07-10-2014 Meeting Minutes for Northern Wisconsin NORML

The July 10th,2014 meeting of Northern Wisconsin NORML was called to order at: 5:20 pm

Board Members Present:  Gene, Jay, Jason, Jessica.  Not Present: John.

Also Present:  Rich, Micha, Dennis, Shannon, and 9 new faces

Jay read the treasurer’s report.   $430 contributions, $290 in expenses for the month of June.  A copy of the full report was emailed and shared with all board members.  Jay called for a motion to approve the treasurer’s report.  All board members present voted Aye.  The motion was passed.

We asked for public comments, and there were none at this time.

Gene updated us regarding the lockbox project that we had discussed last month.  He will continue to work on this.

Gene also discussed John’s plan to canvas the Hodag festival, which starts tonight.  That is probably where John is right now.  John and other activists will be handing out flyers and other information in the parking areas at the festival all weekend long.

Sarah did a great job on creating our new flyers.  John spent about $400 of his own money to print some.

Gene also looked into reprinting one of our chapter’s early shirts, the “Grow the Economy” shirt, and John is willing to fund this project.  Gene found a screen printer that is sympathetic to the cause and is willing to do the screen printing at cost, but is currently backed up.  They are printing 2 dozen shirts, and it should be under $200.  Since Dennis and Michael are here, we asked them if they could print some for us.  They are in transition right now but in a couple months they will be able to do a shirt run for us.

John would like to organize our own festival type event, in Rhinelander, and is looking into that. He would also like to look into doing a THC Tour style event at the library in Minocqua.

Gene would like to hold some type of movie screening in Stevens Point this fall.

We discussed musical venues of various types in different cities.  There is a large event in Wausau that was suggested as something to check out also.

At 5:40, Dennis Brennan from the Ben Masel Project (http://www.benmaselproject.com/)  took the floor.  He discussed the out of state Oregon Medical Marijuana Card. Paul Stanford will be coming to the Madison Harvest Fest again this year to re-certify the first batch of patients, and certify a new batch of patients.  Pre-register in August, but you won’t have to pay until October when you actually see the doctor at Harvest Fest. Dennis spoke and answered questions until 6:30 pm.

WI Statute 961.41 (3g)

WI Statute 961.32 (2c)

Next, we discussed the chapter booth.  Gene wants to track down all the tents and pieces of our booth.. right now, we have parts of our booth out in 4 different cities.  Gene wants a centralized place to store this stuff so that, when we need something, we don’t have to hunt down 4 different people.   Jay pointed out that when it comes to merchandise and other things, we should each have a small stash of merchandise.  That way we can each have simultaneous events/sales/etc if the opportunity presents itself.  So, when we have tshirts, pins, bracelets, etc, we should each have a small stash of those.  Big Green Fest (http://thebiggreenfest.com/) is coming up on August 16th.  Rich is planning to table there.  Steve has part of the tent in Illinois.  Can we get him to bring it to the next meeting on August 14th?

We discussed what types of movies we might be able to get permission to screen publicly.  Jessie suggested that we screen Public Domain films from the Prelinger archives (https://archive.org/search.php?query=marijuana).

Gene made hemp postcards for the chapter to sell. That’s awesome  🙂

Gene also has an idea for a series of billboards.  He drew out his ideas by hand.  He wants to find a sympathetic landowner who has a really good spot next to a busy highway who would let us put signs up.  Gene would be willing to fund making the signs – but we have to find a place to put them.

The meeting was adjourned at 7 pm.