Consultant’s
Report from Ruth Benn
May 2007 –
There were moments in the summer where I felt like I was going to have time to catch up on filing and general tasks, then something would come up, like the AP article in July that led to lots of press contacts and interviews, or the moment when Bill Ramsey took off with the campaign project and many things had to be reviewed and prepared for web and print distribution. Then the newsletter takes a chunk out of a week to write and prepare for desk top publishing, not to mention various phone calls along the way, so the months fly by and I do not catch up with many things….
Nevertheless, I think NWTRCC is in pretty good shape on its 25th anniversary, continuing to serve longtime resisters and trying new things to reach new folks. The affiliate reports indicate satisfaction with what we are doing. Maybe sometimes we don’t set our sights high enough, but then surviving as a network for 25 years is no small feat, so I think we can feel good about that.
Standard tasks and organizational administration.
• The day usually starts with email, which piles up thick and fast.
One of the housekeeping things I need to get to is to clean out the Inbox. It
is overflowing. I try hard to make sure all critical emails and inquiries get
dealt with by me or someone.
• Keeping up the finance records, entering income and expenses in
QuickBooks.
• Sent out the May minutes and campaign proposal reports and revisions
to our network either by mail or email.
• Produced June, August, October newsletters. After each newsletter
is posted on the web I send an email to a growing list of email-only folks.
Special Projects
War Tax Boycott campaign - After the May CC meeting,
Bill Ramsey got rolling with ideas, drafts, and networking to develop a campaign
to follow up on the survey. He drafted a proposal for the UFPJ conference, which
he attended. He solicited ideas and further developed the proposal over the
summer, along with comments from committee members and volunteers. I did a good
deal of work pulling together the pieces and seeing that they got designed and
produced for the web and print versions. This effort took a good chunk of time
in August, but I think we came up with some good web pages and materials that
are useful for all of our WTR work. The “getting started” piece is the sort
of thing we’ve been needing for people who ask “so how do you do it?” Dave Gross
did a lot of work on all parts of this, including creating the online registration
form. Rick Bickhart created the logo and he and Ed Hedemann designed the materials. Ed and Dave both access the
website to keep it updated.
Video - With summer vacations and committee members away at various times it was hard to get much going. The committee has revised the video contest materials with an earlier start this year. We hope everyone will help promote the contest again. We received grants from Muste and Vermont Community Fund (thru a special individual donor). Refused by the Unitarian Fund and also Rubin Foundations to which I applied. A couple large donations came in ($1,000 each x 2) and WRL has agreed to give us $2,500 from a bequest they received for program work. We have $10,265 of the $12,000 up front funds raised and are trying to figure out how to push ahead now. I participate on the video conference calls, but haven’t done as much on this in the last couple months as may be needed.
Fundraising –
• Sent out the May fund appeal right after the May CC. It seems
to have done pretty well. I made a report on Tana’s
request comparing recent fund appeals (most income goes into the general or
large contributor lines). The report looks like this (letter author is just
to give some context):
November appeal comparisons -
General & Large donations
General & Large donations
General & Large donations
May appeal comparisons -
General & Large donations
General & Large donations
General & Large donations
General & Large donations
• Talked or emailed with Eszter a few
times about her Fundraising Clerk efforts. Larry Harper (her partner) was in
a bad car accident a couple weeks after our May meeting seriously injuring one
of his legs, so Eszter has had her hands full. She had surgery in August herself.
Some letters seeking new affiliates got mailed but follow up phone calls were
lagging.
• We have had some new donors appear this year – often it seems
to be someone who found us on the web, particularly people who used to be WTRs
who decided they should start again.
Outreach
• Got lit to Bill Ramsey for UFPJ table in June. Carol Coney
did a bit of promotion at the US Social Forum (but that is one that we should
have made more of an effort to cover). Susan Balzer
got lit and tabled at the Mennonite conference in CA. Tried to get the Pax
Christi conference covered but it was rather last minute and didn’t manage it.
Mary Loehr tabled at the CPT conference in
• We finally got the “Don’t pay for Iraq War” sign on form posted on the
web, but more recently the 2007 War Tax Boycott registration form has been posted.
The
• Certainly the biggest thing to happen since our May meeting was
the AP article that brought us a rash of media calls. Thanks to Robert, Dave
Gross, Ed and
• Peter Smith and Ed keep the website up-to-date, though there is
so much more we could do with it if only we could find more time….. Still, with
hundreds of visitors a day, it is our best outreach tool.
• Generally trying to keep lit stocked and send
it out to folks as needed, such as to a couple CA folks who were going to do
a workshop at a Quaker Yearly meeting out there. Also sent some lit to new contacts
to make sure they knew about and had basic materials on hand.
Network
• Sent out the update postcard in August and am working at cleaning
up all versions of the list. Peter Smith updates the web list after I send him
the changes. The database, printed network list, and email lists
all need to match.
• Clark and Peter Smith coordinated the affiliate project, having
callers get in touch with nearly all of our affiliate groups. It’s been helpful
to get good overall sense of what’s going on out there. I did meet with the
new Executive Director at FOR and attended their Peace Festival.
• Set up the nwtrcc.org/business page on the website, which helps
me to remember where to look for minutes, the handbook, etc. Hopefully others
of you will find this useful. Have plans to further develop counseling info
on that page.
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Final notes – I did take a couple weeks off, one in May and one in August.
I’ll be away at the end of November – the week around Thanksgiving. I’m usually
out of the office on Thursdays, but my schedule does shift so I have decided
not to note that one the answering machine. I do monitor the machine if I’m
out and call back if anything critical comes up. Some weeks I work more than
others, but I track the time and it balances out by the end of the year.
Ruth,