2012 Year End Review

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2012 was a fantastic year for the Pirate Party in Massachusetts:

  • In January, we joined the Internet strike against SOPA & PIPA and helped to kill these bills;
  • In February, we sent out our first member mailing to 22 members;
  • In March, we held the first Pirate Party conference in the US, attended by over forty people, and got US media coverage. We posted videos of a number of the talks;
  • In April:
    • we defined ourselves as the Party of Open: Government, Culture & Innovation;
    • held our first Pirate Lunch of the year;
  • In May:
    • Captain James participated in the Together Boston copyright debate and 1st Officer Lauren & Jeanne tabled at the Together Boston Get Together;
    • we held our first Free Film Fest of Public Domain and open videos;
    • held a Pirate Lunch;
  • In June:
    • 12 Pirates marched in the Boston Pride Parade and we had a table at the Festival, drawing lots of attention with our costumes and Pirate Ship;
    • we organized a Liquid Feedback hackathon;
    • held a Pirate Lunch;
  • In July, 1st Officer Lauren tabled at Hope 9 in New York with the Bradley Manning Support Network, raising around $7500 for Bradley's defense fund;
  • In July & August, we mobilized supporters to oppose CISPA and helped to stop it;
  • In September:
    • we took some Pirates from Germany to dinner;
    • were at Freedom Rally for the 3rd year. Nine Pirates helped at the Freedom Rally table, which is eight more than were there in 2011;
  • In October:
    • we hosted an event with Gregory Engels, Co-Chair of the Pirate Parties International
    • we helped organize and had members participate in the first Boston CryptoParty, where we educated the public on security software and counter-surveillance techniques. Over fifty people attended and we put up videos of it.
  • In November:
    • we took a stand on the three ballot questions, including for the Medical Marijuana and Right of Repair, both of which won overwhelmingly;
    • we posted the GOP's generally sensible copyright reform proposal that they yanked, and got over 12,000 hits, mostly from Reddit;
  • In December:
    • 1st Officer Lauren appeared on the Two Hotheads Show to talk about the Free Barrett Brown effort;
    • Captain James and 1st Officer Lauren appeared on the Two Hotheads Show about the Pirate Party;
    • we sent out our 2nd member mailing to 160+ members and supporters;
    • we raised over $1900.