Hello!

Thank you to everyone who came out last night for the monthly chapter meeting! You can access the notes here. (Thank you to Amillie for taking notes!). We talked about a lot of great stuff, updating members on recent Bread and Roses progress, the Taking Back the Grid Seminar series (that starts tonight! Link to register in the notes), the Ecosocialism working group, and the upcoming Berkshire DSA elections (a co-chair, communications director, and secretary seats will be up for election in March). Amillie and I also summarized a recent talk we gave with the Williams yDSA and a meeting we had with Invest in Pittsfield and the Pittsfield town hall.

The meeting shifted towards a discussion about what changes we would like to see in the chapter. A ton of vital questions and insights were brought forward mainly centering on increasing chapter diversity, the difference between charity and mutual aid, how to use the membership survey from this fall to shape our chapter priorities, DSA organizing philosophy, how to check any saviour complexes at the door, how to not be confused with Western MA Labor Action, and how to be a true ally to marginalized communities/people. It was a good starting point for future conversations and deliberations on all these points and I hope we can explore them at future meetings.  

But! We need to know some stuff! Namely:

- Is anyone interested in starting a zine? We should probably determine a theme and then take submissions of art and writing along that theme.

- Does anyone want to do a Zoom movie night in which we watch classic or contemporary socialist films together? 

- Do a reading series in which small groups of people do a reading and present it to the group (also through zoom) and then we talk about the material? (Like doing book reports but shorter and more fun).

- Do you want to run for office in the Berkshire DSA? Or do you know someone who should? Nominate yourself/them!

So let us know what you think about that stuff and if you would want to participate! Let's have more fun with each other. Winter still has a long way to go.

In solidarity,

Abby