|
Coordinators Update Literature & Web: Send out lit orders, keep lit in stock, etc. Trying to update things bit by bit. Practicals #1 and #3 were fixed. Low income practical #5 good use a refresher - hoping Dave Gross in CA will renew his offer on that. Made a few changes in "Everyone makes a difference" and Rick did a new layout for the web and for the brochure, both are available. Also updated the Peace Tax Return per the May meeting, and it was printed and available in December. Mary Loehr completed her work on Practical #7some of the in January. It was sent to various people to read and we made some more changes and a bit of reorganizing, so I spent quite a bit of time on that. We think it's pretty good! At this writing Susan Q has it for layout so it looks hopeful that we will have it at the May meeting, in print and all. Yippee! In the course of this, due to copy that was received for that practical, Mary and I talked about bumping some of the copy to "Practical #8, On Money." There are a few essays talking about our relationship to money that seemed to make a good practical. If anyone wants to help put that together, please volunteer! It shouldn't be too hard but needs a coordinator. Edited/wrote More Than A Paycheck for October, December, February, and April. Susan Quinlan and Ajay Advani have traded off the desk top publishing for some years now (since '98?), but Ajay decided in January that it was too much with kids and work. Rick Bickhart will take over Ajay's slot starting with the June issue. Updated Practical #1 with some changes as regards W-4 resistance. Susan Q. redid the layout and Peter Smith posted the text on the web. Ed Hedemann and Peter Smith keep the website updated. We fixed up the Iraq page, adding some articles and ideas and putting a link from the home page. Set up a Bulletin Board for Hang Up On War, as suggested by the Strategy Conference. The process kind of got stuck with a difficult format created by a volunteer so one day, to some extent with his advice, I proceeded to create the page. We are making it public now. Administration/Finances/Fundraising: Add and correct names regularly to the database from calls, emails, lit orders, etc. Wrote the November appeal after the Strategy Conference. Follow up on Strategy Conference feels like it's dragging along slowly - got the minutes and notes out sometime in November. Ed finally got the interviews onto DVD so they are viewable, and there is a committee of folks starting to email on the whole video thing. We'll have follow-up on various topics on our agenda in Seattle. Filing and trying to keep office papers in order. Collect mail from the PO Box a few times a week; sort out contributions and send to the bank for deposit etc. Basic bookkeeping in QuickBooks. Working with the Seattle folks on plans for May. Getting a flyer done and info posted on the website, etc. Information, Referral, Counseling: Answering questions by phone and email. Certainly not a rush this tax season, but my sense of the whole peace movement is that things are not building in the way we might have hoped. Is it our fault? Couldn't say. Send out basic info packets to new callers and do a lot of counseling by email or referring people to the NWTRCC or Hang Up On War websites. With the help of Robert Randall, Peter, and Ed we did have the counselor's training after the conference in October and it was quite good. Do want to get the transcript narrowed down to an out-line with important points listed. I have a volunteer typing up a transcript of the counselor's training, but she has had various problems so the whole thing has been slow to get done. It will be useful when it's done! Helping with Practical #7 I did learn a thing or two about trusts and other issues. Outreach/ Speaking/Media Pretty much the usual here. The best media was in December/January when the San Francisco Chronicle business writer ran a good story of phone tax resistance, picked up by the Seattle Post Intelligencer and the Denver Post among others. Each talked with some local folks. Have tried to get literature out anytime someone wants to table at a national conference or action. We had an active table for Saturday and Sunday at the Sept 24 -25 demonstration and festival in DC. Robert Randall and others tabled at SOAW in November. Susan Balzer tabled at the peacemaker conference in Indianapolis. We shared a table with the Peace Tax Campaign at the National Conference on Organized Resistance in DC; Larry Dansinger covered it for us. Programs/Campaigns Produced the Peace Tax Return and mailed/emailed it out to folks who had used it last year. Placed an ad in the Progressive for it, which I did last year and it gets some response from new folks. Turns out Hang Up On War is the most visited part of our various websites. Phone tax still gets good interest. Bill Ramsey and the "survey/1 year campaign" group have been actively emailing and creating the survey - should be at our May meeting. Finally drafted a flyer specifically about Iraq and wtr that had come up at our Nashville meeting. Joe Maizlish and others had some comments; it should be on the website soon and at the May meeting. Network Sent out minutes and notes from the Strategy Conference in the fall and the postcard mailing for network updates in the fall and for tax day events in January. Collected enough events to list in the newsletter but will continue to do so up until tax day for the website. Finally added a new New Hampshire contact, Tom Jackson, a longtime peace activist and wtr, who is already taking part in email discussion about video possibilities. Peter Smith helped the Austin folks move their website to the NWTRCC server, and he generally keeps that list updated. I made a brief appearance at the New England WTR gathering last fall, always a good place to con-nect with that excellent network. On the one hand, it's hard to find new people for our network, on the other hand the people who are there are quite a dedicated crew and it's always good to hear what's happening around the country! I think that's it for now. If you have questions, do call or email. Ruth |