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Proposal Details

Proposal ID597
ProposalGNC Approval of International Committee Election of John Rensenbrink to Global Green Network
PresenterGPUS International Committee
Floor ManagerFarheen Hakeem
PhaseClosed
Discussion06/13/2011 - 06/26/2011
Voting06/27/2011 - 07/03/2011
ResultAdopted
Presens Quorum31 0.6666
Consens Quorum34 A Majority of Yes and No Votes

Background

In keeping with its Rules, Policies, and Procedures (R, P &P’s), the IC seeks NC approval of three GPUS delegates to the Global Green Network (GGN): Romi Elnagar (LA), John Rensenbrink (ME), and Bahram Zandi (VA), elected by the IC, March 2011.

Fore candidate bios and details about the selection process, please go to:

http://www.gp.org/committees/intl/delegate_biographies.html

Dear members of the International Committee,

Thank you for considering me to be one of your representatives to the Global Green Network. I am asking for your vote.

I have been active in, and organizing for, the Green Party since it began, helping to found it in 1984 and having participated in its ups and downs (more ups than downs) since then, at local, state, regional, national and internationals levels. I helped found the International Committee in 1997 and served as its first chair (1997-201l). I was elected by the National Committee of the USGP as a representative to the Global Green Network (GGN) at its beginning in 2001 and have served in that capacity since then. I have detailed my work in GGN in my Reports about GGN, written in 2003 and 2011 (the latter was sent to the International Committee earlier today).
 
I was the Maine Green Party’s candidate for U.S. Senate in 1996 and served as campaign manager for the Maine Green Party gubernatorial campaigns of Jonathan Carter and Pat La Marche in 1994 and 1998 respectively. I served as an advisor to the Cobb/LaMarche presidential campaign in 1994; and have advised many Maine Green Party candidates for state legislative office and local office. I have done a lot of fund-raising for the candidates. I have been a delegate from the Maine Green Independent Party to the U.S. Green Party’s National Committee off and on, most recently from 2007 to the present day.
 
Related to my Green Party work are founding the Cathance River Education Alliance in Topsham in 2000 – now a very successful program in its tenth year devoted to hands-on ecological education for area schools; and taking a leading role in a hard fought campaign to preserve the Town Meeting form of government in Topsham (population 11,000) in 2007/2008.
 
Together with Steve Welzer of the New Jersey Greens, started up the Green Horizon Foundation in 2002. We serve as the Co-Editors of the Foundation’s Green Horizon Magazine, a publication that now, in its 7th year, is mailed to over 1000 people, mostly Greens, in the United States and many other countries.

My hopes for GGN are very strong. It can and should expand to embrace most if not all the national Green parties in the world. It can and should be a principal support to the Global Green Coordination (the global organization featuring 3 representatives from each of four continental federations, Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Americas, and Europe.) The GGN can make Global Greens more visible and real to the members of the national parties -- and thereby be a source for people able and willing to work for global Green concerns and a source for financial support for global green organizations. 

More particularly, I am very interested in working to implement some or all of the five recommendations presented by the U.S. delegation at the 2008 meeting of FPVA in Quebec in 2008, recommendations that received unanimous acceptance by the delegates to that conference of the Green Parties of the Americas. I am reproducing these recommendations here:

An Advisory
 
Presented and Accepted Unanimously at the FPVA meeting
Quebec, November 6-9, 2008
 
 
Presented by the United States delegation.
 
Theme of the Advisory: To help promote and develop a strong and democratically organized Global Greens by fostering full communication among several bodies that comprise the Global Greens; and to urge a more substantial role for one of those bodies, the Global Green Network, as a means to achieve fuller and deeper communication in and among the Global Greens. The several bodies are:
 
--Global Greens Congresses (2001 in Canberra; 2008 in Sao Paulo)
--Global Greens Coordination composed of three representatives from each of four Federations (Africa; Asia/Pacific; The Americas; Europe);
--Global Greens Network composed of two to three representatives from each of the participating national Green Parties;
--Global Young Greens; and
--Global Greens Information Centre and Secretariat (proposed and adopted at the Sao Paulo Congress of Global Greens in May 2008)
 
Five Recommendations
 
Recommendation 1. We urge that steps be taken by all parts of the Global Greens to help strengthen the role and functions of the Global Green Network so that the Network as a whole and their participating member Green Parties throughout the world will have a greater share in the work of the Global Greens and have a greater stake in the success of the Global Greens. In this way, there can be realized a steady evolution of the Global Green Network as anticipated in the Berlin Agreement of May, 2002.
 
Recommendation 2. We urge that representatives of the Global Green Network be given speaking rights at the next Global Greens Congress, and at Global Greens Congresses thereafter, along with representatives of the Federations, the Global Greens Coordination, the Global Young Greens, and the Global Greens Information Center and Secretariat.
 
Recommendation 3. We urge each of the four Federations to actively encourage all the Green Parties within their Federation to participate in the Global Green Network and to select two to three representatives to the GGN as provided in the GGC/GGN founding document (Canberra 2001).
 
Recommendation 4. We urge the full development of an advisory role for the Global Green Network that includes consultation of an advisory kind with the Global Greens Coordination, the Global Greens Information Centre and Secretariat, the Global Young Greens, and the Global Greens Congress. In this way, the intent of the founding document of the GGC/GGN will be given scope and meaning. The founding document (Canberra 2001) states that “the Global Greens Coordination may refer issues for discussion to the Global Green Network.” This provision points to a partnership that leads to a strong and steady advisory role for the Global Green Network. This will deepen and strengthen the Global Greens as a whole.
 
Recommendation 5. We urge that the Global Green Network equip itself internally to become an effective body for consultation with other parts of the Global Greens. To this end, we call upon the Global Green Network to create for itself an Advisory Council drawn from the GGN representatives of the Green Parties in the world that have been recognized by their respective Federations. The Global Green Network should do this after seeking appropriate advice from the Global Greens Coordination, the Information Centre/Secretariat, and the Young Greens.

Thank you for considering me to be one of your representatives to the Global Green Network. I would appreciate your vote.

John Rensenbrink
IC Delegate from Maine

Proposal

The NC confirms GPUS delegate JOHN RENSENBRINK (ME) to the Global Green Network (GGN), elected by the IC, March 2011.

Resources

Timeline: Immediate implementation

References

http://www.gp.org/committees/intl/delegate_biographies.html

CONTACT: Justine McCabe, IC Co-chair, 860-354-9773, justinemccabe@earthink.net

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