[pp.int.general] The conference - what went wrong, and why we NEED to do better!

[Andrew Norton]

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On 4/22/2010 5:24 PM, Alex wrote:
> ok no need to get into details., let's discuss all that when we have 7
> strong european parties. so far it doesnt look too promissing. PP-DE
> is growing slowly, SE is losing members, FI is showing some potential.
> and that's pretty much it.

I think the swedish losses are overstated. It's only to be expected
given their membership model. Instead of looking at the negative
numbers, look at the positive - how many, of their own will, have renewed?

As for other parties, the Dutch party has a chance (0.67% is all they
need for a national seat, I believe) and the UK party, while a seat is
unlikely, has strong potential to grow some more in these last two weeks
before the election.

That reminds me, I'm not speaking officially for anyone but myself,
however, one thing PPI should be doing is supporting parties during
elections. The UK party is 2 weeks away from an elcetion. The Dutch
party is a day under 7 weeks away from theirs. Sweden has an election in
September, and I believe there's another one that I can't remembre
offhand. The success of these parties, directly affects our own parties.
The better the election results, the more credible we are as a political
position.

Additionally, I'm sure we're all shorter on experience (direct, hands on
experience) than we'd like. So, why not get some. If you have free time,
ask a party with a looming election if they need help. Mostly they'll
need creative people, working on flyers, videos etc (because it's not
feasible for someone in Spain, Sweden or Serbia to be helping trudge the
streets of Bury handshaking and doorknocking). Maybe share, adapt and
remix material you already have, and save some time, or free someone
else up to do another job.

THIS sort of thing, helping parties start and then helping them to work
at their best, is what I envisaged as the whole reason for PPI. Not to
set rules and policies or control who says and does what. We've been
talking about who votes, and at the same time we say the PPI has no
power to compel, so whats the votes for? As far as conferences go, we've
had 5 over 3 years and almost everything agreed on at them has yet to
happen. So let's take them back to their original purpose, as a social
event, where we can put faces to (screen)names, and we can talk and
learn from each other and from outside, invited speakers. Even the
simple suggestion I made almost 18 months ago, that parties send PPI a
copy of their press releases (or at last their important ones, including
to the list) has gone mostly ignored in favour of vastly increasing
bureaucracy.

PPI isn't the UN and it's not the EP. Right now, we have a load of
statutes, but it's all legal mumblings, it gives structure to an
organisation that has no teeth, no ability for anything it decides to
actually be carried out. The only purpose it has ever actually worked,
has been as a central contact for new parties, and that can be better
handled by a regional council, say a member per continent, and a
president of same (giving 6 members and a tiebreaker voting president,
since Antarctica won't have a party)

In short, the job of PPI is, and always has been, supporting the
formation of new parties, and supporting existing ones as and when
needed, through increasing and facilitating communication. We're
straying from that. I just had a quick look back through some of the
coreteam meetings, and the vast majority of the topics over the last few
months, have been about the conference, the statutes, and the bank
account. I doubt there's been more than half a dozen issues over the
last 4 months not related to the conference/establishment of PPI. Were
Douglas Adams still alive, this could be the basis for "Bureaucracy 2"
(Bureaucracy was a game he co-wrote in 87 about the difficulties with
changing your address at a bank). Hmm, I guess not so short after all.

Perhaps a metaphor would be best. To build a house, you need builders,
they're essential for the house to be constructed. It requires plans,
and organisation to build it, and hard work from the builders. We're at
a situation now, though, where the builders are in a permanent state of
work, even though the house is built, and they're not needed. Once it's
biult, it needs a minimum of maintaince, the scaffolding can come down
and be removed, and it needs only minor work done occasionally. We don't
need the rules, we don't really need 'the board' as there is now nothing
for them to do, since the original purpose was abandoned at some point,
for the purpose of justifying its own existence. What does it do now,
and more importantly, how do we get back on track?

Andrew



> 
> On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 12:12 AM, Nicolas Sahlqvist <nicco77 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I agree, PPI is not intended to be a party, rather a forum for parties,
>> thereby the name "Pirate Parties International".
>>
>> - Nicolas
>>   PPI
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 11:07 PM, Justus Ršoemeth <squig at dfpx.de> wrote:
>>>
>>> As I wrote before, I don't think PPI should be 'used' for this, but we
>>> should found a new european party for that.
>>>
>>> PPI has a global scope, and in the short and mid-run should be a global
>>> forum for all the pirate parties to raise their voice, a forum where pirate
>>> parties can meet and a place hwre people who want to start a pirate party in
>>> a country where there is none could go to to get know-how and helping hands,
>>> as well as start-up infrastructure (forum, maybe a wiki too?).
>>> If PPI would become the European party of the pirate movement all that
>>> would be in jeopardy.
>>>
>>> On 22.04.10 22:46, Gregory Engels wrote:
>>>
>>> On 22.04.2010, at 20:59, Partidul Piratilor wrote:
>>>
>>> . Talking about a European PPI like a political party and make comparisons
>>> with other European examples will be out of the question for a simple
>>> reason: there is no Europe wide political party. Even in European Parliament
>>> they have groups wich unite parties by similarities, and the groups do not
>>> decide what individual parties do.
>>>
>>> There are political parties on the european level.
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_political_party
>>> They get funding from the european parliament, even
>>> if they are not yet in the EP. thefunding has to stay on
>>> the european level and cannot be used to finance
>>> national member parties.
>>>
>>> it must have in at least one quarter of the Member States, one or both of
>>> the following:
>>>
>>> either it must have received at least 3% of the votes cast in each of
>>> those Member States at the most recent European Parliament elections.
>>> or it must already be represented by Members, whether Members of the
>>> European Parliament for those states, or Members of the national Parliaments
>>> of those states, or Members of the regional Parliaments of those states, or
>>> Members of the regional Assemblies of those states.
>>>
>>> PPI could change some of its statutes and apply for such a status when we
>>> have met these criteria, but this is not yet to decide. We should be
>>> represented in parliaments in at least 7 european countries, and i don't see
>>> it happen for at least 2 or 3 year at the very optimistic (unrealistic)
>>> forecast.
>>> Gregory Engels
>>> International Coordinator
>>> Pirate Party of Germany
>>> mobile: +49 172 853 44 91
>>> skype:gregory.engels
>>> jabber:dichter at jabber.piratenpartei.de
>>>
>>> ____________________________________________________
>>> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
>>> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>>> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
>>>
>>>
>>> ____________________________________________________
>>> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
>>> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>>> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
>>>
>>
>>
>> ____________________________________________________
>> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
>> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
>>
>>
> ____________________________________________________
> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general

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