Boston University’s Green Party members and campus organizers from around New England gathered at BU on Saturday and Sunday for the first ever Campus Greens Northeast Regional Conference.
The conference featured workshops, a planning session and speeches by Boston City Councilor-At-Large Felix Arroyo and Maine State Rep. John Eder.
The event, organized by the BU Greens, aimed to bring together party members from across New England, plan for upcoming events and build organizational skills, according to BU Greens President Karlo Silbiger.
‘The main goal of this event was to give campus organizers some of the basic training skills that they wouldn’t naturally have, which they need to be effective organizers,’ said Silbiger, a College of Fine Arts and School of Education senior. ‘Also, this conference gives progressive organizers from around the region the chance to meet and organize with each other.’
Conference organizers estimated about 50 people participated in the conference, but many of the attendees represented their local campuses’ Greens chapters. While most students were from the Boston area, representatives came from colleges as far away as Brown University.
Following the opening session, which featured an informal discussion facilitated by the National Director of Campus Greens Brian Sandberg, conference participants chose from a number of workshops with topics such as ‘Chilling the Rights of Immigrants,’ ‘Organizing 101’ and ‘Resisting the Corporate Agenda in Columbia.’
Harvard University student Steve Milder said the workshops and speakers were interesting and informative.
‘I thought the workshops were great,’ Milder said. ‘I went to the immigrant rights one and the facilitator knew everything about his topic. It was really interesting because I had heard a lot of terrible things about the [USA] PATRIOT Act but he was able to give us specific examples of how it’s affecting immigrants in Boston.’
The workshop leaders were chosen because of their ties with progressive organizations in the Boston area, Silbiger said.
‘For the workshops, we started with organizations that are doing good work in the Boston area,’ he said. ‘There was so much interest in teaching that we didn’t have enough spaces in our schedule for everyone to speak, so we narrowed the list down to several speakers in areas pertinent to campus Greens.’
The first day of the conference closed with a lengthy regional planning session in which party members elected regional officials, discussed networking between Northeast chapters and planned the next regional conference.
Sandberg said he felt the session allowed the Green Party community to become better organized in the region.
‘I think it was really important for organizers who do similar work to network and gain some inspiration or confidence,’ Sandberg said. ‘The planning session allowed us to improve our organizational structure and effectively delegate responsibility.’
The conference closed on Sunday with a three-hour seminar by Eder, who discussed campaigning strategies for Green Party candidates in the upcoming election year.
Overall, Silbiger said, the event was very successful.
‘I thought the conference went very well,’ Silbiger said. ‘We were able to meet a lot of new people and build the Green community. In the future we’d like to see more people attend but I think we accomplished our goals during the conference.’
Upcoming BU Greens events include teach-ins, a gay rights film festival and a Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration.