Sue Peters Sign Waving - Seattle Teachers - Fri. 18 Oct and Fri. 1 Nov. 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I.) Directions: WHO, WHEN, WHERE, WHAT, HOW
II.) The Candidates.
III.) General Commentary.

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I.)  Directions: WHO, WHEN, WHERE, WHAT, HOW

WHO:  

WE the teachers of Seattle need YOU the teachers of Seattle ...!! Parents, retired teachers, regular old citizens - welcome! 

I need corner 'captains'. I'll get signs to the corner captains. Corner captains make sure the signs are to the intersection on time, and make sure that someone collects the signs up at the end of the rah-rah for reuse. 

WHEN:
Friday the 18th of October, 4:00 to 6:00 is 2 days after ballots have gone out in the mail, lots of people vote early!
Friday 1 Nov. 4:00 - 6:00 is the weekend before the ballots are due - remind people going home to vote!

WHERE:
Some of us live close to where we work, some don't. 

I'd rather rah-rah with people who live close to me so that on future issues affecting my neck of the woods I have local allies. Some would rather rah-rah with work mates. Whatever works for you!

The following locations are places for which I have confirmed corner 'captains' as of 28 Aug. I'll add more locations as I get more 'captains'. 

- Northgate and 1st Ave. N.E.

- 15th Ave NW and NW Market St. (Ballard)

- Rainier Ave S. & MLK pedestrian bridge at Franklin High School

- Fauntleroy and 35th avenue SW

Come for either day or for both days!

WHAT:

Wave Signs for Sue Peters

(NOTE: as of the sending of this email, I am going to buy 100 signs myself and staple them to sticks, myself - please forward complaints to roundfile@junkmail.com)

HOW:

Hold the sign, don't block traffic, wave the sign. Smile? Wave? Drink hot chocolate? 

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II.) The Candidates.

A.) Who is Sue Peters?

http://suepeters4schoolboard.org/

Sue is on the side of PUBLIC education. 

She has blogged at http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/

B.) Ms. Estey is backed by all the local Gate$ luminarie$ who backed Maria Goodloe-Johnson to the hilt, such as school board members Maier and Debell, as well as the electeds who dump garbage like student test scores into our evaluations - take a bow Sen. Ed Murray & Rep. Carlyle!

WARNING for those of you who get the vapors from comments purposely larded with sarcasm, contempt and disdain - CLOSE YOUR EYES BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING!!!

http://www.thestarshollowgazette.com/diary/8192/no-suzanne-dale-estey-for-michael-debells-open-schoolboard-seat

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III.) General Commentary.

A. WHY this activity, at these times, and these locations?

Whether you've worked on campaigns or not, there are a variety of campaign activities to do (Sign Waving Rah Rah in public / at public events, helping mail stuff, phone banking, door belling, leafleting, writing letters to the editor in legacy media, commenting on blogs or in online articles about the candidate..), there are good times and bad times to do any of the campaign activities (Sign Wave at midnight? doorbell at 02:00 a.m. ?? uh...), and there are a lot of places where the things can happen. 

When you consider the math of Campaign Activities (Multiplied By) the Times To Do The Things (Multiplied By) The places to do the Things = a lot of possibilities. 

When you consider that organizing each activity requires answering WHO,WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, HOW - there is a  lot to do for even 1 activity. 

I already have a full time ++++ job. IF you want to do something else somewhere else at some different time(s)., YOU organize it! IF you want to use this blog etc to organize your thing - ping me at wabat42 at google's mail.

B. Some background.

Over 4 decades, I've been a lowly know nobody on dozens of campaigns, and over that time I've done just about all the different grunt work jobs. On every campaign, I've seen the following sets of contributors:

1. Some Super People who do incredible feats, such as doorbell 10 precincts or phone bank for 5 hours a week or  ...

2. For each Super People, there are 4 or 40 Regular People who contribute some effort several times during the campaign.

3. There are also 4 to 40 Know-Everything-Do-Nothing People for each Super People. They know every strategy and tactic and idea ... and they deliver either nothing or next to nothing. Spare me. 

UNIONS MUST DO ORGANIZING ONLINE

Campaign volunteers need to be able to self-organize on the web because it is too hard to participate. It is too hard to participate because campaign volunteers spend too much time searching for the details to the questions of WHAT, WHERE, WHO, WHEN, HOW when volunteers want to help a campaign.  Volunteers should just be able to go to 1 or 2 connected websites to get calendar information and to get the following details for whatever they're going to do:  

1.)  WHAT are we going to do?  Doorbelling, phone bank, public sign waving rah rah, mailings, leafleting, informational tabling at community events, letters to editor / blog writing, contacting legislators, other? 

2.)  WHERE is the WHAT going to happen?  At the corner of Main and 6th? At the Law Office of SaveEm & SueEm? At the statue of the pig ? Other?

3.)  WHO is involved with WHAT? WHO is the coordinator making sure the details are going to happen?

4.) WHEN are we doing WHAT? Every Friday night, Just Sat the 6th, Other?

5.) HOW are we going to do WHAT? Here are the details for the WHAT. 

Post as many details on the web as possible, so volunteers are less dependent on any coordinator. The fewer the steps + the fewer the contacts to make + the fewer people to rely on will equal the more likely it is for the event to run smoothly. 

EXAMPLE: 

1.) WHAT: Sign Waving for Sue Peters for Seattle Public Schools.

2.) WHERE: At the following (proposed) intersections in Seattle: 

A. Dravus and 15th Ave NW
B. 5th Ave. North and Northgate Way
C. Franklin High School Walkway over Rainier Ave. 
D. Other key intersections in Seattle

3.) WHO: a sign waving coordinator for each intersection will make sure someone is there on time with the signs and someone takes the signs when the sign waving is over. The comment section will have pertinent details for each intersection so that we don't have any information black holes. 

[EDITOR'S NOTE: people contacting each other ... I'm still chewing on the details for this... maybe a google group so people can contact each other / be on the same page? As a full time teacher, I haven't the time to monitor and direct 30 or 300 volunteers, and, having 1 or a few people as coordinators, instead of doing it online, is 1 of the critical failings of the lame "organizing" we already suffer with.] 

4.) WHEN: 

I.) Fri. 18 October and Fri. 1 November, from 4:00 to 6:30 p.m. Note - you do NOT have to be there the entire time!! High School, Middle School and Elementary teachers work different times, and we're exhausted at different times! 

II.) Sat. 19 October and Sat. 2 November, from 2:00 to 4:00 while people are out doing errands. 

5.) HOW: Hold the signs on the sticks, wave the signs around, drink hot chocolate, smile and wave if you feel like it. Don't block pedestrians, don't distract drivers, don't get in screaming matches or fist fights with people from different campaigns, or, our campaign.

Organizing Calendar