Precinct Chairs: How much time does it require REALLY?

I'm considering volunteering to be Pct Chair (The fighting 688th) and I'm told by the Dem leadership that meetings are about every quarter and you can 'put as much time as you'd like" into it.

I'm interested, but don't want to set myself (and the Dems in Pct 688) up for failure if it really requires a lot of hands-on effort, which I can't spare. (I'd expect things to heat up leading to an election so I'm OK with that.)

If you do nothing I doubt anyone in your precinct would notice. Sad, but true.

included. Join us. We can all learn together!

I think whatever you do beats having no chair at all.

:hi:

1) Hold the precinct convention ... there won't be another one until 2008...
2) Attend quarterly Executive Committee Meetings.

That's it, and we DO have precinct chairs that just do the minimum, but honestly, I wish they would find someone else who really wants to do the job and let THEM do it. (Because a lot of times if the job is "taken" a person who might be an involved activist sees that and doesn't bother to ask if the chair really WANTS to work their precinct.) And I think you really DO need to be organizing your precinct on behalf of the party if you are a precinct chair. This entails:

1) Knowing the boundaries of your precinct.
2) Knowing more or less who is in your precinct; for example, I have about 500 consistent D primary voters, about 500 consistent R primary voters, and about 2500 people who just vote in the general election.

It is my goal to talk to each one of those 2500 people before the fall general election, one way or another. This means recruiting people to help me blockwalk and phone bank.

It also means record keeping. I am building an online mailing list of Democrats for ease of communication. I am also keeping a database of all of the precinct voters and logging when they get contacted. I use this database to generate snail mail to my precinct, which I send to those who don't get email. I update it when people move in and out of the precinct and I will be updating it over the next year as I identify Democrats.

The entire goal of organizing a precinct is to know who the Democrats are and who the Republicans are and in the weeks running up to the election, get the Democrats out to vote. That's it, and it does work, but it takes a lot of voter contact to do it. Still, it's what we really need to be doing.

PM me with your email address and I can email you a sample precinct plan.

Cheers!
C

I do want to do more than the minimum. I'll talk it over with Mrs R and see if she's willing to share me with the Party. ;-)

PM coming, and thanks!

at my old address in Dallas, because nothing was done (that I could see).

I've just been appointed as chair in my precinct, and I can't wait to get started. :)

At the training session for the voter database on Saturday, the teacher by chance used my precinct as an example, and the database showed that we have almost 250 registered democratic women in my precinct alone! I was amazed! And so excited!

And now I need to PM you for that precinct plan... if'n you don't mind. :)