Ahoy
We have had a busy year this year, with laws like data retention, website blocking and continued attacks on civil liberties having been passed with the support of both major Parties. We need to keep fighting against the growing authoritarianism in society and keep fighting for a free, democratic and open future.
Party Strategy Meeting
The National Council have held a couple of strategy meetings to thrash out broader agendas for the Party. These have been useful excersises that have helped us to move forward with different projects. We have a major project that will need the involvement of as many Pirates as possible and a need to discuss our relations with other Parties, so we are calling for a Party wide strategy meeting for early next year. We cordially invite all members to attend on Wednesday January 13 8:30pm AEDT in IRC https://pirateparty.org.au/irc/
We will be discussing the formation of State branches, in particular what steps will be required to get them from their current embyonic state to functioning entities able to engage in state politics, get registered for and compete in elections.
Through our participation in the Alliance for Progress, the progressive small Party alliance, a few discussions have started about absorbing smaller parties and merging with Parties of a similar size. The National Council have been hesitant to pursue any of these proposals because we have not discussed it as a Party. This is a chance to do this, so if you have an opinion, please come along!
There will be another mailout in the leadup which will include more info about both proposals.
Get involved!
The most important thing you can do is to get involved. We always need more people volunteering to help us with our various activities, if you have some spare time click here: https://pirateparty.org.au/gettinginvolved/
The next most important way you can help is to donate. We urge you to consider a small weekly or fortnightly donation to help fund elections, pay for Party infrastructure and keep us fighting for a better future. To donate, please click here: https://pirateparty.org.au/donate/
CS:GO Fundraiser
As noted in a previous mail, we have been challenged to a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tounrament by the subreddit, /r/CirclejerkAustralia. We are raising funds for the kitty, if we win the money goes into funding the Party, if Circlejerk Australia win, the kitty will go to the Fred Hollows Foundation. To contribute to the kitty go here: http://www.pozible.com/project/202512
Due to the interest, we have decided to have a playoff to see who will represent the Party in the tournament. The playoff will be at 9pm Wednesday December 16. Once we lock in the location of the server, we will announce it here: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Fundraiser
All the best over the holiday break and into next year!