Ron Govelin was the first chair of the Southeast Riverbend TDG. He stormed out of the Southeast election meeting when he wasn't elected, promising never to return. Following our exposure in the Riverbend Times, he and some friends bought a half page ad in the Times, claiming that his group was 'The Real TDG.' They implied that our TDG was not doing things right, and citizens of Riverbend should join their group to transform American democracy. The group provided a website and contact information.

After some phone discussion with Ed and Pamela, I invited Len to our next executive committee meeting.

Len asked, 'Does anyone have any idea how many people belong to this organization?'

Orville said, 'I have run into Ron a few times since he left the TDG. He gave me no indication of his plans.'

No one else on the executive committee had heard of Ron's group before the newspaper ad.

Len added, 'He was certainly not happy when he lost his elected position. I thought he would just distance himself from the TDG movement.'

Ed said, 'Our membership stands at 950. I kind of doubt Govelin's group is past 20.'

Mustafa said, 'Even so, they give the impression that they are just as large as us.'

Pamela suggested: 'But many of our 950 members have seen the ad. They're not as committed or knowledgeable as us. We could send an email to our members about this development.'

Mustafa suggested, 'Maybe we need to do a little advertising of our own.'

Veronica said: 'Well, the newspaper will sure like the advertising war.'

Ed said, 'I think if we do that we might give the impression we are ready for a fight. That just might not be the image we want to portray.'

Mustafa said, 'It seems like a no-win situation. Mr. Govelin will like the fight, but he will also like if we don't challenge him.'

Len joined the discussion: 'Maybe we need some clarity here. We could send an email to Dave Volek, the inventor of the TDG. He kind of knows what is happening in Riverbend. Let's get his insights.' 

There seemed to be consensus in this regard. So I summarized: 'Is there any objection to Len contacting Dave? .....Len, you can proceed.'


I felt I had to lead the group in a certain direction: 'Pamela suggested sending an email to our members. I think there's no harm in doing that before we hear from Dave.'

Orville said, 'Yeah, our members should know there is another TDG group in town. We should reassure them that our group has been around for seven years and built this TDG to where it is today.'

Mustafa asked, 'Pamela, how soon could your group prepare a draft?'

Pamela said, 'There are five people on this committee. I'll just explain the situation and draft something quick. Their email feedback will be useful to make it better. I'll think I should be able to get our draft for the executive committee in three days.'

I finished this decision with: 'Is there any objection?'


Then I moved on to the next item on the agenda.

'As you know, Mustafa and I were instructed to investigate registering us as a non-profit society. So we did a little homework and got some help from my father. We were scheduled to give this report two weeks from now, but we're ready now. Your choice: now or two weeks?'

'We're all here now,' said Ed. 'The evening is still young. And Len's with us tonight.'

'Alright! When we apply for registration as a non-profit, the state provides us with ready-made rulebook for all our legal workings. In that way, each non-profit does not have to write its own rule book from scratch. And the non-profit gets a set of rules that has proven to work well for other organizations.

'But sometimes the state's rule book has a few things that just won't work well for a particular organization. So the organization has the right to amend those government-written rules. Those amendments are called bylaws. For example, the Riverbend Women's Shelter has three or four bylaws. If there is a conflict between the state's rules and our bylaws, the bylaws are what the Shelter follows.

I continued, 'The best time to create bylaws is when the society is first registered. After that, it becomes more difficult to add or amend bylaws.'

Mustafa added: 'And that's because such a change requires a bureaucratic process which then leads to a short hearing and vote in the state legislature. All this takes time. Amending our TDG constitution is so much easier.'

I continued: 'So that's why we should, as much as we can, get our bylaws in place when we first register.'

Pete Williams held up his hand: 'Why can't we just wait a few more years?'

'I don't think we can wait too much longer,' Ed said, 'The membership committee and I are reaching the limit of what can be accomplished with just volunteers. Each month, we have to amend 10 to 20 records. New members joining. Members moving out of Riverbend. Members passing away. Members changing addresses within Riverbend. It's a real battle keeping this list up to date and ready for election day.  It's not exactly enjoyable work. At some point soon, we are going to have to hire someone to work a few hours a week.'

I interjected, 'And hiring someone requires registering with various government agencies for payroll deductions and worker's compensation.'

Pete concurred: 'And a registered society would be better to sign an office rental agreement—if we go in that direction. My finance committee has done some work in finding us a office, but nothing to report yet.'

'I think we should register,' said Ed.

'Well there's one more consideration,' I said.

I recounted my conversation with Deborah Gray at the party: 'Not everyone has a 9-to-5 job with a free evening to cast a vote. I think we need to open up our voting procedures to give more members an opportunity.'

Ed said, 'You have a suggestion?'

'Mail-in ballots!' I said. 'Maybe it's time to implement a mail-in ballot. I think we could get a lot more than 35% of our members to vote.'

Veronica seemed confused: 'You lost me. What do mail-in ballots have to do with registering as a non-profit?'

'Let me explain,' I said, 'When we register as a non-profit, we would substitute the state's electoral rules with our constitution. In essence, the constitution becomes our bylaws. If we register now--and later decide for a mail-in ballot, it will take us months to amend the bylaws. We could not implement mail-in ballots until the state legislature approved the new bylaws. In contrast, amending our constitution now will mean the mail-in ballots are already in the bylaws when we first register.'

Ed summarized: 'So it's a case of registering now, then waiting a long time to get our amendment in place OR getting our amendment into our constitution now, then register, let's say, within three or four months.'

Veronica seemed to understand: 'If we become dependent on the government, we could be waiting a long time.'

'Yes, that is the dilemma I am seeing,' I said.  'So do we want mail-in balloting?'

Len spoke up: 'Dave Volek wants us to experiment with new ways. The lessons learned in Riverbend will be later applied across the USA.'

Ed added: 'We discussed mail-in ballots back in Angle Riverbend days. It has come up again. Maybe this is a sign for us to now go forward with it....By the way, how is this affecting our timing?'

Orville asked, 'How do you mean?'

Ed said, 'Well we have to have our annual meeting to elect our neighborhood representatives by April 30.'

I asked, 'Why is that significant?'

Ed said, 'If we are to implement mail-in ballots in our next election. We should start working on it now. It's mid-January. It might take us a month to write up the rules, another month to amend our constitution for the mail-in ballots. Then I'll have to get my membership group together to send out ballots according to these new rules.'

'That'll be a little faster than we usually do things,' I said, 'So we should get started now.'

Len said, 'Orville, you were quite involved in our last merger, writing much of the new constitution. Are you interested in developing the rules for the mail-in ballots?'  

Orville said, 'Sure! There should be three or four neighborhood representatives who would like this challenge. Len, are you going to help?'

Len said, 'There're some people who like putting words together and some who don't. I've done it enough times in this TDG to know I belong to the second group.'

Orville said, 'OK, anyone else?'

I said, 'Orville, I would like to attend your first meeting. However, I think we should use the executive committee and our advisor to oversee your committee's work before we present it to our membership. I don't think the executive committee should dominate this committee.'

There seemed to be consensus on this direction. As the Riverbend TDGs merged, the executive committees tended to stay out of the way, letting other members craft the finer details.

Pamela said, 'I will send an email to all 34 neighborhood representatives to invite them on this committee. A few of them should have the interest and time.'

In the next two semesters, I slept with a dozen different male students, including another session with Keegan.

Couples coupled at dorm parties. And they coupled after coming from Joosemin’s night clubs. There wasn't anybody going steady or anything like that in my dorm.

It wasn’t uncommon to walk in our hallways and hear couples having a “mid-week stress relief.” I wasn’t into that. It seemed I needed a little alcohol and lots of conversation to accept any new lover. But the unwritten code in our dorm was no serious relationships.

When girls were alone, we often compared our times with the same boy. I really didn’t like that conversation, but I contributed just enough to fit in.
That was just the way it was.