PAYD Elects New Officers!
June 13th, 2007 (posted by Paul McKrell)
The Pennsylvania Young Democrats announce the election of a new Executive
Committee! State Representative Tony Payton Jr. and State Representative
Chelsa Wagner were unanimously elected to lead PAYD into 2008. We are honored to
have attracted two of the commonwealths brightest rising stars. Their
enthusiasm to serve as our chief officers confirms our past record of
accomplishment and strengthens our reputation as Pennsylvania's premiere youth
organization.
National Stonewall Democrats Board Member Tara Reynolds, a recognized campaign strategist, and PAYD's hardest working organizer Tim Brennan, an attorney and Democratic stalwart from Lehigh County, joined Tony and Chelsa as PAYD's representatives to the Young Democrats of America. In addition, Alex
Reber, a former College Democrats leader and a CPA, was elected Treasurer. Our
new Corresponding Secretary, Dan Tyman, led our flagship chapter, the Chester
County Young Democrats, throughout their incredible growth and remarkable
electoral success. Rebecca Sammon, former campaign manager for a
successful candidate in PA's northeast and current research specialist for the House
Democratic Caucus, was chosen as our Recording Secretary.
The Pennsylvania Young Democrats look forward to a tremendous year guided by Tony and his new board!
To view their biographies, please click on the link above to view our Blog!
Are you Denver bound?
June 13th, 2007 (posted by Paul McKrell)
I want to share some amazing news. As you know, Pennsylvania Democratic State Chairman TJ Rooney announced in April that he was accepting comments on the proposed Delegate Selection Plan to the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Seeing that the original plan did not initially include youth, the Pennsylvania Young Democrats decided to collect your comments and petition for explicit language in the Delegate Selection Plan to make sure that young Democrats would be provided adequate opportunity for representation in Denver. As I pointed out before, your response was immediate and overwhelming.
And so was Chairman Rooney's. Showing once again that he is a great friend to Pennsylvania's fastest growing voting block - that's us young Democrats - Chairman Rooney heard our request and granted our petition.
For the first time in its history, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party includes youth in its Delegate Selection Plan. Specifically, the plan calls for the creation of an inclusion program that sets goals for youth representation of approximately 10% of the Pennsylvania delegation to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
This is a major milestone in the history of youth activism in Pennsylvania! But our job is not done. In the coming months, we will work side by side with the State Party to identify, train and support young candidates to run for these petitions and to serve in the delegation. Stay tuned - and you just may find yourself in Denver!
Give Pennsylvania's Youth a Voice in Denver!
April 10th, 2007 (posted by Paul McKrell)
Please sign out petition asking that the Pennsylvania Democratic Party include youth in their affirmative action plan.
Our petition is located here:
http://action.yda.org/dia/organizationsCOM/yda/chapters/1072/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=270
For more information, please view our blog at
http://www.payoungdems.blogspot.com/
PAYD Website Redesigned
April 2nd, 2007 (posted by Paul McKrell)
Our long national nightmare is over. OK, I'm exaggerating a bit, but finally, after months of sundry issues, you can see our new website has launched!
There are a lot of problems yet to solve. For instance, the site looks better in Mozilla than in Explorer. Yep, this is not the finished project. In the coming weeks we will add content to all the sections. We will also be adding weekly polls, commenting to blog entries, a search function, and many more interactive features to the site. I thank you for bearing with us during the construction and promise to make every effort to have the job finished as soon as possible.
I would like to thank Jason Godesky and Anne McCafferty of Vivisimo/Clusty.com for their invaluable assistance. We will be counting on Jason in the coming weeks to help us finish the site. But, a special thanks must go out to Ira Goldberg. Three weeks of meetings, phone calls and IM's with Ira produced what you see now. Thank you Ira, for your customary dedication and hard work.
Any shortcomings to the site are entirely mine. I designed it, but I know there is much room for improvement. If you have any suggestions, please don't hesitate to let me know.
To read previous news postings, click here.