2026 Member Convention Bulletin

Issue #3 - Tuesday, April 28th, 2026

Convention Updates 

To make our Member Convention a success we need a large number of volunteers to make the meeting run. From helping with sign-in to counting votes to Zoom tech support to child watch, there is no shortage of ways for comrades to help out.

The volunteer sign-up form for the meeting is now live, sign up here. 

We are also excited to share our Convention Microsite - your one stop shop for all things Convention, including meeting details, forms, bulletins, and eventually the agenda and all proposal links. Find the microsite here.

Member Submissions 

Last week’s discussion prompt: The first year of the second Trump Administration has seen no shortage of attacks on the working class in Chicago. Despite these assaults, our chapter, DSA, and left-wing forces generally have been able to fight back and even win major victories, such as Avelo Airlines dropping its contract with ICE. What should our chapter celebrate from this past year? What are you most proud to have worked on as a member? And where and how has that work been able to bring in new members and develop members as organizers and leaders?

Emma Caterine, Labor and Northside Red Line Branch

Serendipity brought me to this prompt at the same time as I was reading “Keep Going: A Guide to Organizing When It’s Hard” by Ellen David Friedman and got to a section entitled “Go Beyond ‘What Did We Win?’” Friedman provides these helpful reflection prompts which I’m now going to try out (though modified for socialist instead of labor union organizing)!

“Think about a [comrade] you had a chance to observe during a campaign. Did you learn something about them that surprised you?”

At the Mauser picket line I learned Emily speaks some Spanish. She was brave enough to try it out in conversations with workers!

“What were the most valuable things you observed [comrades] contributing to [DSA’s] work during a campaign?”

Feeding striking workers! From Jennie doing food prep at the Mauser picket with me to Mark, Liam, Evelyn, Brendan, and many others doing a strike kitchen for Starbucks workers. Making food communicates solidarity.

“Did you have the chance to encourage or advise [comrades] during the campaign? If so, what did you do? Was it effective? Could this dynamic continue?”

I will keep pushing Violet to run for co-chair because she’s so good at chairing! One day. But in all seriousness, I have been pushing a lot of people to take jobs as salts by being available for sincere conversations. 

“Did you observe some change in your own attitudes or ideas? Was the change helpful?”

I think a lot on how to hold both strength and vulnerability as important. I now realize I’ve been wrong to think of that as an “advanced” organizer idea. It is foundational! “Keep Going” by Ellen David Friedman is a great book for how to be an organizer in a deeper way. Give it a read and celebrate your growth as an organizer!

Sarah CR, Labor and Southside Branch,  Bread and Roses Caucus

I am proud of the experimentation in our chapter this year. We added social clubs so members feel a connection to each other and the organization, which feels inspired by positive aspects of the Community Party described in Romance of American Communism and combating individualism and isolation causing civil society to fray, as described in Bowling Alone. The Run Club, Crafty Comrades, Lincoln Park Club, Comrades with Kids, and Spanish Practice Coffee Hours have brought comrades together outside of explicit “work.” We have had a few socials that I think could expand into clubs, such as second shift, Bears watch parties, & bird watching. I think the proliferation of working groups and committees as described by Jazmin previously could be addressed by clubs that give people a connection to do things they care about within the organization without being a “work” priority with regular meetings and reports. 

I think having quarterly chapter priorities is helpful for organizing. On the Executive Committee and South Side Branch, we use these priorities to guide our agendas, reports, and asks of members. With a million things to choose from, this feels like a good way to have our organization unified. 

We have a new way to engage in electoral campaigns. Byron came to us for an endorsement before announcing his campaign. Through the endorsement process, he agreed to use Workers Deserve More as the basis of his campaign platform. He also agreed to have DSA members selected by the chapter serve on his kitchen cabinet advisory board. DSA has had leeway to run canvasses, writing the script, keeping data, and choosing where to canvass. This is a departure from just turning out our members to a candidate’s existing canvasses with no DSA control over the messaging and asks to canvassers (ie Join DSA!). 

Sean Duffy, Northside Blue Line Branch, Bread & Roses Caucus 

I’m really proud of the work of our chapter’s Membership Committee in the past year and in particular our recent re-tooling of our monthly DSA 101 event which shifted from being hosted online with an informational focus to being hosted in-person with an experiential focus. 

Since March 2020 our 101 had been hosted exclusively on Zoom and the content included a large focus on trying to cover and explain each and every active campaign, committee, and working group. However, earlier in 2025 I had piloted a few 101-style events that instead focused on DSA’s Workers Deserve Program These events were structured more like a Socialist Night School, with time for all attendees to read the program during the event and then a facilitated political discussion around its content. We used that template as the basis for the new 101, which we book ended with an opening speech from a chapter leader touching on the current political moment and “why DSA” and then later with a closing speech covering our theory of change as socialists and how we’re putting that theory into action with ongoing chapter work and a hard ask to join DSA as a member. 

The thinking with the format change was that the most important outcome of a 101 for new and prospective members was for them to leave feeling excited both by DSA’s political vision and by the experience of face-to-face political discussion with comrades. This foundation is essential for creating the buy-in for those same attendees to then seek out more events and activities, to sign up for dues, and to seek out more information about our chapter’s work and structure, whether through the handouts we provide at the 101, through attending a quarterly 102 orientation, or through a 1:1 with a chapter leader. 

Have thoughts on one of this week’s Member Submissions? 

Submit a reply using the form here.

Prompt for discussion, week 4:

Over the past year Chicago DSA has experienced tremendous growth, yet developing both a middle layer of organizing and maintaining a leadership bench has remained a challenge.

How would you like to see the chapter develop our newer members? In what ways can we empower newer members to feel confident in taking on bigger roles, and how can we work to increase delegation and communication throughout all levels of membership and engagement?

Submit a response using the Bulletin Submission Form linked here. Member Responses for this Prompt will be published in next week’s Convention Bulletin. Please try to submit responses no later than Sunday evening every week.

Sean Duffy, Northside Blue Line Branch, Bread & Roses Caucus

In response to Jazmin R’s submission for Prompt #1

Jazmin said “I believe we have 10+ working groups and committees right now... are we spread across too many fronts?” I think we are absolutely spread too thin, and that we should instead focus on our priorities adopted at the March GCM: labor, contesting for state power, and party-building. 

People often join DSA interested in organizing around a specific issue or area of work, say housing. We don’t have a Housing Working Group. Should we start one? I would say no, and I would instead encourage comrades interested in the issue to to find a way to incorporate that work into an existing priority or to try out a one-off project of some kind. If those initiatives are successful and develop enough activists ready to focus on standing up a new Working Group as their primary focus in DSA, then sure a new WG makes sense. 

Too often our chapter skips this step and it plays out like this: comrade Jane and a few other newer or less experienced members get “rocketshipped” into leading a working group. They don’t get much support or training from chapter leadership because chapter leaders are already stretched thin with existing work. Lacking the training and support needed to succeed as organizers, Jane and her comrades fail to grow the organizing capacity of the WG, leading to a lot of work falling on just a few people, which in turn creates burnout and  resentment. 

If our goal is to welcome comrades with specific issue interests and help them find their place in DSA, is the scenario I’m describing actually any better than just saying “we’re not organizing around that issue right now, our current priorities are...”? I think it might actually be worse!

This Week in Midwest Socialist

No new articles this week.

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