On a cold wintery day at the end of January, DSA members of the Quad Cities made their way to the basement meeting room of the Davenport Library to discuss goals for the upcoming year and elect new officers for the local chapter. The meeting started off with introductions as we welcomed Chris Lammer-Heindel and Christine Darr visiting from the Dubuque DSA Chapter. We also welcomed several prospective members for which this was their first meeting reminding those who are new to consider signing up for automatic monthly dues through which a certain percentage of dues goes to the chapter.
After introductions, the chapter meeting moved on to nominations for the executive board. After compiling the nominations from the nominating committee and taking nominations from the floor we ended up with five members nominated for the five positions. Nominations were as follows: AJ Reed for Chair, Kelly Kruse for Vice-Chair, Amber Rajcevich for Secretary, Dan Foley for Treasurer, and James Blue for Sergeant at Arms. Being that only one person was nominated for each position a motion was made to accept the positions by acclimation to which a friendly amendment was made to postpone voting until after several agenda items had been addressed.
The group then moved on to discussions about the upcoming Free School and Film Series events. After these discussions took place the chapter voted in the nominated officers for the positions described above.
After the elections, the chapter discussed many topics regarding our goals for the upcoming year including a more robust presence on social media, concentration on and building allies with other groups in the areas of Harm Reduction, Public Transportation, Medicare for All, Housing, and Recruitment. In addition, there was discussion of how to organize at the Iowa Caucuses and of building relationships with allied organizations including how our members can attend other organizations’ meetings and build communication networks.
All in all, it was a very productive meeting and we as a chapter look forward to building strength and allies in the quad cities region over the upcoming year.