Get Ready For a New LPNOVA in 2011

Libertarians,

As you may be aware, the Libertarian Party of Northern Virginia held its annual convention last Saturday. Attendance was pretty good, and the convention was productive. We made some minor changes to the bylaws, and elected new party officers. After the business session ended, we held a short, informal board meeting to discuss a few things that we need to work on going forward (a discussion we'll continue at our December board meeting). This was followed by a few hours of eating, drinking, and just hanging out with fellow libertarians. A special thank you goes out to Chris Brookover, for hosting this year's convention.

I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce the new LPNOVA governing board. I'm Matt Cholko, and you're all probably pretty well aware of who I am. I am now the Chairman. Kristin Pavelski is the new Vice-Chairman. Kristin served as Campaign Manager for Bill Redpath's 2010 Congressional campaign, and is involved with a several other organizations that promote smaller government, such as the Northern Virginia Tea Party, and Campaign For Liberty. Long-time libertarian activist Rodney Severson was re-elected, and will serve his third term as LPNOVA Treasurer. Another long-time activist, John Fast, is now our Secretary. John is a recent transplant from Florida, where he was active with the LP. He's attending graduate school at George Mason University. Former Chairman Matt Helm remains on the board, but this time in the At-Large position. Matt has been on the LPNOVA board in 3 different positions now, and we're glad he's still here.

I'd like to encourage you to come out and meet all of us, and get involved in our discussions about LPNOVA's 2011 plans. Our next meeting is scheduled for Saturday, December 4th at 2:00pm at the Kings Park Library in Burke. Here are a few tentative agenda items:


Discuss Meetup/Event Organizing and ideas on how to increase turnout
Discuss generating more website content
Identify possible candidates for elected offices in 2011
Discuss management principles/effective use of volunteers
Consider ways to better serve all LPNOVA territory
Discuss fundraising ideas for the next year
Communicating with the membership more consistently
Hear reports from each board member

Whether or not you've attended an LPNOVA board meeting before, this would be a good time to come out. We need to hear your thoughts on what we should be doing going forward. If you've seen some problems with things we've done in the past, or know of things that we've done particularly well, please come out and let us know. We're trying to strengthen our party, and we need your help to identify areas in need of improvement. We'll also be looking for volunteers for many things over the next few months, so please let us know if you're interested in helping out in general, or have some specific skills that you think may be helpful to our cause.

Also, since we'll be discussing it at the board meeting, I'd like to encourage anyone who thinks they may be interested in running for office next year to come out to the meeting and/or send me an e-mail at Chairman@lpnova.org and let me know. There are many seats up next year, and we need to give our neighbors a Libertarian choice for as many of those seats as possible. As a former cnadidate, I can assure you that the experience is a rewarding one.

As always, I thank you for your support of the Libertarian Party. I hope that you will join us as work work to build a stronger, more effective organization in 2011 and beyond.

Sincerely,

Matt Cholko
Chairman, LPNOVA