VFP CHAPTERS
Editor: Woody Powell
woodypowell@gmail.com
September 3, 2008
We won't attempt a comprehensive report on the convention just past. We'll just say it was a very good convention from the standpoints of comradeship, workshop quality, speaker quality and an amicable business meeting where the we reported on the past year and made resolutions to guide us into the next.
Coordinating Chapters
We want to explore something we noted in several of the workshops and in conversations with members in the halls; the increasing awareness of the need to coordinate our efforts between chapters on a regional basis.
When chapters report out their activities, it is apparent that each is responsive to the nature of the community it serves. It is also apparent, that there are many ways in which we can bolster each others' efforts through sharing of resources and people.
Chapter Tool Box
Indeed, we sensed a real hunger for shared experience and resource materials. One workshop that got down to the nitty-gritty of resource development was one presented by Ken Mayers on the Chapter Development Tool Box. He handed out CDs with forty different tools covering Chapter Organizing, Chapter Recruiting, Public Relations, Strategy and Movement Stages, Truth in Recruiting, and more.
He called it a Beta version, meaning it is a living set of documents that will be added to and modified as time goes by. It is available, or soon will be, to all on the VFP website.
Regional Planning Efforts So Far
This is what we know so-far about regional planning, which is very little:
The Northwest has identified a region and has held three meetings, we believe, so far, and are planning a fourth. The Northeast has held one or two, perhaps more, meetings. We don't know what chapters were involved. The Midwest has held one regional conference drawing from Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. We solicited from further out, but did not get any respondents. We don't know if the Southwest has attempted a regional gathering or not. That's it. We need to know more about ourselves.
To help accomplish this, I am asking each of the chapters to respond to this little questionnaire:
Chapter number _____
During the last year, how many .....
Lobbying efforts _____ Change any minds?
Engagement activities with active duty military? _____ Positive or negative responses?
Talks given before school, church or community service and political groups _____ Note responses.
Vigils _____ Did they change anything? Attract more people?
Marches _____ Applause and other positive of negative responses?
Participations in parades (Memorial Day, Veterans Day, etc.) ______ Applause and other positive of negative responses?
Letter -writing campaigns ______ What kind of responses?
Acts of Civil Disobedience ______ Did you get the publicity desired? Positive? Negative?
Other activities _____________________________________________________
Regional activities with other chapters, if any ______ (Please describe what you did and the residual outcome.) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
We hope you will inundate us with data to help us determine the full range and relative effectiveness of chapter activities and how best to use our resources. We are especially interested in regionally-based activities because it is becoming increasingly apparent that regional organizing can magnify our voices many time over.
( I am attaching this questionnaire in a separate document to make it easier to fill out and respond to.)