January Citizen

Hello CBIDers,

I hope everyone is staying warm in the beginnings of this winter season. If you weren’t at our last meeting, I want to express a great deal of gratitude to everyone who attended and participated. We spent the bulk of our meeting deliberating various issues, discussing where we should insert ourselves as a club, and identifying where we want to go in the coming year. For me, it was one of the most meaningful meetings I’ve been to. We had discussions about our priorities and even had a rogue group breakaway and raise their own issues.

One of the main points that was made clear is that we need to do better in soliciting ideas from the general membership and and bringing you all into the decision making process about where we want to go as a club. I am over the moon that this is bubbling up. When the general membership demands more of a voice in the direction of a the club, I know that we are on our way to becoming more open and inclusive.

We want to be working on our collective ideas, and ideas of other people in the local ecosystem, and to be consciously thinking about who’s not in the room, why they aren’t in the room and how do we get them into the room. This is a lot of work, and it’s a lot harder than just scheduling canvass and petitioning events. It requires both an active membership and a governing body that listens. I can promise the latter is doing all we can (and recognize we are not perfect but are striving to become more accessible), and also requires you, the membership to voice your concerns and ideas.

We have developed more working groups and issue based committees based on the feedback of our December meeting (these are all listed below, along with contacts for each of the committee organizers). We want you, YOU, to be a part of them and guide them and lead them. We, as the executive committee, will provide the structure and resources they need to be successful, but we need your participation. We need your voices. We need your power. I will make sure we have all we need to keep moving forward.

2019 is going to provide lots of opportunities to shape both the city and the state of New York. We have the ability to push forward the agenda we’ve been fighting for for years. We have to keep up the pressure and stay focused on accomplishing the goals that are now in sight.

Let’s do this, all!

Asher Novek
CBID President
ashercbid@gmail.com