Must Register by Oct 1st for Va PowerShift!
Tom Owens
Did that get your attention?? That's
really not the deadline since we dont have enough people registered yet, but we need to light some fire under peoples asses and
having an email like that might start that on campus. You can always go back and
say the deadline has been extended, but you cant go back and get more people once the conference starts. We're college students. We need deadlines to get shit done. That's what we did for National
PowerShift and it worked to get people committed and paid up. Lets face it, 10-20% of people open up emails, that's it.
The rest rely on face to face time and phone calls to get involved and be asked
to go to a kick ass conference halfway across Virginia. I feel like we aren't
keeping up that sense of urgency for this conference, that we aren't
telling people get in now or never! We need to be asking people to register right
away, either online or with your group registration on campus. Lets make
ourselves accessible, let others know how they can find us, walk around with a
laptop if you need to get people signed up at meetings. Use the email
below and personalize and send it to everyone, I mean everyone, friends, ex lovers, confidants. This issue is far too important for us to
be hitting our goals by accident, so lets work backwards from our goal and figure out what its gonna take to hit it in the next TWO weeks. Registrations only at 141 right now and I know
you all are doing WAY more incredible work that is not reflected in that number,
so how many people can you get to commit to registering with you and volunteers this week??? Lets have some fun with this too
GOALS - Tech - 200-300 JMU - 100 goal W&M - 100 UVA - 50 VCU - ? ODU - 20 GMU - 20 NVCC - 100 Radford - 30 Hollins - 30 Lynchburg - 30 Roanoke - 40 Randolph - ? Emory and Henry - 20, URichmond - 30, Sweet Briar - ?. Thats a lot 770 people you all - lets start telling everyone we know!
So now to some best practices we gotta think about:
- Sign people up on paper
wherever we go (need email AND phone numbers). If you're using
the PowerVote Pledge you don't need a separate sheet, just have them
check the volunteer box and make sure you have all their contact info.
- Get together and call them up this weekend! Ask them to register, if they want
to go – they probably wanna help get friends and classmates to
go. (Phone Rap attached)
- If they want to go: Ask "Can you recruit 3
people to come to this conference and register?" or "Can you help us table this week"?
- Bring Laptops for people who are ready to pay to meetings and tabling.
- Class raps reach lots of people ONLY if we pass around sign up sheets or powervote pledges to get people to follow up with after we leave the room?
- The majority of students will not register once you talked to them. You need to follow up to get them to commit and frame this as the biggest life changing opportunity out there!!!!
Lets do this ya'll. Its high time for a revolution
Join us Today! Sign up by October 1st to keep your spot! Come to our meeting ______________ or weekly table ______________ to sign up with the group or get any questions answered.
2008 is a turning point. We are electing everyone from city council members to our next president this fall. There will be a sea of change in 2008 and young people are turning out to vote in record numbers. We represent 25% of the electorate and will be voting on issues like the economy, health and the war, all of which are intimately connected to our country's dependence on dirty energy. By elevating global warming and clean, just energy alternatives in the election, we will be able to build healthier communities, create millions of green jobs and stop resource wars forever. Our generation needs a brand new vision for our future. It is time for our elected officials up and down the ballot to join us and become champions in the fight against global warming and for a clean just energy future.
The conference is called Virginia Power Shift and it will teach an expected 1,000 participating high school and college students about the solutions to global warming and how they can put those solutions into practice on campus, in the community, and in the political arena. Power Shift will be held this October 10th - 12th at Virginia Tech University.
POWER SHIFT at Virginia Tech October 10th – 12th
Virginia Power Shift will give students the tools to build a sustainable Commonwealth through education, grassroots political action, and campus leadership training. Participants will attend their choice of workshops ranging from beginner composting to green politics, anti oppression, and engineering. Guest speakers will reinforce the workshops with invigorating ideas and personal experiences. James Hansen, NASA Scientist and Al Gore's advisor has been confirmed for Friday Night and Mike Tidwell, executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network will speak Saturday night. Finally, a roundtable discussion between local, state, and national politicians will introduce the participants to different views concerning the government's role in building a sustainable Commonwealth. Join us in Inventing the RIGHT Future for Virginia starting right here in Blacksburg, VA!
HERE'S WHAT YOU CAN HELP US DO:
Other information can be found at www.vapowershift.org. Our goal is to send 1000 students from all backgrounds to Virginia Power Shift and I'd love it if students from your college, university, or high school came. We're trying to help students fundraise to send as many people as possible for free. Please pass this along and anything you can do to help identify interested students and support them in attending would be amazing!
Great Promotional Matrerials are Here:
Register today for 20$/person>>
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Tom
Owens
Virginia Campus Coordinator
Chesapeake
Climate Action Network(CCAN)
(c) 814-322-6412
Act - www.powervote.org 1 million strong for a clean and just energy future