Puget Sound Liberals

Our Lake Hills Liberals experimental demonstration project has found some of what works and doesn't work. So replication (creating additional neighborhood Liberals groups) will be easier. Much useful information appears on our website at www.lakehillsliberals.orgwww.lakehillsliberals.org. Dave Thomas (Dav.Thom@comcast.net) will provide leadership and replication training. This training will include how to do the following necessary tasks, for forming a Liberals group in your neighborhood.

Tasks
Initial Preparation
One or more Liberals decide to lead effort to create
               neighborhood liberals group.
Obtain replication and leadership training, requiring 3 hours.
Clarify your liberal values.*
Define your neighborhood and its precincts.
Name your group.
Obtain initial funds.
Obtain yard signs and bumper stickers*

Recruit Members
Obtain a database of registered voters.
Identify likely Liberals.
Canvass likely Liberals to recruit members, and distribute
               yard signs & bumper stickers.

Begin Activities and Communications
Conduct a poll to identify member interests.*
Establish action planning groups.
Begin distributing weekly newsletters
Create your website.*
Initiate Political Action

* We can provide you with ours, which you can use or easily modify.

Leaders decide to create neighborhood group
One or more committed trained leaders must be willing to commit the time and effort necessary to create and develop their neighborhood liberals group. After initial training, they will benefit from being able to adopt the methods that were used in Lake Hills. It will be easy to identify the first 100 prospective members.

Leadership and replication training.
I will provide replication training, which consists of discussing this replication guide and its application to your neighborhood. I will also provide leadership training, which discusses the vision, obstacles, strategies and tactics of the community developer who seeks to change the culture of a neighborhood from 'I can't enhance my neighborhood.' to 'We can work together to enhance our community.'

The primary obstacle is that neighborhood residents have little experience with belonging to a neighborhood community and have little acquaintance with their neighbors. The focus is upon bringing them into a network linked by a weekly newsletter and website. Various action planning groups provide opportunities for members to participate according to their interests.

Clarify your values
Our values define us as liberals. Leaders must be clear about our values, so that they can easily describe these values to prospective members. Every action, our leaders and members take, must be in accordance with these values. In a variety of ways, we must continually attempt to enhance the freedoms and opportunities for all the members of our neighborhood and beyond.

Define your neighborhood
A neighborhood must be large enough to have sufficient people and their resources to create and maintain a liberals group. The neighborhood must be small enough that people can identify with it and come to know and cooperate with other neighborhood members. 10 to 20 precincts may be the best size. Prepare a map which shows the precinct boundaries within the neighborhood. Through research and canvassing, the leaders should obtain a deep understanding of their neighborhood, including its geography, history, residents and groups. Leaders should be able to tell stories about the neighborhood, which entice residents to participate in enhancing it.

Name your group
You might call it the Lake Hills Liberals, Progressives, Populists, Democrats, etc. There are advantages to reaching beyond Democrats to those Independents who also hold liberal values. Notice that we will not be competing with the Democratic Party, but will greatly augment their resources for electing Democratic candidates.

The values and history of Liberals is better defined and more inclusive than those of Progressives and Populists. In spite of Republican attempts to demonize the term 'Liberal', we have found virtually no objection to it, when recruiting members of our Lake Hills Liberals.

Seek contributions
Begin by donating or loaning some money to your group. When recruiting members, note that you have no dues, but appreciate contributions. Early expenditures include creating a database of registered voters including those identified as likely Liberals, purchasing yard signs and bumper stickers and establishing a web site, amounting to perhaps $500. Be on the lookout for people who can assist you with your database management, canvassing, newsletter and web site. Obtain yard signs and bumper stickers

Our Lake Hills Liberals purchased signs and bumper stickers from a sign company for $1 each. We can give you some to get started and then you can purchase others. To reduce the price, we purchased 18" x '24 signs, each containing 4 identical 9" x 12" signs which we cut apart. To use cheaper one color signs, we purchased them with one part being blue on white and the other part white on blue.

Create a database of registered voters.
Your county voter registration department will provide you with data concerning the registered voters in your neighborhood at very little cost. You will need to use MS Access or a similar database program to create a registered voter database for recording information about voting preference, membership in your organization, yard signs, etc.

Identify your likely Liberals
Our Lake Hills Liberals may have some outreach members in your neighborhood which can be spun off to your group. Lists can be obtained which identify neighborhood residents according to their choice of a political party ballot. With the assistance of the Democratic Party, you may be able to obtain walking lists, and lists of PCOs, poll watchers and caucus attendees. We have found that homes which display Democratic yard signs and bumper stickers virtually always join us.

Canvass likely Liberals to recruit members.
Our canvassing guide describes how to canvas. Basically, you canvas for several hours at a time, recruiting most of the likely Liberals you find at home. You introduce yourself as their neighbor, tell them a Liberals group is being organized in your neighborhood, describe our liberal values, and ask if they hold these values. If so, tell them we don't have regular meetings or dues, but plan to distribute an email newsletter. Obtain their email address, phone number and street address. You also ask them to display a yard sign and bumper sticker, which you immediately install.

I anticipate you can easily recruit 100 members within a month. Others can be gradually added. Every time you attend a political meeting, you can recruit a few members, including outreach members beyond your neighborhood. Many more will be added when you begin canvassing to identify likely Democratic voters (see below).

Begin some neighborhood enhancement projects
When you have recruited 100 members, ask them which neighborhood and political issues most interest them and whether they would serve on an action planning group. Begin a few groups to deal with such issues as crime prevention, disaster response, raising successful children, political action, etc. and produce some reports concerning how the neighborhood can respond to these issues. We can provide you with some reports relevant to your neighborhood.

Create and distribute your newsletter
Your newsletter may be weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. More frequent newsletters emphasize your seriousness. You will find plenty of news. Its structure and some of its contents can be adapted from our Lake Hills Liberals newsletter. Include progress reports of your group's development, reports from your action planning groups, other neighborhood information and commentaries. Invite your Democratic legislators and candidates to submit their opinions on various issues. When a few neighborhood groups are formed, we may create a Puget Sound newsletter to be added as a supplement to the neighborhood group newsletters. Our neighborhood group newsletters could then focus upon news specific to their neighborhood.

Create your website
You can begin quickly, by simply copying our website with the name of your neighborhood, modifying it to include contents that are specific to your neighborhood. When we have enough neighborhood groups, we may create a Puget Sound Liberals Website, with links to our neighborhood group web sites.

Initiate political action
Inform your members about political issues, political strategies, legislative proposals, and your Democratic legislators and candidates. Encourage writing letters to the editor. We haven't, but you may wish to do some petition signing, vigiling or picketing. Canvass before the next election to identify likely Democratic voters, sharing the resulting information with all of your Democratic candidates. Coordinate with Democratic Party activities. Avoid competition with them. Augment them.

Additional Information
During your replication training, additional information will be provided and questions answered.