What would a coming together of Obama volunteers, organizers and other supporters be without some action? This afternoon, the group of hundreds of engaged citizens who attended the Legacy Conference in Chicago this weekend took time out to call over a thousand people who have signed up to host Change Is Coming House Meetings next weekend.
Everyone here was fired up and ready to get back to work. People were anxious to take action after the relative rest since the election. The energy was electric. People were hungry. And the same could be said about the people we spoke to all across America.
If you're hungry to get back to work for the change we need, sign up to host or attend a Change Is Coming House Meeting. Stay involved. This is still our moment. And this is most definitely our time. Let's get to work.
Today at the Legacy Conference we are discussing our vision moving forward. We have broken into groups both by area type (urban, suburban, rural) and by state to discuss what we would like to see happen to the campaign's grassroots movement. Volunteers and staff have been discussing:
* what the structure of the organization should look like at the local, state and national levels
* what the new organization should be called
* what the role of volunteers should be
Do you have ideas or suggestions? Please share in the comments below!
Following breakout sessions by state, where team leaders and field organizers told their version of how we won, everyone gathered again in the big Conference room to hear about what we're learning.
Christ Wyant, Deputy Field Director from Ohio, and Yohannes Abraham, Field Director from Virginia, presented some of the findings from the surveys of the 500,000 volunteers nationwide who filled them out--this in addition to surveys from 460 Field Organizers, 80 Regional Field Directors, and 22 Voter File Managers. All this information was analyzed and compiled by a Post Election Task Force, that is combining it with feedback from the Conference to write a comprehensive report about the past and the future of this organization.
Some of what was found includes:
Then, we broke out by state again, but into even more focused groups, by turf type: rural, suburban, and urban, to talk about what worked and what didn't. For example, organizers in urban areas found that doing voter registration at commercial areas and high traffic areas like bus stops was fruitful, while defining volunteer teams very strictly by their geographical region could be more of an impediment.
Currently we're in the debrief section, prior to getting dinner outside the Conference Room. Stay tuned for more.
This morning at the Conference, during the "How We Won" segment, Ohio General Election Director Jeremy Bird welcomed the group, National Field Director Jon Carson provided the historical context for the organizing victory of the Campaign, and Pennsylvania Deputy Field Director Nicole Price harped on one of the most integral parts of the plan: sharing your story. This element will be fundamental to the organizing principles we use going forward.
Nicole called organizer Ashley out of the crowd, whose personal story has become a kind of legend on the campaign--in no small part since Barack referred to it in his "A More Perfect Union" speech. Ashley shared her story, which is featured in the video below, about what community organizing means.
Currently, state organizers and volunteer leaders are meeting in breakout panels again. Last time was about what we accomplished; this time is about what we can do better.
Staff and volunteer team leaders from across the country gathered early this morning for the kick off of the Organizing for Change Legacy Conference. This morning's discussions are focused around how we got here - what worked, what didn't work and the lessons we learned. Jon Carson, National Field Director, started the conference off with his story of how we changed the national map through our field operations.
After hearing the national field story, volunteers and staff broke into smaller groups by state to tell their own stories of how we won. Field Directors of battleground states started the conversation by talking about how they ended up on the campaign and how they saw their states grow during the general election.
Yohannes Abraham, the Field Director of Virginia, took the group of VA staff and volunteers for a trip down memory lane - back to the days in July when the press didn't think we could win Virginia, field offices didn't have phones or internet, and folks had to brave the Virginia heat on a daily basis to register new voters. The hard work paid off though and by the time the convention rolled around a strong grassroots organization had been built. On August 28, the night Barack Obama accepted the democratic nomination for president, there were over 1,000 house parties across the commonwealth of Virginia. The energy and organizing from those house parties created the back bone of the final push to victory in Virginia.
Stay tuned for more stories from the field about how we won and what our vision is moving forward.
Here in Chicago, a dedicated team is hard at work preparing for the upcoming Conference. They’re coming up with presentations that outline what we accomplished over the last 22 months and drafting an agenda that will allow space to talk openly about what we aim to accomplish in the future.
Your feedback is crucial to us, so much of the work involves reading through the volunteer and field organizer surveys that you all filled out and compiling the results into something we can use later.
The data team is busy examining the results of your organizing work, to see what worked in turning out the vote for Barack.
This is just the beginning. With your participation and dialogue at the Conference, this weekend will serve as a crucial part of analyzing the work we have done together and putting together the plan to make Barack's vision of long-term, grassroots change a reality.
**If you can't come this weekend, be sure to check this site over the weekend for a live blog from the Conference. We'll update frequently, to keep you in the loop about what is going on.
Hello Conference attendees!
Still trying to figure out how you're getting to the Conference this weekend? We noticed that some had started to coordinate rides in the comments of the last blog post, so we wanted to let everyone know...
The Conference Ride Board is now up! You can click the "Find or Share a Ride" button above on the left, or you can click on the corresponding link:
http://my.barackobama.com/ConferenceRideBoard
There you'll find that people who can give a ride should e-mail Arusha at agordon@barackobama.com, so we can get some rides on the board.
Thanks, and see you this weekend!
