9/21 Recruit Call Notes
Bryce Carter
Here are the notes from last nights call!
Recruitment Conference Call (Sunday, September 21, 2008 at 9:00pm)
Notes by Bryce
Recruitment Targets and Next Steps
Just on this call with only half the schools, 800 to 840 people are pledged
Kate from Lynchburg (30 people): Storm the dorm this week, tabling for this week and printing more pledges and doing class raps
Heather from Emory and Henry College (20 people) tabling for most of this week and hopefully next week we’ll be doing a dorm storm everyday
James from University of Virginia (100 people) – class raps, tabling, sending e-mails over listservs and event calendars
Elena from Virginia Tech (200 people) – class raps, work through SGA to connect to all organizations
Michelle from William and Mary (100 people) – tabling, class raps, will be doing phone banking with anyone that showed interest of Power Shift from last year (130 names on that list) and also doing recruiting for tidewater schools so hoping to contact those at ODU to see if they need help and getting other coordinators plugged in area
Mary from James Madison University (100 people) – this week a lot of dorm storms, tabling, and more class raps. Going to flyer around campus and set up table cards in dining halls with information about power shift and get people signed up
Nina from George Mason University (50 people) – gotten a lot of e-mails from Power Vote. We’re going to e-mails to everyone… need to find another person to help get goals. Tabling twice a week and doing a set of class raps.
Beau from Northern Virginia Community Colleges (150 people) – tabling every single day at 6 campus of NVCC (all across Northern Viginia); there are 50,000 students at NoVA. Huge concert coming this weekend at the rec center. Huge concert ($3) with potential speakers including someone from Sierra Club will have polar bear run around doing Power Vote. Picture petitions will hold up a ‘speak bubble’ I want sustainability on the 2008 candidate ballot (goal of at least 1,000 pictures and pledges) or something like that to show the people who do care about the environment and show change.
Margaret from Hollins University (30 people)– Dorm storms, class raps, and tabling, incorporating PV into VAPS and getting people’s phone numbers and e-mails
Lea from Roanoke College (40 people) – 3 days of tabling, get people signed up to table and committed to attending
Tom from CCAN – going to University of Richmond and VCU and Washington and Lee and will be passing out materials of power Vote and some really awesome sample plan items to help everyone out.
Jessy Tolkan Recap!
Jessy is the co-director of the Energy Action Coalition based in Washington D.C. and was host of last year’s national Power Shift (and will be a keynote speaker for Virginia Power Shift). Jessy was honored to be on the phone with everyone and was really excited to be on the call and have a few great suggestions for recruitment. Jess talked about how she has a special connection with the Commonwealth of Virginia in that in 2005 she ran a statewide campaign about mobilizing young voters for the election and got 75,000 newly registered voters; and this was before Virginia was one of the more politically important states in the country. When it comes to Virginia Power Shift 2008 Jessy is incredibly inspired by everything everyone is doing across the ground in Virginia and she knows that VAPS is going to be a catalyzing event in Virginia! She is so passionately driven and committed to us that she rather be on the call than watch the Green Day Packers game, her favorite team.
What was Power Shift 2007? It was a national conference that the Energy Action Coalition held that turned out 6,000 people across the nation. Clearly what strategy was used Jess doesn’t takes personal responsibility for, for it was all of us as organizers that bring about the incredible grassroots organization that bring out results. What really helped recruitment for PS07 was the recognition that we were going to turn out a historic number of people and be able to send messages to our political leaders. It was all a game of numbers so that in getting to the goal of 5,000 people they needed to reach out to 100,000—hundreds of thousands of names of people all across the country to call and engage not only in planning but to also come to the event. The Energy Action Coalition spent most of their resources going on the phone and reaching out to all those people, which ultimately resulted in having 6,000 people show up at national Power Shift.
Virginia is in a great position to use a campaign to help boost what will be a historic event. “Can I hear a Hell yeah! from those of you working Power Vote?” (A bunch of people then shouted HELL YEAH! into their phones, momentarily deafening the note taker). “Power Vote and Power Shift are best friends that can’t be separated from each other.” Power Vote is a national campaign to pledge to knock down coal and dirty energy and support wind and solar—it is to galvanize more action on the ground. We all already collected 5,000 pledges in Virginia, so this can be a magic bullet for us!
When you’re doing a class rap or showing up for another campus group event it is a large ask for an individual to in 15 seconds to 1 minute introduce yourself, explain who you are and why you’re there, talk about the issues, invite people to come to Virginia Power Shift, and get them to say yes. That’s a lot to say in a short amount of time. In asking them to sign a pledge such as getting people to vote in record numbers you can get their contact information and have a great opportunity to get that sound bite in. By this you suddenly you have the names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses for everyone whose lives are about to be changed by going to Virginia Power Shift.
The message to drive home to you all is that the Power Vote pledge, or a pledge of any kind, is a tremendous way to connect a large amount of people, even if some of those people have only a .001% chance of going to Power Shift. We hop on the phone with those that sign the pledge and we thank them for signing it and invite them to come to VAPS. This is a beautiful campaign that will build more capacity on the ground and get more people to potentially engage with and it all falls on this perfect time for Virginia Power Shift!
Jessy wanted “to gush for a second” about what it means to her to have a conference call that brings 20-25 people together at 9PM on a Sunday night. “I believe with every square centimeter of my body” that the biggest challenges humanity has ever faced with global climate change, …., the economic crisis—we have potential not only to solve it but to stand at this crossroads to do more than any other generation in our history, and there are a lot of people that are counting on us.
Jess talked to NASA climatologist James Hansen last week during lunch and James looked at Jessy in the eye and said “you guys are really going to do this, right? I’m counting on you and the youth you’re reaching out to to build up this movement to do what we really need for this country. When I hear about Virginia Power Shift and hear about it happening in Tennessee, Colorado, California—it makes me sleep at night.”
This is a tremendous amount of responsibility on our shoulders. For everyone on this call, we need to not pass one person on the streets, in the classroom, in the hallway, at lunch without asking them to sign that pledge with a 10 second conversation and then we get to that magical place to call them and e-mail them to get them to come to Virginia Power Shift. Just talking to someone straight into Power Shift is like sleeping with someone just 5 minutes after meeting that person. Power Vote is that transition method to get people plugged in and to build up that relationship where you get to sleep with them and make it have meaning. (Notetaker hopes he got that right… and Jessy apologies to anyone that might have been offended by it).
Questions for Jessy:
- What is the best way with starting out with Power Vote and balancing it with Virginia Power Shift all in 2 minutes?
o I think my experience with having run lots and lots of campaigns is that the best way to grab someone’s attention is to ask “Do you have a second to join with a million people across the country in support for clean energy?” The pledge is your way to start the conversation and you can introduce yourself and talk about how you’re part of a network of folks across Virginia who are making historic change on the campus of Virginia Tech October 10th-12th. Say that we’re going to show Tim Kaine and Dominion and the rest of Virginia that we want clean energy in the Commonwealth!
- How do you get better results with getting people plugged in?
o We’re going to get higher results if they leave with something simpler; if you don’t get to that point in the conversation about VAPS, through Power Vote you get the opportunity to call them or e-mail them about Virginia Power Shift.
o In 2004 I ran a campaign in Wisconsin to lower tuition where we registered 40,000 people to vote and then tried bringing 1,500 people together before the election. We started with class raps and handing out flyers but we realized we weren’t appropriately segwaying into the conversation. Then we started to phonebank and it all started to make sense to people. It was a natural progression when we went from 140 people registered one week to two weeks later having 790 people registered, and then at 3 weeks having 1,800 people show up at the conference. We just need to get back to organizing in that we need lots of people to reach out to, lots of people to get out there and to get everyone to have the larger ask.
- How can we best get started with the time remaining with for recruitment?
o My suggestion is that recruitment is really a number thing—the more you are able to get their names and phone numbers, the more people you can generate every day and the more phone banking you can get done.
o Tom: For instance if you’re trying to get 20 people to go to VAPS then you may need to reach out to 10 times more people (200). So what’s most important is the right kind of follow up, like phone banking.
General Questions / Information
- Can you provide a real-world example of how best to marry Power Vote and Virginia Power Shift?
o Lynchburg has a coalition between two organizations and so one organization is running Power Vote and the other Virginia Power Shift. Together they’re hosting lots of events together and they make sure their recruiters that if people are interested in one to mention the other
- Registration Questions
o Group Registration
§ Every campus should look for someone that can be a lead person and be really accessible. That point person is in charge of collecting people’s money and being the go-to person and giving people a place to go to give their registration at places like the weekly tabling or meeting.
§ Registration is $20 per person and $15 per groups of 5 or more
§ Get everyone registered in a group or in part of a group so that only one person has to pay
§ For schools trying to get them to pay for it: be honest and say that we think $15 is completely reasonable and we’re trying our hardest to get this covered
- What we need for you all is getting people committing to organize rides (especially if you’re really far away) but also housing
- We encourage everyone to stay with friends if they know anyone in the Blacksburg area, but otherwise we will be able to help arrange for housing. Camping options are also available.
- How do you approach doing a dorm storm?
o At JMU we haven’t done one yet but our plan is to have freshmen who volunteered from our Earth Club to go knocking door to door and telling them what we have to say about Power Vote and Power Shift and hoping for the best. We might run into people that don’t want to be talked to but for every one of those people there is someone that will be interested. This is a really good way to get young people / freshmen plugged in and do dorm storms.
- How are you approaching class raps?
o At GMU did a class rap for Intro to Engineering. One of us talked about Power Vote for a few minutes and then talked about Power Shift for two minutes. We related it to engineering saying that it’s the future and relate it to the designing of solar panels and hybrid cars along with other applications for their engineering skills.
o Put up the website link, organizational meeting time, and other reminders on the board and around campus to get people plugged in. Pass a sheet of paper around class or back of room with contact information.