About the Windsor County Democrats

Just recently a new Town Chair wrote, “Just stepped into this position and don’t know anything about the second Monday meetings. Where and what time are they? ” The response covered a bit more than that, and we thought it might be good to have this available to anyone new to the Windsor County Democrats!

Welcome to the Windsor County Democrats! Here are some practical things to know.

  1. The Windsor County Democratic Committee is made up of every town in Windsor (plus 2 or 3 just over the line) that Organizes – which means some number of Democrats meet up and elect a Chair, Vice-Chair, Treasurer and Secretary.
    1. Once a set of Officers exist for a town, they as well as other attendees will vote for a specific number of Delegates (and Alternates for those Delegates if they cannot attend).
    2. The number of delegates is set by the State Democratic Party based on things like recent vote totals.
    3. For larger towns the Officers are often not the Delegates, but for smaller towns often the Officers end up also being the Delegates or Alternates.
  2. Every 2nd Monday we have (or should have) a full meeting of the Windsor County Dems (aka Windsor County Democratic Committee).
    1. The concept is that Delegates attend, and if they can’t they notify an Alternate.
    2. Any of the Officers can attend as well, but only Delegates/Alternates can vote – if there is something that needs to be voted on.
    3. If your town has Delegates but no Alternates selected you can ask to be elected an Alternate so that you will be able to vote when Delegates are not able to attend.
    4. Any Dems can attend for education, volunteering, dedication to Democratic Party principles, etc. 
    5. On occasion the WCD needs to vote on things, and it is Delegates/Alternates that get to vote, and each town, as mentioned, has a specific number of Delegates from 2 to 5 or so. The number of times a meaningful vote comes up is relatively low, but it does happen.
  3. If your position is Chair (or Vice-Chair, Treasurer, Secretary) your focus should be on building your Town strengths as a Democratic Party stronghold –
    1. adding members,
    2. planning actions,
    3. GOTV efforts,
    4. Showing a film or having a discussion on an issue etc.
    5. And developing strong communications with the other Town Chairs, and the Windsor County Executive Committee for several reasons
      1. Scheduling meetings on the 2nd Monday that are vital and valuable
      2. letting other towns know what is working, or not
      3. sharing successes
      4. updating VAN (updating our voter registration town-by-town)
      5. expanding our Windsor County Dems email list
  4. Every Town is at a different place — some are very strong and large, like Springfield, and others are in a building process. We’re all here to help each other get stronger!
  5. The 19 (currently – a few more to add!) towns in turn elect a County-wide Executive Committee – Chair, Vice-Chair, Treasurer (2) and Secretary. And they also elect Delegates and Alternates to meet every other month with the State-wide Democratic Party.

So in a sense Democrats in Windsor County towns become part of a group (that they “organized”) which feeds a County-wide group that then feeds a State-wide Group and – yes, you guessed correctly – the State of VT Democratic Party meets up with the other 49 States and some number of territories on a regular basis. This is the classic definition of a grass roots political movement. Thank you for joining and contributing.

A truly democratic political party is greater than the sum of all our hopes, dreams, and ideas. We have some work to do!