WHO'S OUT THERE?
Finally, you (or we) find someone in your state or Congressional District who is willing to take a leadership role in FAIRtax. Now what? The most important way to keep the new leader engaged is to be sure the new leader isn’t alone. How do we do that? We give the leader a list of FAIRtax supporters in his or her state or district to contact, manage, and grow.
Dr. Tony Urbanek and Wiley Brooks have agreed to step forward for the states of Tennessee and Alaska. Their experience will be valuable in teaching us how to help future leaders develop grassroots. Both Tony and Wiley have signed Protected Assets Agreements and are ready to go.
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Left, Dr. Tony Urbanek, Brentwood, TN. Right, Wiley Brooks, with Son, Jay, and Grandson, Sam, fishing near Cold Bay, AK. Below, Kyle Clark, Omaha, NE, with twin sons Griffin and Grayson.
Here is how the process will work. Our Database Manager, Kyle Clark, will send Tony and Wiley a spreadsheet containing their portions of the database.
The list will not contain emails, but Tony and Wiley will be able to e-mail their groups. For now, they can send the text of any message to Kyle and tell Kyle what segment, or all, of their groups they want to contact. Replies will come back to Tony and Wiley.
The spreadsheet will allow Tony and Wiley to have a call list, a USPS mailing list, and to sort by neighborhood. Tony and Wiley will take a 90 minute training session with Kyle before receiving the spreadsheet. After the training, Tony and Wiley will be administrators of their respective groups, i.e, Tennessee and Alaska.
As group administrators, Tony and Wiley will have certain privileges inside the group:
o Managing the group calendar
o Sending internal messages to all members of the group in bulk
o Writing content for the group page
o Moderating the group forum
o And a few other items
With approval from Steve Hayes, e-mail privileges can be turned on. Initially, Steve, Kyle, Randy or I will review content to be sure the message does not create a problem with our (c)(4) tax exemption or deviate from our single-issue non-partisan message. Eventually I hope we can bow out. Additional training with Kyle will be needed in the use of the “e-mail client.”
The Groups Feature is one of the best parts of the YM database platform. If we can encourage states to set up their groups properly and ensure they are well-maintained and active, we think these groups will be an excellent tool for grassroots development.
If you wish to step up and take a leadership positon in the FAIRtax, please let me know. I will review my records to see if we need a Protected Assets Agreement from you. The purpose of this agreement, as required by the database owner, is to assure that you will use the information you receive only for FAIRtax purposes. When we receive the agreement back, we will go ahead and set up the training with Kyle.
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CALL FOR PICTURES AND WRITEUPS
We need more of you to send in pictures and news. If you have anything to share, please send your material to me at jim.bennett@fairtax.org, or text me at (908) 578-4975. When others see your activity, they are inspired, and the process snowballs. When the process snowballs, Congress Members and Senators and, yes, even the President start to listen.