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2/10/77


The Club is the heart of Party life. From formulation to implementation of Party policy and program, the club is involved. Club members have the obligation and duty to attend meetings and to participate in the activities determined by the club. Paying dues, although important, is not enough. Casual attendance at meetings, when it is convenient or when there is a specific topic You want to take up, or when an agenda is of interest to you, is not enough. A Party member gets from the Party benefits in direct proportion to his/her contribution to the life of the Party.

Most Party clubs fit into one of two categories: community club or industrial club. There are exceptions, the so-called professional clubs such as health, architects, doctors, professors and the cultural clubs, like ours. Because we come from different areas and because we all have a common interest--art--our club is closer in structure to the industrial clubs than to the community clubs which concentrate activities around neighborhood issues. However, unlike the industrial clubs, the artists club has not focused on union, shop and rank-and-file actions.

What is the concentration of our club? Since its inception more than two years ago, the Workshop has been the main center of club activity--even before the physical premises were habitable. The past two years, some of the projects completed by club members in the name of the Workshop have been: the 1976 Daily World calendar; more election-campaign graphics for the Hall-Tyner ticket than can be enumerated, including posters, leaflets, buttons, banners, placards, registration aids, etc.; graphics for the Chelsea Club's campaign of Amadeo Richardson; placards for the D.C. march and for the Felt Forum rally; christmas cards for the National office; and innumerable projects, graphic items, prepared for various Party-related organizations. Two successful open houses have been held, and classes, forums, lectures and musical events continue.

In addition to Workshop contributions, the club has also written articles and supplied graphics for the Daily World, Cultural Reporter, Party Affairs and Political Affairs; Sherman has had an exhibition at the CME and Charles Keller has had one at Cornell. Club members have given slide shows of cultural interest to number sof groups; has held three fund-raising affairs--one of Ref's Soviet slides and two at the Casa--and we have held one open meeting.

Gus Hall in his report to the Central Committee stressed the need to have interesting club meetings, to make them stimulating. To this end, it is important to have a strong executive to take up routine Party affairs and to deal with run of the mill business, thus leaving meeting time for topics of current and professional relevance, for greater participation by members. Also, it is up to members to make the club meetings interesting, so that they want to attend. Meetings--their plan and conduct--should not be the sole

Transcription Notes:
Ignore the strikethrough; it seems to just be a misspelling of "attend" that was crossed out and retyped properly.