Replace All Federal Taxes on Income with the Fair Tax Act , HR 25

Post Office Push for April 15th

This is the "Post Office Push" that worked great for us in 2008, our first year in Wis Dist-3. We began by setting up a table at ONE post office in Eau Claire, Wis., population 60,000. We had some information on hand that I printed off the FairTax.org web site and copies of both FairTax books to show people. We taped a few sheets on the front of our table that had the FairTax.org logo. The post master did not want us on post office property so we set up on the sidewalk and they did not say anything to us. We put it together just days before April 15th (felt more like hours). We also scheduled a FairTax Rally for one week after (Tax Free Day would work great if timing is right). We printed up 100's of 1/4 sheet invitations to the rally and passed them out that day at the post office. It was fairly crude, but it worked. We talked to a lot of people that evening. We were there for about 4 hours. They were very interested in what we had to say. Let's just say they were in the mood to listen, which was key. We also passed the invites out to neighbors, coworkers, friends and family. Pretty much anyone who would take them and take extra to pass out on their own.
The rally was held a week later at a local town hall. Typically you can reserve them for free (with a deposit) by telling them you are a not for profit, civic organization and not affiliated with any political party. We invited Minnesota's State Director, Dennis Madden to come over and give a short presentation and then took questions. From that first meeting we found a core group of about a dozen people that have helped spearhead our efforts in our first year. We had about 75 people show up for that first rally. But I figure we had 100 or so register at FairTax.org during that period. Not a bad start!
With the fiscal and political climate being what it is, I think we will do even better this year. We will be advertising more in local papers and radio (We are hoping to use the Ad currently set up at FairTax.org). We plan on being at more of the local post offices and having more volunteers. We have the DVD's to pass out and developed a business card that we also hand out to anyone we can. We'll have stamps to give away this year, since the location we were at ran out. Can you imagine- no stamps on April 15th at the postoffice. And this time we will be pushing FairTax Nation and Zap, as well as FairTax.org. We will also make sure we have a donation bucket available. There are always those that are greatful for our efforts and want to give, just not of their time. We might also have a laptop available to sign people up on the spot. We may try to work in the Tea Party/ march on Congressman Kind's office (who coincidentally is on the W&M committee).
So if this is something you might like to try, go for it and please let us know if it was successful. If you have any comments or further ideas for us, we welcome them.

Bob Martin
Volunteer Community Coordinator
ChippewaValleyFairTax.org

"Power is power, and it will manifest itself
whenever resources are at stake." - Mark Stein

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Comment by Bob Martin on April 16, 2009 at 3:19pm: Here is what we experienced this year(2009). Of course we have yet to hold our follow up. We registered some supporters after the post office closed. But we had more than we could handle handing out information and an invitation to a FT presentation we will do next Tuesday evening as our follow-up. We were at our local post office from 11am-7pm and had reps in 2 other local cities at the respective post offices and we mingled into our local TEA party for the first hour getting invitations to nearly every attendee. By the end of the day we handed out nearly 1500 invites to the presentation. We have an ad that will run in the papers this weekend as well. I will let you know how successful this approach was. It worked well for us last year.

Comment by Bob Martin on March 1, 2009 at 10:47pm: I'd say that's pretty good for a random post office event. Use that meeting to get a few people to do it again on April 15th. If you can get enough people for the whole day-great. Otherwise the best times are after work(4-10pm) when everyone is racing to get their taxes in. You'll probably increase your efforts ten fold. People love to complain about taxes that day.

Comment by Danny Higgins on March 1, 2009 at 8:43pm: hey bob, we just had our first post office event yesterday. we live in a town of about 10,000 or so people. We were there from 930a to 1130a and passed out about 100 flyers promoting the fairtax and our meeting that we are having at the library on tuesday night at 6pm. We got 12 sign-ups. We didnt have a table we just stood out there and passed out info. I would like to do a table with a laptop in the future. I am eager to see how many are going to show up at the meeting tuesday night.

Comment by Brett Weiss on February 27, 2009 at 9:03am: A little town in Central Texas called Spicewood. I can do the cut, paste and print thing. Thanks for sharing the info.

Comment by Bob Martin on February 25, 2009 at 4:33pm: Brett, Where are you located? We literally set up a small table, printed some single page synopsis from FairTax.org website, made single sheet copies of the logo and taped them on the front of the table. Our angle was the meeting invites for a week later. I am sure you can find someone near you that would come run that meeting.
Bob

Comment by Brett Weiss on February 25, 2009 at 3:57pm: Bob, I was thinking about having a Post Office event at our local office on Tax day. Having never done one, and having no local organization. Do you have any tips? Are there any resources available (i.e. collateral material) or are this self funded events?

I like the laptop idea.

Comment by Dave Sibole on February 25, 2009 at 2:24pm: Follow up is always key and one of the easiest things to ignore. You breathe a sign when the event is over and start thinking about another one. The follow up should be considered an event. (We haven't been doing so good on follow up, I'm talking to myself here.)

Dave