Getting people involved- the "Initiation Packet"

We are working on an "Initiation Packet" We are just putting it together but here is the info going into our upcoming newsletter. This is how we will encourage people to get involved. It's more from a member standpoint than it is from leadership. But people commonly want to know how they can be involved without a significant time committment.

We are beginning a new initiative for new supporters and current ones alike. Many supporters come to meetings and just want to know what they can do to make a difference. So we put our heads together and came up with something easy to do. When signing up to support the FairTax in the Chippewa Valley, you will be given your initiation packet. This packet will be a Chippewa Valley FairTax folder that will include the Congressional Letter Writing Campaign, the recruitment program, some informational materials and handouts and some promotional products (buttons, bumper stickers etc.).

• The Congressional Letter Writing Campaign will come with 12 envelopes, stamped and addressed to your Congressman, a supply of FairTax address label size stickers for the closure flap and 12 letters or examples of letters. When signing up you will be given a certain day of the month. So if you live in District 3 and are assigned the 5th of the month, you will send one letter per month, on the 5th to Congressman Ron Kind. We encourage you to write your own letters but feel free to send in the examples. We hope to put up many more letter examples on the Chippewa Valley FairTax.org web site. If you write an original letter, please forward it to us in an attachment and we will post it for others to use. There are other examples on FairTax.org in multiple locations throughout the site, FairTax Nation and Zap The IRS. Please write or put your own return address on the envelope. It has a much more meaningful impact, as do the letters (vs. e-mails). We already have over one months worth of supporters sending letters. The first 2 rounds are going to Washington DC. Subsequent rounds will be sent to their home offices. For Ron Kind that would be in La Crosse and Eau Claire. For Dave Obey, his home offices are in Wausau and Superior.

• The second initiative in your packet will be a recruitment program. As most of you realize, our congress listens to 2 things, money and votes. We do not have enough of the former so we need a lot more of the latter. Very simply, this will be sign up sheets for new supporters and an addressed envelope to send them in to us. We have already started getting these in the mail. The new sheets will have 5 entries and you will get 2 sheets each time, 10 new supporters total. With 1000 local supporters it will only take 2 rounds and we will have 100,000 members. It doesn’t get any easier than that. When a friend tells you it is a great idea but it will never happen, ask them to just sign up and we’ll do the heavy lifting. They can thank us later when they start bringing home their whole paycheck.

• In addition, we will include invitations for upcoming meetings. The invitation will have a blank portion for location and time. Just write in the information as it becomes available and hand them out to friends, family, co-workers and strangers. Anyone you can get to take one. These may come in the form of a doorknob hanger in the near future.

• Last but not least, the packet will include materials and resources you can copy to hand out or use to educate the people in your life. It will include but not be limited to: our business cards, mission letter, information, FAQ’s, useful web sites and more. We will also include a complementary button or possibly bumper stickers, t-shirts, hats etc. depending on suggested donations to fund these materials.