Updated DFIA Meet Up Agenda for May 6th
First, after introductions and welcoming of all new members, Meet Up hosts should do a recap of April happenings.
National – Old Business
1. DFA formed two important partnerships during April. First, we formed an alliance with Wellstone Action, this being the on-going legacy of Paul and Sheila Wellstone. Together our organizations will be mobilized and in a position to accomplish a wide variety of progressive political actions. Please visit the Wellstone Action website at: www.wellstone.org for more info and to join and contribute to this great organization! We also joined with America Votes…and we will discuss this alliance in our new business discussion later.
2. Governor Dean did his first Live Web Chat (and you can read some parts of the transcript if you have time, available at both http://www.blogforiowa.com and http://www.blogforamerica.com.)
3. Our grassroots steering committee formed a delegation of over 1,000 people for the March for Women's Lives in Washington D.C. and Gov. Dean himself joined us in D.C. on April 25th. The March was the largest gathering ever in D.C. as the crowd size was estimated between 1/2 Million to over 1 Million!!! (No official crowd estimates are done by the police anymore). Also over sixty countries were represented in the March.
(If anyone has personal accounts they could share them with the group now. Also, we are looking for an Iowa Dean supporter to report on the March for Blog for Iowa. Please ask anyone you find to turn in the information to Linda at blog@democracyforiowa.com.)
Iowa – Old Business
4. Discuss how your District Conventions went on April 24th, do an update on Dean Delegates to Boston, and a reminder that the State Convention is on June 26th and that we need a big turnout there. You can find more information on this here.
http://www.blogforiowa.com/blog/DeanDelegates
5. Remind your groups to visit Blog for Iowa daily for updates, events, and Iowa news. http://www.blogforiowa.com
Make sure everyone in your group has registered with Democracy for Iowa, either from the Blog for Iowa site or have them fill out a sign-up form (which you can download from the Download Flyers Here component on the right sidebar of Blog for Iowa.)
NEW BUSINESS
1. Project Myth Breaker: We still need to hand-deliver copies of Myth Breakers for Election Officials to a large number of Iowa County Auditors. You will find complete information and instructions here.
http://www.blogforiowa.com/blog/ProjectMythBreaker
Please see that someone in your group downloads and delivers a copy to the County Auditor in your county and in the surrounding counties. You can check here for updates on which counties still need to be done.
(Consider all of District 1 complete even though those counties may not yet have a star.)
2. Local Candidates: What can you do to elect those progressive candidates running in your areas of Iowa? If your group feels strongly enough about any local candidates, then you should be organizing your DFIA people and contacting that candidate to offer your help. Have people sign up with their info and see if they have preferences of what type of volunteer work they like…calling, door knocking, computer help, etc. Also, be sure to turn in the name and contact information for every progressive candidate you know to Linda at blog@democracyforiowa.com in addition to filing your usual report with national.
3. DeanCorps: Are you working on any upcoming DeanCorps projects? Do members have suggestions for something that needs to be done in this next month? Possibilities are clean-up projects, helping at food kitchens, Habitat for Humanity works, etc.
4. May 8th: Need I say more? I have not yet received additional details; but I believe all DFIA Meet Up locations will have an ACT office opening on May 8th, and we should get all we can to sign up for this day (and they should sign up thru the website with the local contact person). Go to: www.americavotes.org and look in our state. We should contact past Dean Meet Up attendees and our Dean Delegates/Alternates and find out if they want to participate with this day and with this on-going project. For more information on this as it pertains to DFIA Meet Up, go here.
Blog For Iowa 