Sunday Party Conference Schedule
Our Spring 2025 conference is this Sunday, June 15th in the Lavender Room at Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave., Somerville. The conference starts at 10am and ends by 4pm.
Schedule
Our conference schedule and session descriptions.
Time | Session | Speaker |
9:00am – 10:00am | Setup | |
10:00am – 10:15am | Opening Address | |
10:15am – 11:15am | Policy and Platform Discussion | |
11:15am – noon | Monopoly Free Capitalism | Wendy Welsh |
noon – 12:30pm | Lunch and protecting your privacy hands on | |
12:30pm – 1:00pm | How to navigate your local government | Steve Revilak |
1:00pm – 1:45pm | Review of Party Initiatives | |
1:45pm – 2:30pm | Road to Town Meeting | Kolby Blehm |
2:30pm – 3:00pm | Candidate Tutorial | James O’Keefe |
3:00pm – 3:45pm | Election planning for 2026 | |
3:45pm – 4:00pm | Closing Address | |
4:00pm – 5:00pm | Clean up |
Conference Sessions
Policy and Platform Discussion
We will start by presenting a summary of the party’s current policy positions. From there we will discuss what positions/policy areas we should add. The goal is not to engage in lengthy policy debates, but to identify any gaps in the current platform, prioritize those issues we need to review and adopt positions on. Each individual policy is important, but our platform should be greater than the sum of its parts, a coherent and convincing argument for the party.
Monopoly Free Capitalism
Wendy Welsh will suggest ideas to increase business competition.
Lunch and protecting your privacy hands on
While eating, people knowledgeable in privacy will give hands on tutorials for tech like signal or tor.
How to navigate your local government
Steve Revilak, a Pirate town meeting member in Arlington and our First Officer, discusses how town government works and how you can bring change to yours.
Review of Party Initiatives
First we will outline each of the party’s efforts, assessing their isolated efficacy, as well as their role in accomplishing the party’s overall goals. We will discuss areas we should improve and what changes we need to make. Finally, we will make plans for the next year, including how to gauge the success of our projects.
Road to Town Meeting
Kolby Blehm will discuss his community education program, currently titled “Road to Town
Meeting”, which aims to educate his town on the year long cycle of town government culminating in voting together at town meeting and resetting with elections each year.
Candidate Tutorial
Captain James will give a quick intro to running for office.
Election planning for 2026
We will discuss the races we currently know we are running in for the upcoming year, as well those we might compete in. We will discuss candidate recruitment, voter outreach efforts, and overall strategy.
Registration
The conference is free, but we request that participants register in advance. We encourage attendees to mask to protect everyone’s health. We will have masks and COVID tests for attendees as well as air purifiers. We plan to live stream it for people who cannot attend in person.
The Site
Arts at the Armory is wheelchair accessible, has free parking in the back, is on the Route 88 and 90 bus lines and walking distance from the Gilman and Magoun Squares MBTA Green Line stations. The Lavender Room is in the basement and is accessible by stair and elevator.
Spread the Word!
Share our Facebook event or post up our conference flyer.
If you want to come up with a better version of the filer, email us and we will send you the editable Scribus document. Scribus is a libre desktop publishing application similar to In Design, PageMaker or QuarkXPress. If you want to create your own in another desktop publishing application, the original images are at:
Want to Help?
If you can help with the conference, please take a look at our conference pirate pad and put your name down for anything you will do.
Thanks to our friends at Agaric for hosting Community Bridge.