We will no longer be holding monthly public meetings at the Harmony Cafe in Appleton, WI.

We would like to thank the Harmony Cafe and Goodwill Industries from the bottom of our hearts for allowing our chapter to meet there every 2nd thursday each month, beginning on August 17, 2011. Our final meeting at that location was held on November 13, 2014.

We will be moving to a format of meeting twice per year publicly, once in the spring and once in the fall, which will allow us to hold public elections, as well as gathering support from a variety of different communities.

These meeting locations, dates and times are To Be Determined.  However, we have been discussing Rhinelander, WI to be the location of the Spring 2015 meeting, so that we can have a group cleanup day for the section of the highway that Erica and other Rhinelander area supporters have adopted via the Adopt-A-Highway program!

So long, Harmony Cafe, and thanks for all of the memories!

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We received the following email from the Harmony Cafe last week:

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Dear valued friends, family and supporters of Harmony Café,

We would like to share with you, as many have already heard, that Goodwill NCW has made the difficult business decision to close both of the Harmony Cafés in Green Bay and Fox Valley, most likely by year’s end.

Harmony Café was founded as a welcoming, inclusive, and vibrant place to celebrate diversity. We have served thousands of different people through hundreds of events and scores of community partnerships, and affected our region in many positive ways, small and large. Harmony has been a caring, welcoming place for people of all ages, backgrounds, beliefs and orientations. We’ve been proud to serve as an active arts and music venue for so many years. Unfortunately, our café business simply struggled too much to keep Harmony’s doors open.

Harmony Café operates LGBT Services, and the Arts & Music program all of which are a part of Goodwill NCW (North Central Wisconsin). Without a venue for performances and events, our Arts & Music program will close at year’s end, too.

Our work in the LGBT Services (LGBT Partnership, Spectrum, and T-Force) will continue to grow in both communities, with offices at Goodwill NCW’s Menasha campus and programming at other venues in the Fox Valley and Green Bay communities. Those efforts have made a difference in northeast Wisconsin’s acceptance of all people, and we are committed to keeping them strong.

In the coming days, we’ll be posting information about our closing dates, and hours online. We also will work closely with program leaders, volunteers, and people who use our meeting rooms to try and help them find a new home. If you have ideas or information on possible venues or meeting spaces please contact us at harmonycafe@gwicc.org or 920-724-2233 in Fox Valley, and 920-569-1593 in Green Bay.

We ask for your continued support as we transition the LGBT Services, and say goodbye to our coffeehouses. In addition to our regularly scheduled programs (see the full schedule here) we will be having a “goodbye Harmony” party before the end of the year, and we will send updates about that soon.

Over the next six weeks, let’s make the most of the time we have left at Harmony Café and celebrate an amazing 10+ years of community collaboration. We have no regrets.

Thanks again for your continued support.

Sincerely,
The Harmony Cafe Team

09-11-2014 Meeting Video for Northern Wisconsin NORML

08-14-2014 Meeting Video 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.

The June 12 meeting of Northern WI NORML was called to order at 5:30 pm.

Board Members Present:  Gene, Jay, Jessie, John   Absent:  Jason

Others in attendance:  Lucas, Christina, Rich, and new member Jared who joined the chapter tonight.

We began with the Treasurer’s report.  The report was approved and seconded by Gene.

At this time we opened the meeting for public comments.

It was brought to our attention by a member in attendance that when they contacted the Madison, WI chapter to ask them for some collaboration regarding fundraising, official representatives of the Madison NORML chapter badmouthed our chapter again. This is an ongoing problem, where untrue statements are being made, which are hostile in nature, with no provocation.  The board members and regular members of Northern WI NORML have made repeated efforts to make peace with the individuals who seem to have a problem.  However we still hear feedback fairly often that indicates they are still bad mouthing our organization.

Lucas mentioned that he has been given permission to paint the side and roof of a barn that belongs to a friend of his, on behalf of another organization he belongs to, Legalize Wisconsin. He will be looking into the local ordinances for painting advertisements on the sides of buildings.  If all looks good and is able to proceed, he said that Northern WI NORML would be welcome to put something on the barn as well.  We look forward to an update on this project.

Gene and Rich gave a report about the Wausau THC Tour event that they organized on June 7th, 2014.  They placed an ad in the City Pages but did not put up flyers or anything.  Although this leg of the THC Tour was organized to celebrate Hemp History Week, they official Hemp History Week group refused to give us the rights to the “Bringing it Home” movie, because we were not 100% focused on hemp. For our next event, it was suggested that instead of tying into Hemp History Week, we might be better off just doing it on a better date for everyone.  However it was a very successful event and had a good attendance.  They used the entire two hours and a local reporter came to the event.    Gene also mentioned that next time, maybe we could spend the extra $100 on making the ad color – the ad was printed in b&w and was not very eye catching.  Gene had a hard time finding it in the city pages.   Jay pointed out that next time we should have one or more people write a letter to the editor ahead of time to tell the community about our event.

The festival guy:  He has a booth and travels to different music festivals and sets up a booth.  He asked us to give him our brochures, flyers, cards, etc and he will put them out at his booths.  He also asked if we could give him a locked donation box, and then he can collect donations, but nobody but our chapter would have the key.  He would just give us the box back when we give him more flyers, or whatever.   We would have to figure out what kind of lockbox system to use and then we could use it in other situations as well.  Lucas has volunteered to look into Lockbox pricing.  If they’re cheap enough, we can give one to every field activist.  Gene also suggested we look into something along the lines of outdoor weatherproof business card holders.

Sarah is re-designing our Brochure.  She discussed this with the group.  First, she went over the Q&A  that we have on the brochure.  She wants to move away from the info we have on the brochure now, and adding more information about the medical cannabis side.  Gene wants to add information about how cannabis is safer than alcohol, as well as tax revenue and other benefits.  It was suggested that she might want to get a quote from Gene’s printer, or possibly from N E W printing in Appleton.  Jay suggested that before we print a bunch of brochures, we decide where we will be meeting in the coming year.  We had been discussing finding a new meeting venue already and we don’t want to print thousands of brochures with our current meeting info.  Perhaps we should just leave the meeting info off of the brochure completely, and tell people to check our website, call or email us for more information.  “Check the website / calendar / facebook for a meeting near you”.  Sarah will continue to work on the brochure with the feedback she received and get back to us at the next meeting or in an email.

John wants to make a list of board members and contact information in case we need to get in touch with each other quickly.  Jay says that we should be using the board and steering mailing lists for this.  We need to get the newer board members up to speed on how to use the system.  I (Jessie) will write up some documentation for them explaining how it works.  Also, Jay has brought up again, that we really should have a board members forum and/or steering forum rather than a mailing list, because it has archival properties.  (Does the mailing list manager I’m using now have archives??  Check into that).  Otherwise, I really do need to look into forum software and get it all set up on the site.

It was brought up that we possibly need a storage unit of some type.   Some of our promotional materials got water damaged where they are currently being stored.  We also need to repair and/or replace the materials that were damaged.

Rich pointed out that the THC Tour events are something that we could get government grants for.

We discussed TV stations.  John mentioned that the Rhinelander, WI channel 12 station recently reported on a marijuana bust and said that the plants had been found before they had become hallucinatory.  Marijuana is not a hallucinatory drug.  He called them and told them that they were reporting incorrect information and asked them to do a better job checking their facts in the future.

We took a brief break at 6:30 so people could feed their meters, etc.

We briefly discussed unity among the different groups and how we need to find some way to have board members from EACH and EVERY chapter form a group that can work together harmoniously.

Regarding future events:  John discussed the Hodag Country Festival July 10th – 13th.   John wants to be low profile and walk around with informational handouts and petitions as well as voter registration forms.  He would like to have 6-8 people walking around in pairs – 4 teams working in 4 directions.  He only wants to hit the parking area and the campgrounds.  Gene wants to call and ask the festival if that is OK with them.  There is no official vendor application and only one owner/operator of this festival.  It costs $250 for a booth, if she would allow us to have one.  Can we get a booth there?  Is a booth more effective than canvassing?  Can we do both?  John said he could make the contact this week. He will let her know that no one will be using any illegal substances and ask if this is acceptable. Sarah is going to work on this project with John. Our next meeting is not until after the festival.  John will get in touch with us when there is more information.

Jay informed us that next month, for our July 2014 meeting, we will be hosting a special speaker from the Ben Masel project (http://benmaselproject.com/), Dennis Brennan.  He will give us more information about getting an Oregon Medical Marijuana card through the Ben Masel project.  There are only about 62 people in Wisconsin who have their Oregon cards.

Gene plans to do an event in September 2014 and will keep us posted  that.

Gene also discussed wanting to do a booth at The Energy Fair in Stevens Point that is coming up June 20-22.  There is not enough time this year.  But we should keep this in mind for next year. The deadline for registering for this event is in Feb or March.   Gene knows some of these people on the board and/or involved in the event, and he thinks that they will let us in as a nonprofit group. He doesn’t know if they would let us have a speaker, though.  (https://www.midwestrenew.org/energyfair)

Gene pointed out that summer is the best time for events in our state.  So, this summer when you are out and notice events in your community, please make a note of these events, and perhaps we can look into having a booth at them in the future.  Find out the deadlines for vendor applications, fees, and other information.

Harvest Fest 2014 will be held at a different venue this year, since Library Mall will be under construction.  When the HF planning meetings start happening in Madison, we need to have someone go there and attend and coordinate with them.

Big Green Festival is August 16th – we want to do a booth there as well.

Gene discussed Speakers.  He wants to make a wish list of nationally known speakers that we would want to have at our events. Perhaps we could find speakers that will be passing through Wisconsin for another event, and try to get them to speak at our events at a discounted price?  The national NORML office has a list of cannabis speakers and their approximate prices.. this is not a comprehensive list of ALL speakers but at least is a start.

Northern Wisconsin NORML Board Meeting for May 8th, 2014

Meeting called to order at 5:52 pm.

Roll Call for Board of Directors: Danielle, Jay, Jessica, Linda.
Not present: Jason

There will not be a live video broadcast of the meeting tonight.

April 2014 Treasurer’s Report:

Beginning Bal $512.36, PayPal $559.49, Spreadshirt $33.92 (2 sales in March/2 in April), Contributions $338, Expenses $74.99

Field Activist Reports from the Field:

4 New Members, 5 Renewing Members

Website Analytics:

Visits 1084, Unique Visitors 937, Pageviews 1829, Pages / Visit: 1.69, Avg. Visit Duration 1:19, % New Visits 82.93%

12 month: Visits 13,421, Unique Visitors 11,287, Pageviews 22,170, Pages / Visit: 1.65, Avg. Visit Duration 1:32, % New Visits 83.44%

Old Business:

Gene: Business Card Update, please send proof to Jay and we will order ASAP. Does anyone have any Freedom Cards stashed? If not, order

Anyone have success with bracelets/merchandising, sharing/caring experiences?

Elections tonight for the following Board positions:

Executive Director: is the spokesperson for the organization. The Director presides at all meetings, and promotes an effective liaison with other organizations, politicians, the media, the public, and the national office of NORML.

Assistant Director: serves as Acting Director when the Director is unable to do so, and assists the Director in his or her duties.

Secretary: keeps and safeguards both open and closed membership rosters, takes the minutes of meetings, and initiates all press releases. Where viable the Secretary is responsible for sending updates of the membership rosters, minutes from the meetings, newspaper clips, press releases, and periodic Movement Update Forms to the national office of NORML.

Treasurer: is responsible for accounting, banking and disbursement of funds. Accounting should include expense and income reports by category on a monthly, quarterly and yearly basis.

Field Director: Special projects, fund raising, new member recruitment and to handle special duties and situations not covered above.

Election Results:

Jay nominated Gene, Executive Director. Jessica seconded. All present agreed. Motion Carried.
Jay nominated Jason, Assisted Executive Director. Jessie seconded. All agreed. Motion Carried.
Jay nominated Jessica, Secretary. Lucas seconded. All present agreed. Motion Carried.
Jessie nominated Jay, Treasurer. Lucas Seconded. All present agreed. Motion Carried.
Jay nominated John, Field Director. Jessie Seconded. All present agreed. Motion Carried.
New Business

When responding or communicating via a shared account, should we try to identify who is communicating by signing off or adding our signature/name to the response. (Facebook messages to the shared profile and/or page; shared gmail) etc?

Update from Rich: June 7th, 2014 from 2-4pm Wausau Public Library, THC Tour. Press Release, Flyers. Rich may take road trip to flyer the area. Jay is trying to find local volunteers and have a few that want follow up after our info ready. Jim Maas also helping. Anyone in the wausau area, please contact Rich for more info.

Other Ideas:
Archiving news and information on website.
More social media awareness and cross promotion, ie (cannabis forums?)
Membership drive (maybe contest)
Update Introductory Activist Guide/Membership form for 2014
Signature Form Update, legislation session dead, just use a general form of support for the summer? maybe signature contest for the summer also?

The meeting was adjourned at 7 pm.

Check the calendar of events often and support when and where you can! Statewide events are listed: http://www.northernwinorml.org/calendar/

We did not host a video this month.  Board members in attendance:  Jay, Linda and Danielle. Board Members Absent: Jessica and Jason.  In lieu of the Meeting Minutes, here is the Meeting Agenda as posted before the meeting.

March 2014 Treasurer’s Report: Beginning Bal $516.68, PayPal $316.36, Spreadshirt $9.71, Contributions $126.80, Expenses $87.43 (Plus postage paid by Rich for mailing shirt)

Field Activist Reports:

5 New Members, 3 through website, and 2 from Jay S

Website Analytics:  Visits 959, Unique Visitors 834, Pageviews 1714, Pages / Visit: 1.79, Avg. Visit Duration 1:49, % New Visits 83.52%

Steve purchased and donated a event tent! Thank you Steve!

Old Business:

Rich: Libertarian Party State Convention… April 12th? Neenah. Are we tabling? You speaking?

5th Annual Hemp History Week which will be held the week of June 2-8, 2014:
Rich and Gene to look at Wausau area, possible Library for this event.

Gene: Business Card Update?
New Business:

Elections in May 2014… So April we should have candidates announced.

Executive Director: is the spokesperson for the organization. The Director presides at all meetings, and promotes an effective liaison with other organizations, politicians, the media, the public, and the national office of NORML.

Assistant Director: serves as Acting Director when the Director is unable to do so, and assists the Director in his or her duties.

Secretary: keeps and safeguards both open and closed membership rosters, takes the minutes of meetings, and initiates all press releases. Where viable the Secretary is responsible for sending updates of the membership rosters, minutes from the meetings, newspaper clips, press releases, and periodic Movement Update Forms to the national office of NORML.

Treasurer: is responsible for accounting, banking and disbursement of funds. Accounting should include expense and income reports by category on a monthly, quarterly and yearly basis.

Field Director: Special projects, fund raising, new member recruitment and to handle special duties and situations not covered above.

This was an informal meeting, and we did not host a video this month. Board members present: Nox, Jessie. We did not have a quorum and led an informal discussion with Rich, Gene, and the few other members who attended.

Feb 2014 Treasurer’s Report:
Beginning Bal $845, PayPal $272.41, Spreadshirt $9.71, Contributions $150.05, Expenses $334.34

2 New Members and 4 Renewing Members

Old Business:

Rich: Libertarin Party State Convention… April 12th? Neenah. Are we tabling? You speaking?

5th Annual Hemp History Week which will be held the week of June 2-8, 2014:
Rich and Gene to look at Wausau area, possible Library for this event.

Gene: Business Card Update?

New Business:

Slightly Stoopid concert March 15th, Rich Martin to update

Cheech and Chong March 20th – Jessica found and forwarded to us.

Elections in May 2014… So March we should have candidates announced and April if more than one candidate allow them to speak before the group and then elections at May Meeting.

AB 480/SB363, The Jacki Rickert Medical Cannabis Act (JRMCA), introduced in Oct. 2013 by Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison) and Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton). The bill total to 19 sponsors and cosponsors.

A bipartisan bill to legalize hemp cultivation in Wisconsin, AB638, was sponsored by Rep. Amy Sue Vruwink (D-Milladore). Cosponsors include Reps. Chris Taylor (D-Madison), Melissa Sargent (D-Madison), Nick Milroy (D-Superior), Janet Bewley(D-Ashland), Evan Goyke (D-Milwaukee), Brett Hulsey (D-Madison), Gary Hebl (D-Sun Prairie), Mandy Wright (D-Wausau), Robb Kahl (D-Monona), Tod Ohnstad (D-Kenosha) and Katrina Shankland (D-Stevens Point). Senate cosponsors are Senators Kathleen Vinehout (D-Alma) and Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center). AB638 was assigned to the Committee on Consumer Protection, which is chaired by Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt (R- Fond du Lac).

AB726, a very narrowly focused medical cannabis bill that would change state law to allow children with seizure disorders to access CBD (cannabidiol) hemp oil that is THC-free under the care of their physicians. AB726 is sponsored by Reps. Scott Krug (R- Nekoosa) and Robb Kahl (D-Monona) and cosponsored by the aforementioned Reps. Sargent, Bies and Thiesfeldt along with Reps. Debra Kolste (D-Janesville), David Craig (R-Big Bend), Dana Wachs (D-Eau Claire), Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee), Janet Bewley (D-Ashland), Gordon Hintz (D-Oshkosh), Josh Zepnick (D-Milwaukee), Terese Berceau (D-Madison), Janice Ringhand (D-Evansville), Gary Hebl (D-Sun Prairie), Sondy Pope (D-Cross Plains), JoCasta Zamarripa (D-Milwaukee), Goyke (D-Milwaukee), Tod Ohnstad (D-Kenosha), Daniel Riemer (D-Milwaukee) and Chris Taylor (D-Madison).

RECREATIONAL/LEGALIZATION BILL: Rep. Sargent, the lead sponsor of LRB 3671, there were a total of six cosponsors, Reps. Fred Clark (D-Baraboo), Terese Berceau (D-Madison), Tod Ohnstad (D-Kenosha), Sondy Pope (D-Cross Plains) and Brett Hulsey (D-Madison) along with Sen. Nikiya Harris (D-Milwaukee).