Creating Your Lobby

Assignment Today:

Today (Wed. March 11th) I’d like for you to work on the following in class assignment:

As you all know, we’re creating a Special Interest Group, or Public Lobby, to help get out the word about our New Cities Institute Project. This project will ultimately yield some specific ideas and solutions to make the community of West Liberty a better place. For that to happen, there has to be consensus on the challenges the community faces, agreement on the solutions, and efforts to implement these solutions.

Before any of this can happen the leaders of the community who seek to ultimately find a common agenda must create means by which they can communicate with area citizens. You’re going to play a special role in that communications.

What I’d like you to work on today is the creation of that group we’ve talked about. Specifically, I’d like you to caucus among yourselves and select fellow students from this class for the following positions:

President: This person will work closely with me to coordinate an overall strategy for our group.
Youth Group Leader: This person will work with the President, persons in their early twenties and still in high school, and me to design a communications strategy for Morgan County youth.

Non-Traditional Students Leader: This person will work with the President and me to design a communications strategy for a very vital group: the 30 and 40 year old population of Morgan County. This is a very big group and consists of both educated professionals and persons in more traditional occupations, such as blue collar workers. You can help bridge the gap between these adults because of the fact that you straddle the two populations.

YG Facebook Leader: This person will be the front person on Facebook and, if necessary, MySpace. They’ll work with their leaders to design a strategy and will be responsible for implementing that.

NT Facebook Leader: This person will be the front person on Facebook. They’ll work with the leaders to design an FB communications strategy and will be responsible for implementing it.

YG Blogger: This person will be the person on the blogs for the YG.

NT Blogger: This person will be the person on the blogs for the NT students.

Event Coordinator: This person will be responsible for coordinating events and working with the YG and the NT student wings of our group.

Secretary: The secretary makes the minutes at all meetings and reports them to the group so we’ll stay on task.

Assistant Secretary: Same as above… this position is created to help keep the minutes and to work in the absence of the secretary… such as events where we split into our two groups, YG and NT Students.

YG Outreach: This person will be responsible for beating the bushes to get folks out. They’ll make phone calls, hand out fliers, etc.

NT Outreach: This person will be responsible for beating the bushes to get folks out. They’ll make phone calls, hand out fliers, etc.

Assistant to the Legal Counsel: I’m the counsel. You’ll work with me. I want the folks who don’t get elected to the posts above to be in this capacity. I assure you there'll be plenty to do, but not any more than the others.

By the end of class you should choose these positions. Keep notes of your meeting and let me know who’s serving in what capacity. Two weeks from yesterday, that is the 24th of March, there’ll be group meeting in both the high school (during the day) and at the MSU Center in the evening for 30-40 year olds. I’ll probably need to communicate with several of you next week so make sure that I have your best email.

The President should prepare the following for me and get it to me by the end of the week in an email:

A list of who’s in what position.
An email list so I can contact folks.
Any ideas, suggestions that may come out of your meeting today.

I think this is fairly easy. Don’t over analyze. Just get the job done. This is an important part of our political process and I want you to experience it without me so you’ll get the full affect.