We know you’re ready for the work of the year ahead. But are you ready to play?! Come spend some time with other progressive activists and organizers just having fun and restoring the spirit.
Join us for a night of trivia across several subjects to show off your smarts while enjoying great company!
Thursday, February 29th
7:30-9pm
Zoom (link upon RSVP)
Play trivia!
Join us and allies on Sunday, February 4, at 4 pm in Porter Square to take action with our partner organizations to promote civic engagement in the company of your friends and neighbors. You will write postcards, make phone calls, and take other actions on a range of issues from voter registration, voter turnout, and progressive state policy.
We will be phone banking in support of key bills on housing and climate in the state legislature.
Join the movement for Polluter Accountability!
Join the Make Polluters Pay Campaign on Sunday, February 4 from 1-3 PM for an afternoon of strategizing and socializing in the Democracy Center (45 Mount Auburn St, Cambridge). We’ll go over our accomplishments from 2023 and plan out our campaign strategy for 2024 over tea and cookies.
The Polluters Pay bill would levy a one-time fee on major polluters to provide for critical climate resilience upgrades across the commonwealth, especially in environmental justice communities.
| Join education justice activists from across the state tomorrow for the Thrive Act Virtual Day of Action! Sign up here! bit.ly/taday24actions The Thrive Act would end the undemocratic state takeover system, stop the misuse of the MCAS as a high school graduation requirement, and build a school accountability and assessment system that centers student success and our communities. 10:00-11:30AM Coffee & Conversation on the Thrive Act: Have questions about the bill? Want to write a letter to the editor or posts for social media? Need a few talking points or encouragement to write to legislators? Bring your beverage and ideas to our zoom conversation and action hour! Come as you are, no experience or previous knowledge necessary! 12:30-1:30PM: Your Voice Matters! Tell your Story! Drop in Storytelling Workshop and Action: An opportunity for folks to get support writing letters to their legislator, letters to the editors, forming social media posts, and other storytelling mediums! 4:00-5:30PM: Your Voice Matters! Tell your Story! Drop in Storytelling Workshop and Action: An opportunity for folks to get support writing letters to their legislator, letters to the editors, forming social media posts, and other storytelling mediums! 6:00-8:00PM: Mobilize and Phonebank!: We’ll be calling education justice supporters across Massachusetts to talk to them about the Thrive Act and help them contact their legislators in support of the bill. Sign up here! bit.ly/taday24actions |
We’re excited to see you — in person — at our 2024 member meeting (open to all!) on Saturday, January 27. Don’t forget to let us know that you can come by RSVPing here.
Do you know what else we’re excited about? Our speakers. We’ll be featuring a discussion between Robert Kuttner, co-editor and co-founder of The American Prospect, and Sonia Chang-Díaz, former state senator, about the state of progressive politics in Massachusetts, inspired by Kuttner’s recent extensive column “Massachusetts Blues.”
Saturday, January 27
1 pm to 5 pm
Lasell University, DeWitt Hall
1844 Commonwealth Ave, Newton
RSVP FOR OUR ANNUAL MEETING
What else is in store for the annual meeting? We’ll be featuring breakout sessions on the following themes (titles in progress):
School committees as a key battleground
Healing the Movement & reimagining a more caring & equitable Mass
How to address the housing crisis
Changing the narrative around immigration
The state of the labor movement in 2024
Think Reproductive Rights are Safe in MA? Think Again!
MA's Climate Goals: How to Meet Them
Making Your Voice Heard in a Media Desert
Strengthening Democracy in MAI hope you had a happy and restful holiday season — and are even more energized to take action in the new year.
This Sunday’s Activist Afternoon Launch Party has been rescheduled due to the incoming storm. But don’t worry–you can still join fellow activists online this Sunday, January 7th from 3:30-5pm in making calls to voters about important issues before the State House, including tenant protections and climate action. RSVP here.
Stay tuned for a new date for the Make Polluters Pay Holiday Party, which was previously scheduled for this Sunday as well. And see below for more opportunities to take action including our 2024 Annual Meeting on Saturday, January 27th from 1-5pm at Lasell University in Newton!
We’ll be joining with other groups for a re-launch of an in-person Activist Afternoons on Sunday, January 21st, at 4 pm at St. James’s Episcopal Church in Porter Square. The launch event will have some socializing and networking before people go off to take action.
RSVP here
At this forum, you will hear stories from people facing personal housing crises. You will learn how many people in the Commonwealth are unhoused and which populations are most at risk. You will learn about emergency measures, including rent control, that are needed now, and strategies for implementing them. You will also learn how many new units of housing need to be built to make a significant difference to people who need suitable housing. You will also learn what for-profit developers can provide to solve the crisis. Finally, you will learn about two new programs, community land trusts and social housing that provide practical solutions to some of our biggest challenges.
This forum — on Wednesday, January 10, at 7 PM, on Zoom — is brought to you by the Mass Progressive Action Organizing Committee (MPAOC).
The Forum includes presentations by Caroline Bays (PM),Martin Omasta (DSA), Katie McCann (CL/VU), Carolyn Chou (HFA), Minnie McMahon (Dudley St. Community Land Trust), Mark Martinez (Mass Law Reform Institute), and Representative Mike Connolly.
RSVP here
Join us on Saturday, January 27, at 1 pm at Lasell University in Newton for our 2024 annual member meeting — back in person! — where we will review accomplishments from the past year, talk about the work ahead in 2024, and host a variety of breakout sessions focused on building skills and digging deeper into policy and action.
RSVP here
Join us for our 2024 annual member meeting — back in person! — where we will review accomplishments from the past year, talk about the work ahead in 2024, and host a variety of breakout sessions focused on building skills and digging deeper into policy and action.
Saturday, January 27
1 pm to 5 pm
Lasell University, DeWitt Hall
80 Maple Street, Newton
RSVP today!
Our Annual Meeting is open to everyone. However, you must be a member to vote for members up for election or re-election to the Board. You also must be a member to nominate yourself or someone else for election.
Massachusetts has the reputation of being one of the most progressive states in the country. Yet we lack legislative transparency, have a progressive Democratic Party platform that the leadership ignores, and have a state government that struggles to pass progressive legislation.
In response, the Massachusetts Progressive Action Organizing Committee (MPAOC) invites you to an online Strategy Conference. We will focus on how progressive activists can gain the power to pass vigorous meaningful legislation and initiate changes to improve the lives of all of our citizens.
In panels and breakout groups, conference attendees will examine paths to increase progressive power, identify the obstacles to our success. and learn strategies to overcome them.
REGISTER HERE
Schedule
9:30 Welcome and call to order
9:50 Nina Turner – Plenary Speaker – founder, We Are Somebody; former Ohio state senator and Bernie Sanders campaigner
10:30 Panel 1 – Social/Economic Consequences in Massachusetts of excess military spending
Three activists who organize to support the social and economic needs of the people of Massachusetts will speak on how the Pentagon budget is starving state and local budgets.
Rep. Mike Connolly, state representative from Cambridge and Somerville, will speak about needed housing policies, including social housing and rent control.
Katie Murphy RN, president of the Mass. Nurses Association, will talk about the crisis in nursing and healthcare as providers try to rebuild the increasingly profit-driven system after COVID.
Jonathan King, professor emeritus of molecular biology at MIT and board co-chair at Mass. Peace Action, will address the impact on the important science and technology industries in Massachusetts.
11:30 Breakouts 1
12:30 Lunch break
1:15 Special presentation – Rep. Max Frost (D-FL)
1:30 Panel 2 – Overcoming Obstacles: Learning From Successful Campaigns
Three speakers from three different, successful Massachusetts-based issue campaigns will name the three largest obstacles to their goals and the strategies they used to overcome them, using examples from their work.
Sonia Chang-Díaz, former State Senator and 2022 candidate for Governor, will talk about how she worked with allies to pass ‘The Student Opportunity Act’, later renamed ‘The Promise Act’, which significantly increased funding to poor school districts.
Harris Gruman, executive director, SEIU State Council, will speak about the successful Raise-Up campaign he helped lead to increase taxes on income over one million dollars (The Fair Share Amendment) to fund public schools and transit.
Tricia Farley Bouvier, state representative from Pittsfield, will tell us about the campaign she helped lead which resulted in qualified undocumented immigrants being able to get driver’s licenses.
2:30 Breakouts 2
3:30 Panel 3 – What Are We Going to Do?
Speakers from grassroots organizations that have advanced the progressive agenda will be asked to identify barriers to continued progress as we enter 2024. Each will be asked to talk about strategies they employ and how they will use them to advance their political agenda.
Andrea Miller, founding board member of the Center for Common Ground, will talk about her work to build Democracy Centers in the U.S. South, addressing in particular the challenge of alienation from electoral work that is growing in communities of color.
Nicky Osborne will speak about her work to organize in southeast Massachusetts against MAGA supporters who are running for school boards with funding from major right-wing organizations. She will talk about the extent of the MAGA threat in Massachusetts and effective organizing techniques.
4:30 Wrap-up
5:00 Adjourn
Join us and Mass Power Forward in calling on our legislators to wake up and do more for environmental and climate justice!
Every day, we see new evidence of the dire state of the climate crisis: whether it’s record heat waves, storms, droughts, wild fires.
Your legislators need to hear from YOU that climate justice can’t wait.
RSVP for Mass Power Forward’s decentralized lobby day on Dec 5.
Rather than asking you to travel to the State House for a meeting, this lobby day is focused on in-district meetings with your legislator — at a coffee shop, a library, a community center, or maybe just on Zoom.
The in-district meetings will be focusing on Mass Power Forward’s priority bills.
Putting a moratorium on new gas infrastructure
Making big polluters pay for the costs of climate adaptation
Scaling up our investment in green retrofits
Improving indoor air quality
Advancing environmental justice through siting reform and through strengthening civil rightsWant better prep before the lobby day? You can attend a training on Nov 29.