November 2016 - Lnc-business - Moellman Enterprises Email

Questions for Convention Planning
by Starchild 20 Nov '16

20 Nov '16

I just wrote up a list of questions for the California Libertarian Party Executive Committee to consider in planning our next state convention, and figured I might as well post it here too, since basically the same questions apply with regard to planning a Libertarian national convention (I've changed a few terms accordingly). Perhaps some readers may also find this list useful in thinking about your own state conventions. In no particular order, here are some of the questions I believe it's important for us ask when making a decision: • Are the convention planners working in concert with the party leadership, the Convention Oversight Committee and the Libertarian National Committee itself, sharing decision-making on things such as planning schedule and content? • Is the planning process open and transparent and are planners striving to be inclusive and welcoming of input and participation in the process? • How affordable will the convention be to attend? • Will we have free, fast WiFi in the convention business area and other public areas? • How much visibility will the convention have to non-libertarian members of the public? • Are speakers/presenters/programs balanced so as to appeal at least as much to people on the left as to those on the right? (Historically the LP has been somewhat imbalanced toward the latter.) • Is the content of this programming strongly libertarian? • Does the content of the programming include plenty of speakers and presentations who are not "the usual suspects"? • Are there a good variety of non-speaker events and activities planned (e.g. music, workshops, films, outdoor activities, etc.)? • Is local activism (e.g. rallies, attending events for local candidates, etc.) built into the program to take advantage of having a critical mass of Libertarians gathered in one location? • Will the convention venue help us promote and advertise the convention? • How much will the convention likely cost and/or earn the LNC, if anything? • Will the convention offerings appeal to non-libertarians (price-wise and otherwise), so that as many of them as possible will attend and be exposed to libertarian ideas and we're not just preaching to the choir? • Does the schedule allow plenty of time for business sessions? • How conducive is the venue to business sessions (e.g. a big enough room, seating with tables, ample electrical outlets for plugging in laptop computers and such, audio/visual equipment for projecting on overhead screen(s) available, etc.)? • Are arrangements being made to videotape speakers and presentations and put the videos up on YouTube and/or the LP.org website? • If speaker/meal/entertainment "packages" are sold, how flexible and how affordable will they be? • Is the convention free of any efforts to collect a "floor fee" or "poll tax" from delegates who volunteer their time to come and do the party's business? • Will we be able to party after hours without being hassled by venue security? • Are the convention planners helping to organize rideshares, roomshares, and homestays with local activists for those seeking such arrangements? • Do the convention organizers have a good volunteer team to help out at the event? • Is there enough space made available to us at a low enough price that we can have lots of space for breakout events and invite lots of vendors to have booths and/or tables at little or no cost so that there will be an exciting shopping/education/networking experience and we can maximize attendance? • Does the convention venue have character and charm, or is it bland and sterile? • What kinds of amenities (food, entertainment, sightseeing, other resources) can be found in the immediate vicinity and greater environs? • How regulated and controlled is the venue (e.g. how much freedom will we have to decorate and do our own thing without running afoul of their rules?) • How much walking will be required to get between convention areas and from convention areas to food, accommodations, and parking? • If the convention will have a "theme", does it offer a strongly libertarian message? • How easy is it to get to the convention location from various parts of the state? • How much effort have convention planners made to attract media coverage? • How much outreach/advertising has there been to attract non-libertarian attendees, including having local activists and community figures who may be able to draw their own non-libertarian audiences as part of the program? • How youth-friendly is the convention? • What kind of amenities does the venue itself offer (e.g. pool, gym, hot tub, photocopying/printing, etc.)? • Will we be allowed to bring in and sell our own food and beverages, and (especially if that will be restricted) what kind of food/beverage offerings are available on site and how expensive are they? • Are the convention organizers prepared to make a prompt and detailed report to the LNC after the convention, providing clear and detailed written information such as the contract with the venue (which should already have been made public ahead of time), a breakdown of how much the event cost, how much money was taken in, how many people attended, how many and what type of packages, room nights, meals, and other items were sold at what prices, who the speakers/presenters were and what they talked about, what compensation (cash or in-kind) each speaker or presenter received, what kickbacks the venue offered if any and who received them (e.g. free room nights, upgrades, etc.), what feedback was received from attendees, etc.? The more of the above questions to which organizers can give favorable responses, the more a convention bid is likely to appeal to me! Love & Liberty, ((( starchild ))) At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee (415) 625-FREE @StarchildSF P.S. – If you haven't guessed, I'm interested in serving on the Convention Oversight Committee in order to seek to ensure that we do maximize the favorable responses we get to these questions! :-)

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End-of-Month Financial Reports
by Tim Hagan 19 Nov '16

19 Nov '16

The October End-of-Month Financial Reports are attached. The reserve dropped to $415,669, which is $370,377 above the reserve target of $45,292. October had some extra expenses: $20,000 contributed to the Mark Miller Campaign, $15,500 for the annual audit, and $6,400 Kentucky legal expenses. Tim Hagan

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Fwd: LP.org website transition - missing pages (83% data loss)
by Caryn Ann Harlos 18 Nov '16

18 Nov '16

For the public's information. A ton of ideological links are, in fact, broken. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Chuck Moulton <chuck(a)moulton.org> Date: Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 5:21 PM Subject: Re: LP.org website transition - missing pages (83% data loss) Kevin Ludlow wrote: > What would be useful right now would be if you could point out the > broken links so that we can assign permanent redirects to them. > > [...] > > So anyway, if you'd like to submit broken links, we'd love to set up > additional forwards. > Kevin, Glad to help! Obviously, it is much easier for you to see what redirects need to be made, as you have access to the old website, the new website, and the 404 logs. However, you seem to be having trouble with this, so I'll provide you with the information you need. It would be very difficult to compile a list of all incoming links to lp.org without access to the server logs. Therefore, I used Google's search results, which is a reasonable proxy for outside links. I searched for "site:lp.org", then I did followup searches for all directories I found with "site:lp.org inurl:lp.org/blog" (for example) because Google does not list all the results it has indexed without narrow searches. This netted 2,531 unique URLs indexed by Google. I wrote a program in Python to scrape that information. Next, Stewart Flood wrote a Perl program to check every URL on my list and find out whether it threw a 404 error. (He also checked for load times and other information, which we will highlight in a subsequent report.) Sorry this took so long... Stewart was busy watching the World Series. We re-ran the script several times this week to see if staff added any redirects... they only added one page: /contribute. The program can be re-run at any time to track what's been added. Not all of the missing URLs should necessarily be carried forward, but a lot of historical information is no longer present. Our results are included in the attachments. (Note: In the summary page, these are groupings by directory, not the actual URLs.) Basically, 83% of the webpages indexed by Google have not been carried over or properly redirected. In liberty, Chuck Moulton Life Member & Monthly Pledger, Libertarian Party 2006-2008 IT Committee Chair Stewart Flood Life Member & Monthly Pledger, Libertarian Party 2008-2012 IT Committee Chair -- *In Liberty,* *Caryn Ann Harlos* Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann. Harlos(a)LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos(a)LP.org> Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado <http://www.lpcolorado.org> Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus <http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>

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Website Functionality/Google Analytics
by Daniel Hayes 18 Nov '16

18 Nov '16

I realize that the list is quite long and staff and volunteers are working to restore what they can as fast as they can. I consider this to be a bit of a priority as this information may be forever lost to us without this specific code to enable it. It appears that as of October 24th, we have lost our ability on our website to utilize google analytics. The ASC had another round of promotions of ReRegister ads post election. The Facebook analytics on them were quite good but a much better indication of our return on investment would be if were were able to see the traffic that went through the specific page url that helps to redirect people to their various secretary of state or other entity responsible for voter registration in that respective state. Andy Burns pointed this out to us on our call and checked if the data post Oct 24th was available and it was not. If anybody needs more info on this please contact him. That said, I appreciate prompt attention on this as the ASC opted to not promote any more of these posts at the present time because we are missing some very relevant data to help us evaluate our investment of the members money. Daniel Hayes LNC Member At Large

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Convention Oversight Committee- LNC Members
by Daniel Hayes 18 Nov '16

18 Nov '16

Which LNC members are interested in serving on the Convention Oversight Committee? There are 4 LNC positions on the committee which includes alternates. I am interested and have served on the previous COC. I also live in the city hosting the next convention in 2018. I know Alicia and Whitney have both expressed interest. How many other members are interested? Also, I am working up an advertisement to post on the website like what the IT committee has done that I will get input/approval/collaboration from COC Chairwoman BetteRose Ryan, Alicia and Ed on. I am largely going to crib the IT notice and modify it for the COC. The intent is to get that up REAL soon. I think it's an oversight that should be avoided in the future as the process calling for COC members and volunteers should be fairly open. Daniel Hayes LNC At Large Member

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Affiliate Support Committee Meeting Reminder
by Daniel Hayes 17 Nov '16

17 Nov '16

The Affiliate Support Committee will be meeting at it's regularly scheduled time. Date: Thursday, November 17th, 2016, 8PM Eastern Dial in Number:(712)775-7031 Access Code: 571-973-866 The meeting is open to LNC Members, LNC Staff, State Chairs, Party Members, Libertarians, libertarians and invited guests. We are a service oriented committee so we encourage attendees to participate in an orderly manner. If you have a matter you wish us to consider please contact me in advance if possible. I can be reached at Daniel.Hayes(a)LP.Org or by phone at 504-258-6176.for Also, the LNC has a host of resources available for affiliates and others that can be found at WWW.LPAction.org. That link can also be found a the bottom of the main LP website under resources. TENTATIVE AGENDA: Annual Survey of State Affiliate Chairs LP Action/Resources for Affiliates -LP Branded Petitions Use of Nation Builder to assist affiliates ReRegister Meme/Media Archive/Website Concerns Post Election ReRegister/Membership ads

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BSM increases
by Caryn Ann Harlos 17 Nov '16

17 Nov '16

As I am preparing my regional report, these numbers were very exciting and thought I would share them (though they may be available elsewhere) ALASKA membership up 51.7% ARIZONA membership up 41.7% COLORADO membership UP 63.0% HAWAII membership up 53.7% KANSAS membership up 43.9% MONTANA membership up 85% UTAH membership up 93.5% WASHINGTON membership up 89.7% WYOMING membership up 50.0% -- *In Liberty,* *Caryn Ann Harlos* Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann. Harlos(a)LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos(a)LP.org> Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado <http://www.lpcolorado.org> Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus <http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>

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Membership link
by Caryn Ann Harlos 17 Nov '16

17 Nov '16

Am I missing something or does one have to dig through some submenus to join the National Party? I had to get the link for someone and found it difficult to find. It seems there should be a pretty prominent "Join" button no more than one menu deep. -- *In Liberty,* *Caryn Ann Harlos* Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann. Harlos(a)LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos(a)LP.org> Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado <http://www.lpcolorado.org> Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus <http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>

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Link to register to vote
by Trent Somes 16 Nov '16

16 Nov '16

Many of the #ReRegister images included the link ( https://www.lp.org/action/register-to-vote) which is now dead. Somehow, can we redirect this link to a new register to vote area on the website (which I could not find)? Thanks, *Trent Somes, III* Region 5 Alternate, Libertarian National Committee Founder, Westmoreland County Libertarians <http://fb.com/wclibertarians> National Chair, Libertarian Youth Caucus <http://fb.com/LYCaucus> Facebook <http://fb.com/trentsomes/> Twitter <http://twitter.com/TrentSomes/> Instagram <http://instagram.com/trentsomes/> Address <https://goo.gl/maps/gWqJw21CJZs> Cell: (412) 496 - 8552 Home: (412) 646 - 1872

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new LP.org website update
by Wes Benedict 15 Nov '16

15 Nov '16

Dear LNC: The new website has some problems and we are working to resolve them. We are making progress, but there are several significant problems and probably several dozen minor ones. This is not a big surprise to me. Major I.T. projects often have problems. Based on some of the emails I've seen, I think people are looking to point fingers. I think if we went ahead and did some finger-pointing, it might be good to get that out of our systems. And then get back to working on fixing the problems as well as considering various paths forward. A little background: At the February 20-21, 2016 LNC meeting in Phoenix, the LNC passed the following motion by a vote of 13-1: "Mr. Goldstein moved to appoint Kevin Ludlow to chair a Website Redevelopment Committee with two other Party members of his choosing from this body. The committee is appointed with power to execute contracts on behalf of the Libertarian Party for redesigning the LP.org website for an amount up to $10,000 plus any additional funds raised for this specific purpose." You can find the vote on the minutes posted at the (complex) link below: https://d1pxvgfbl3s7lq.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/20160220_L… As directed by the LNC, Kevin signed a contract and hired a firm to design the new website. I think Kevin Ludlow underestimated how difficult the new website rollout would be. It's not uncommon for I.T. projects to take longer than expected. Kevin has volunteered a lot of his time to help deploy the new website. That deployment turned out to be more cumbersome than expected and still has some major issues that keep showing up that we need to resolve. Also, I think staff underestimated how long it would take to have the APRC review each individual page of content for compliance, make edits, review again, etc. Mostly for technical reasons, and because of so many projects on our plates, we haven't prioritized putting up lots of old content. We need to make sure the site is set up well and running smoothly before investing lots of time adding lots of content and we need to make sure we find efficient ways to do it and don't create too many new problems as we tweak it and use it. Just to make that point clear, I do not think it would be wise to prioritize putting up old press releases, blog entries, and some other old documents right now. It's not because I deliberately want to hide them. It's because I don't want to waste a lot of time loading stuff inefficiently or that is full of bugs (like bad links and images that aren't going to look right). The intent isn't to hide old meeting minutes or other things. The website design firm is not loading the content. Staff is tasked with loading all the content (all the LNC photos, blog entries, press releases, etc.). I believe the original discussions implied that the design firm would be loading all the old content, but that's not how things have gone. The basic donation function works. We are getting new members and new donations at the website. That's a top priority, as well as having the home page look at least decent. I realize rolling out a new website approximately two weeks before election day was risky. I probably would have waited until after the election for this entire project. But I want to temper that risk by pointing out that donations at LP.org followed a curve this year that I think was similar to previous years as well. Revenue started going up a lot in March, peaked in July and August, and then started going down quite rapidly. When we switched to the new website in October, the rate of donations online was already much lower at the old website, so at least on that point, the risk was lower than if we had switched and had major issues during peak revenue season. Additionally, there has been a whole lot of commentary for the past couple of years about how ugly and out of date the old LP.org website was. The new LP.org website is in fact "new" and some would say "nice looking," but opinions on the look of a website vary as much as opinions on a logo. The point being a new imperfect website is in some ways better than an old imperfect website, even if the problems are different. So, if you want to point fingers, you can point them at the former LNC for their motion. Then you can point at Kevin Ludlow and the design firm he hired. Then you can point them at me and the rest of staff. Going forward, we have a combination of the LNC, the Chair, a newly forming I.T. Committee, the Executive Director plus other staff, the design firm as well as perhaps outside experts that may be involved in what steps are taken next with the website. I've been having conversations with the Chair to establish who has what authority to make what decisions going forward so I at least know what decisions I'm empowered to make. I believe we should discuss that particular issue (who decides what) in depth at the upcoming LNC meeting. If you put staff in charge of website decisions going forward, then you will definitely know who to point the finger at when problems arise. In the mean time, I'll keep working with all to move the LP.org project forward where we can. And just one more reminder about how bad so many of you and others, including me and staff, said the old website was. At least that clunker's gone. -- Wes Benedict, Executive Director Libertarian National Committee, Inc. 1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314 (202) 333-0008 ext. 232,wes.benedict(a)lp.org facebook.com/libertarians @LPNational Join the Libertarian Party at:http://lp.org/membership

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