Liberty for Massachusetts
State Organizing Committee
Draft
Minutes of October 22, 2005
Present: Drobnis, McMahon, Phillies, Power, Roscoe, See, Bob Underwood And guests from the Lowell Area Liberty Association.
The meeting came to order at 5:45 PM. The minutes of the last meeting had been circulated.
Treasurer: The recurring bank charge is $2.50. McMahon and Power estimated our recurring charges for all purposes as about $25 or $40 a month, which is larger than current income and made up by donations. Recurring charges include $80 a year for the post office box, plus cost of shipping materials to the officers, and about $10 or $25 a month for LfM brochures. The brochures put out our name but are not yet effective that generating large numbers of memberships. The possibility of using ISIL brochures was discussed, but those brochures do not give us the full panel or two panels advertising Liberty for Massachusetts and reasons why Massachusetts lovers of liberty should join LFM.
Alternative paths for doing effective outreach were considered. The New Hampshire Liberty Alliance has brought many one issue groups together into a coalition by encouraging each group to focus on their own particular issue rather than disagreeing with other groups about each other's issues. We do have a structure for associated organizations, but have not yet recruited them. The NHLA has a very successful technique for publicizing itself and bringing groups together: It ranks candidates from A to F to Menace To The Constitution.
A strategy for developing support for the candidate recruitment program was worked out after extensive discussion. The first part will be a serious fund raising effort from persons who have historically contributed to libertarian causes in Massachusetts and adjoining states. The second part will be the candidate recruitment and support effort. Unfortunately, under Federal Election Commission rules we cannot go to the names of people who contributed to Federal campaigns. Also, funds raised by Liberty For Massachusetts cannot be given to candidates for state office under state campaign finance laws. However, there are extensive other lists of names that we can use of people who have historically supported Massachusetts libertarian causes. Also, there are prominent libertarians within Massachusetts who have established libertarian state and Federal PACs that can receive funds and lawfully donate them to candidates up to various limits. A fundraising letter was discussed.
All Members Of The Organizing Committee Are Requested To Write Ideas, Paragraphs, Or Other Text, And Send Them All To George Phillies, Who Is Tasked With Uniting These Into A Single Fund Raising Letter.
The general theme is "we're working for liberty. Send us money." The letter will explain what we do, ask people to join, ask for volunteer efforts, and ask for money. We will mail a fund read via first class mail or perhaps 200 via bulk rate mail, see what response we get, and tune are efforts to raise more money from more people. A variety of important issues for the fund raising letter were noted. The letter should include outside envelope with stamp, the actual letter of two or four pages with good white space, a return envelope, a return card to be placed in the envelope, and some demonstration of what we do, such as one of our brochures or the proposed candidate recruitment postcard or recruitment trifold or both. Drobnis distributed draft text for the candidate recruitment postcard.
It was observed that refrigerator magnets can be obtained at 19¢ each in quantities of 1000 or more.
There was substantial discussion of what help we should give candidates and when. There was disagreement between members of the committee as to whether or not the primary obstacle to candidate placement and development was ballot access: collecting enough signatures. Correspondingly, there was disagreement as to whether we should help candidates only after they get on the ballot, or whether we should help them to get on the ballot. There was a discussion of how reach other groups. The notion was that we should identify groups, identify events in which we can do outreach, push the coalition idea with other groups, and do physical contact and personal contact with other groups. A list of various possible groups that support single libertarian issues was noted. The possibility of symbolizing our unity by developing a logo that all of our allied groups would use was noted. There are advantages and disadvantages to this proposal, which was discussed at length.
The Political Facilitator was called upon to work on these issues.