2012 Year End Review

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.