Well it’s a good thing I’m living on the lake here in Denver outside of Charlotte since this hot weather has been relentless! I moved in on Sunday and had a couple days to soak up the sun before hitting our downtown office in Charlotte.. or is it uptown? I’m all confused on that score. Anyways, Erica and I met Robert at the office to start our first day. We have a really great set up off S. Mint St. but it seemed like nothing could go right on that first day. As we ALL know, phonebanking is a three hour process, two times a week. We were in a room full of computers that had no Microsoft software so we couldn’t open the phonbanking lists on any computer, save one. Not to mention there is no wireless internet so we couldn’t use laptops. Then the phones we were supposed to be using didn’t show up so we had to use our cell phones. This might not sound like a predicament but by the time two hours of phone-talking rolled around, our phones were dying and we had no chargers! At this point the three of us couldn’t help but laugh. Let me just say that if anyone needs state senator Martin Nesbitt’s number or e-mail, I know it by heart.
Erica and I started planning our public event which we have scheduled for July 24th. Our idea is to host a meeting which consists of the Student Government Association (SGA) of Johnson C. Smith University (Of which Erica is the president!), Queens Univeristy, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Johnson and Wales University, Central Piedmont Community College, and Davidson College. The goal is to try to unify these colleges to stabilize a plan for the fall GOTV. We would have our meeting with three or so people from each SGA and then develop a plan for each college to get their students involved whether its by Rides to the Polls, a March to the Polls, etc. At the end of this meeting, we would film a PSA with all the SGA’s of each school using the slogan “Can you hear US now? Vote 2010.” Hopefully, we will succeed in getting some of these colleges together but worst case scenario we will at least gain a little perspective on the community and youth voters. There is still a lot more work to do! We are now preparing to speak on June 17th at the Apartment Association of North Carolina to the Board of Directors there. This is a huge opportunity for me and Erica to gain support and permission to work on GOTV in different rental housing areas; the catch: we have all of seven minutes to make the pitch. Wish us luck!
Alannah– Charlotte
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