphasis on the essence of the communist movement being synonymous with the movement of proletarian class struggle in order to succeed. We discussed the ten point program put forward and its function, namely to use the takeover of the state as a tool to destroy the state and build a true dictatorship of the proletariat out of it. Finally, we examined section 3 and the its criticism of various socialist currents, and how a lack of understanding of both how capitalism functions and the role the proletariat play in capitalism inevitably renders these non-marxists currents incapable of achieving their goals, if their goals are even desirable at all.
We will continue our study of Marx’s work with Wage Labor & Capital, with a pdf in our channel for anyone who is interested. Anyone who would like to join our next meeting on the 24th at 8pm, please make sure to read thru Wage Labor & Capital so that we can discuss it further.”
Here is the link to Wage Labor & Capital

The following Tuesday, Mutual Aid used the Meeting Room for their own committee meeting. Here are some notes from co-chair Eric:”-For cafe packages rn the price at costco would look to be somewhere between $100 and $150. To offset price we’re gonna post a list of goods that could be donated to us on the Instagram and hopefully have everyone repost it.
  + list of things to donate
Bar soap
Body Wash
Hand sanitizer
Menstrual products
Deodorant
Non perishable food and snacks
Water
Juice/Sports drinks
Ground coffee
Gloves
Masks
-We talked about the possibility of clothes drive which doesn’t rn seem doable for us but we’re gonna look into what orgs around the area would be the best to give to in the near future.
-Katie said she has a friend who is making masks who she’s gonna talk to about possibly making a deal for us so that we can stamp them and use them ourselves as well as put them in the care packages
-As of rn we have a trash clean up at the Riverwalk for Sunday afternoon before the meeting if anyone’s interested lmk.
-Were also gonna plan future trash thru discord since we all have such different schedules but we’re looking for at least a group of 3 for every time we go down. I have a grabber and gardening gloves and I believe Trina has a couple grabbers too so if you’re planning on going but need some equipment lmk.
-Melissa’s friend Cory who has experience planting gardening has said he’d give us some help with the project so down the line once we’re a little farther on
-Katie wrote our mission statement that can be seen above
-We discussed Pats idea about a community fridge and although it’s not really feasible for just us as a group it’s possible that if we approached one of the restaurants or businesses in the area we”
A lot of stuff happened this week! And if you’re not on the Discord yet, you should get on that! It’s where the majority of our organizing work gets done.
Also, check out our website while you’re reading this!

Red Salute,
Nishad
Gen Sec

Comrades,
It was so lovely to see some of your shining faces at this past General Meeting, and shout out to those that stuck it out on discord through the technical difficulties! 
Here’s a recap from the General Meeting held on 8/2:
Earlier that day, some comrades were able to get their boots to the ground in solidarity with the BLM rally organized by Tormel Pittman. Eric Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, made an appearance.
Mike Romosh was so kind as to provide our group with CJS flags. Thank you, Mike! According to one comrade, another demonstrator recognized us as a group and gave us a shout out!
Some takeaways from this demo experience:- we need to present ourselves within a march with more organized formation- rallies are an excellent place for outreach! Let’s do our best to see who’s interested in joining us when we have boots on the ground.
The Mutual Aid Committee held their meeting on Tuesday, 7/27. The Riverwalk clean up & gardening project was to begin, but unfortunately we were met with a construction crew and their equipment at the Riverwalk entrance and the start of this project has been delayed. As of 8/2, this project has not begun.

Mutual Aid has pitched some new projects for CJS to consider!

– Take a book, leave a book boxes

– Group Library

– Physical library and mass resource document

Food Pantry Donations and Inventory Update:

More Ramen!

Razors, shaving cream packets, individually packaged toothbrushes, toothpaste packets, hotel toiletry stuff.

Pears Bar Soap – great for sensitive skin

Irish Spring Bar Soap

A coffee maker and kettle were added to household goods

Menstrual products

Check out the inventory sheet (below) for more details.

Next Mutual Aid meeting: Tuesday, 8/11 via discord. Time TBD at tomorrow’s general meeting.

The Theory and Education Committee conducted their first meeting on 7/29 via the Discord server’s Meeting Room section. They have proposed a few projects for members of CJS to consider:

– read The Communist Manifesto. Please have read the whole thing by the 8/10

– Putting together a pamphlet, flyers, literature, etc to hand out at demos and new members

– writing up a “know your rights” document

– finalizing our 8 point program

– Creating CJS audio recordings of reading material

Next Theory & Ed Meeting is on Monday, 8/10 at 8 PM via the Discord meeting room. The notes from the last meeting are available in the Theory & Ed server for anyone that would like to catch up. Please have read The Communist Manifesto before this meeting!

David has pitched an idea for a BBQ to occur on/after the General Meeting in which we review our Constitution and sign it. This meeting will take place on Sunday, 8/30. Ideas for the BBQ, including meeting time and location, potluck/no potluck, etc, will be discussed as the date gets closer.

Also, a member of Bergen County Socialists reached out to us via Instagram. How exciting!As per usual, some proposals to be added to the constitution were voted on during the last meeting. See results below:
———————————————————-

CONSTITUTION PROPOSALS 8/2

No endorsements, no political campaigning

    In favor: 16 unanimous

PROPOSED CHANGE TO 8 POINTS PROGRAM

    Use LGBTQIA+ inclusive acronym

    In favor: 16 unanimous

DEMO MARSHALL PROPOSAL

Role fulfilled by a volunteer on an action-by-action basis

    In favor: 16 unanimous

Marshall on an individual basis

    In favor: 0

To be determined during closest prior general meeting

    In favor: 16 unanimous

DEMO DRESS CODE

    Something red – shirt, handkerchief, etc

    In favor: 16 unanimous————————————————————-

As we are making progress this summer with composing our constitution, please propose anything you’d like to see in the finalized document during the next general meetings. We’ve made some decent progress so far. See link below for the working document (right now it’s just a compilation of passed proposals from meeting notes, to be formatted). We can always amend this document after it’s passed.

Links:
Constitution Rough Draft
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LogyUgswlHoNgYPI9wBHIVWdkTVf9tWpmtIusnLuZiI/edit?usp=drivesdk

8 Point Program
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11L190zNE8i5OBngP3TiGDBVRU8k-wpP7/view?usp=drivesdk

Food Pantry Anonymous Request Form
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1EPzbGEW4_0Xf4v-FUNpddrEHPm2AZbPqFyFBfRK4LIQ/edit?usp=drivesdk

Food Pantry Inventoryhttps://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12ZpBV4QLZOh7SPawrO4fBctjNm6jqnCph7smNGPemIk/edit?usp=drivesdk

Thanks y’all. Can we get a “heel yeah?”
– Trina

Good evening comrades,
There’s a lot of news this week! First off let me apologize for the barrage of emails. We are solidifying and diversifying our web presence, and it was done all in one night thanks to the hard work of our new General Secretary, Trina! And at the last general meeting we were about to solidify some of the group’s elected positions. They are as follows:
Central Committee
Trina – Gen Sec
Myself – Gen Sec
Arly – Outreach Officer
Theory & Education
Matt & David – Co-chairs
Mutual Aid
Kate & Eric – Co-chairs
Labor Relations
Chris & Liam – Co-chairs

Thus far, we still need someone to take on the position of Treasurer for the Central Committee, but for right now, Trina and I are taking care of that.

At Tuesday’s Mutual Aid Meeting, we gathered some more supplies for the Pantry and care packages. We’ve got a good amount of sundries coming in. I attempted to show the group my preferred access point for the riverwalk, but we were met by a work crew that seemed to be patching the hole in the fence. Albany Street entrance it is – from now on! We were unable to complete any cleanup work thus far because as I’m sure you’re all aware, this week has been struck by a terrible heatwave. Not to worry, it’s supposed to subside tomorrow and it should be a more comfortable working temperature next time we try to go down there. The Mutual Aid Committee will decide their next meeting time on Discord.

At Tonight(Wednesday)’s Theory & Education Meeting we had some good discussion on where we’re headed. We’re asking those who want to be members to read the Communist Manifesto in full(don’t worry – it’s short) in time for the next committee meeting. The group will present its findings and the official ‘party line’ in the subsequent general meeting. If you are interested in this sort of thing, make sure to do the required reading and then report back to our Discord Meeting Room on Monday, August 10th @ 8PM.

We passed a resolution on membership dues as well. We agreed upon a base amount of $2 per month. This is more of a symbolic gesture than an intention to actually pay for anything or fundraise for any of our projects, but ultimately it will add up. Your dues are expected from the first of the month until the date of the month’s first general meeting. If you want voting privileges, they come with dues payments. If you are currently unemployed or need any sort of assistance with making your membership dues by that deadline, there were plenty of members who shared an enthusiasm for spotting anyone, but please make sure to make your arrangements by the end of that first general meeting if you want voting privileges for that month.

We also passed a proposal to permanently ban anyone who commits any unspecified act of violence upon a member of the group. This will be in our final charter/constitution/whatever you wanna call it.

Finally, we added an anti-war and anti-imperialism clause to our 7-Point Program! Therefore, it’s now an 8-Point Program! I’ve included them as an attachment to this email, so please take a look. If you want me to print you a copy so you can have one to keep at home, please reply to this email and I’ll have it ready for you.

I think that’s about it. In summary:

• Mutual Aid is having another meeting this upcoming week, details on Discord
• Theory & Education is having another virtual meeting Monday, August 10th @ 8PM
• We are meeting up at Cookie’s Jar this upcoming Saturday, August 1st @ 4PM in order to paint signs and stamp our masks for the BLM rally the next day, Sunday, August 2nd @ 2:30PM. This meeting has Gwen Carr, Eric Garner’s mother, as a special guest speaker. It will be a great opportunity for meeting like-minded people.
• We have our next general meeting at the Pussy Palace at the same time as usual, Sunday, August 2nd @ 8PM. We will debrief after the rally, allow Mutual Aid and Theory & Education to present their findings from their individual committee meetings, and continue the work of structuring our organization, our constitution, and our ideology. Remember to bring your membership dues or make arrangements either prior to, or at the meeting.

That’s about it! If I’m missing something please let me know. Otherwise, I will see you all Saturday afternoon.

Red salute,
Nishad D.
General Secretary
Central Jersey Socialists

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