Texas Democratic Women of Ellis County minutes from November 21, 2023 meeting
The meeting was called to order at 6 p.m. There were fifteen in attendance. Members recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
Mary Brooks gave the Treasurer’s Report and encouraged members to renew their memberships for 2024. She reported that the PAC Account has $2,916.94 and the Scholarship Account has $5,237.26. $615 in membership dues were collected last month.
Lynda Begnaud gave a report from the nominating committee. Officers agreeing to serve in 2024 are as follows: President – Nancy Post, Vice President – Vivian Gibson, Secretary – Kathleen Bowen, and Treasurer – Mary Brooks. The members nominated them and all were accepted unanimously.
We discussed sending out proposed committee assignments in an email to members.
We discussed making a roster of members and getting approval in an email to members before doing so. Members will be given the opportunity to opt out of having their name, their email and/or phone number included in the listing to be shared with TDW members.
We discussed our program for January. We don’t have a speaker as of yet, but we will install officers then.
Vivian Gibson gave the Scholarship Committee report. She said that we will send an application online at the end of December or beginning of January to Ennis High School.
We discussed voter registration being part of the Community Outreach Committee and discussed having voter registrations at apartment complexes.
Carol Young, the refreshment committee chair, said that Kathleen Bowen had refreshments for the January meeting.
We discussed having Jeanettea Flores represent TDW of Ellis County at the Democratic National Convention in August of 2024.
We mentioned the dates of the state TDW Convention and benefits of attending.
Mary Brooks asked members to submit ideas on what we, as Democrats, could do to be seen more in Ellis County.
Mary Lou discussed getting people to run for office. Barbara also mentioned that it is important to get people appointed to city or county offices or to sign up to be on committees to get known before running for office.
We discussed talking to Kelly about how TDW could coordinate better with Ellis County Democrats and possibly volunteering to be a precinct chair.
Jamie Patton mentioned possibly doing a joint newsletter with Ellis County Democrats.
Mary Lou mentioned that we are lucky to have Kelly as the Democratic chair.
Mary Lou said that Mr. Penfold is in the hospital and that the renovations were on hold because of that. Mary Lou also said that the façade grant is from Historic Waxahachie. There are three different plans that were drawn for the headquarters renovation.
Barbara Fudge mentioned that the Democratic Party had given Kelly over 400 names of people that might be interested in running for office. Terri Crouch is calling them. Jamie Patton suggested that we help Terri with the call list.
There was a motion made for TDW to coordinate and share more information with Ellis County Democrats. Nancy Post made a motion and Mary Brooks seconded it.
Jamie Patton made a motion to adjourn the meeting and Jeanettea Flores seconded it. The meeting was adjourned at 6:45 p.m.
Minutes submitted by Lynda Begnaud