Welcome to orangecamp - I'll be liveblogging the conference.

Introductions - we've got a few candidates, a few riding association presidents, and lots of political junkies.

9:50 : Introduction by Gilles Bisson, talking about party renewal and issues of the economy and paying for social programs (wealth generation). Talks about the NDP's fundraising issues, the party's debt, and how to come to terms with that.

10:00 : Nominate candidates early. What's the incentive for ridings to hold membership drives? We need to unbuild the party's centralized structure, to better support riding associations and to encourage fundraising. As a party, we get great credit on the social justice side. But we don't have trust on economics, and we need to build that - we need to stop reacting to issues to get headlines, and lead on economics.

10:05 : The need to to change labour legislation to support part-time workers and protect workers. End Gilles. Thanks, Gilles!

10:05 : Clarifying the rules of the ONDP leadership race. The $15,000 deposit and the angst around that. How much needs to be raised for the leadership race, and where the idea about centralized fundraising came from (Bob Rae) - more efficient since everything happens in TO, says Gilles. Why we need to change that.

10:10 : Central staff is good, but riding associations can do a lot if they have the financial capacity.

10:15 : How do we fundraise? Can we make rules friendly for fundraising? We need to support central, too. But the party doesn't have the resources to train everybody.

10:20 : Headline chasing is tremendously frustrating. It's too filtered a medium, not read anyway, not relevant. PR types dilute the party to headline-chasing instead of setting the issues.

10:25 : The "Province of Toronto". That's a great phrase.

10:25 : How to motivate people today: money, or opportunity. We can't offer either, and it shouldn't be a conscious strategy, because that = selling out. But how else do we motivate people? Preaching the gospel, or by being successful, or both. Being meaningful is the bottom line. People work for NGOs rather than in politics because that's where they feel they can make a difference.

10:30 : What is the party position on various issues? We don't have up-to-date information about a lot of things.

10:35 : Campaigns get reduced to headline-chasing and talking points. This is not good. We need to sell the gospel, not chase the article.

10:40 : Shared values: committment to public life, etc. But the devil is in the details. Conventions and councils: good or bad?

11:00 : A calendar! We need to know what every other riding association is doing - keeping people involved and aware that other people are doing.

11:15 : How to reconcile decentralized policy-making with expert and local knowledge?

11:20 : The CCF started with intellectuals, unionists and farmers. Where is our base now?

11:25 : There are lots of other social movements that are revitalizing their parties in other places - maybe we need to look at outside examples rather than inside examples.