[Green-Rainbow] RE: Straw Poll

[Mark O'Lalor]

Hi Gil.  Maine was awesome and my return week was full.  I just read your
proposal.

#1 I can't speak with authority to the estimated costs but I think you are
in the ballpark.

#2 I think there should be a uniform method of contacting the membership
that looks official and professional.  No emails- nobody takes them
seriously.

#3 I think postage paid mail with "please use stamp" would be best.

#4 I think fundraising should be done.  I don't think that it should be
funded out of the general account.  In the future you should not make a
proposal that you don't have the $ to back up and  I should have asked how
it would be paid.  My apologies.

#5 Schedule of out by summer and two months response time seems reasonable.

#6 I welcome the idea of expanding the poll.  I assume that the straw poll
will talk about more than just the refreshing nature of renaming ourselves
and provide our members with some real information about  our merger with
the Rainbow Coalition Party- information which was sadly lacking at the
state convention.

I will call you soon.
Mark O
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark O'Lalor [mailto:molalor at earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 4:07 PM
To: Gil Obler
Subject: RE: Straw Poll


brother gil I am off to maine for a long weekend canoeing and will address
this when I get back.  I  hope the coup de' ta is complete- just kidding
love lots, yours faithfully  Mark O

-----Original Message-----
From: Gil Obler [mailto:greengil at attbi.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 10:58 AM
To: 'MGP State Com'; green-rainbow at massgreens.org; Patrick Keaney;
Andrew Griswold; Dan Corrigan ; Deborah Becker; Kate Harris; Ken
Ostrander
Cc: Mark O'Lalor
Subject: FW: Straw Poll



Background/reminder - At the convention, we agreed to send out a
non-binding referendum straw poll of the general membership as
part of the consensus compromise on the party name change.

Enclosed is my first draft of the straw poll. Obviously, everyone
will want to give input on the scope, contents, and wording of the
poll.

I think if we can come up with a scope and wording that "all sides"
agree is good and fair, then we will be on the best possible grounds.

If anyone cannot read the MSWORD file, I can send an HTML or other
format file individually.

Rose is super-busy right now so she cannot help me guesstimate the
costs and help come up with a fundraising plan to pay for the poll
until after May 7th.

However, I think that regardless of the cost options that we choose
the bottom line is that the poll will be expensive to do. This is the
reason that I propose that we expand its scope beyond just the name
change question, to include questions about where the new party should
head. Adding questions does not significantly affect the cost, but does
increase the potential value (to the leadership and party) of the poll.

Aside from the language that I chose and the possibility of additional
questions, some of the open issues are:

1) Are my estimated costs below accurate, or wildly off? I am assuming
   bulk mailing rates for the sending.
2) Should we attempt to get some forms returned via email, web, or the
   locals? What would be the cost savings relative to the effort?
3) Should we use postage-paid return envelopes (increases the cost but
   also the return rate)? We can always put a "please use stamp to save
   us money" on the envelope even if we do use the postage-paid option.
4) How do we raise money for the poll? As a seperate fund or from the
   general budget?
5) When do we need to have to poll out in the mail and how long a
   period of voting do we allow? I reccommend by this summer for
   the former and at least two months for the later.
6) Should we expand the scope of the straw poll beyond just the name
   change? Given the costs and also in the interests of getting more
   feedback and buy-in from the membership, I think that we should
   expand the poll's scope. However, there may be some dissenting
   opinion on this question (I know from conversations that there in
   fact is).

Once we figure out how to pay for this, I think we should also consider
sending out similar polls every so often.

                             Gil Obler
                             Fundraising Director, Mystic River Greens
                             Massachusetts Delegate, US Green Party

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email                                               greengil at attbi.com
home                                                     (617)623-0582
cell                                                     (617)388-5445
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-----Original Message-----
From: Gil Obler [mailto:greengil at attbi.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2002 9:31 PM
To: Rose Gonzalez (massgreens at igc.org)
Subject: Straw Poll



This is a first draft that I would like to send to the StateCom, AdCom,
Green-Rainbow, etc. lists.

However, before I do I was hoping to get your feedback on:

1) the contents
2) the estimated cost of doing this

My best guess is that, if we do a bulk mailing to all (~6000, is it?)
members, and include postage-paid return envelopes that the costs will
be in the ball-park of:

initial postage		$1200.00
copying			$ 300.00
envelopes			$ 200.00
return-postage		$ 500.00 - $2000.00

This works out as $2200.00 to $3700.00 cost.

I would obviously be surprised if the return rate is much more than say
$1000.00 and that may be wildly high. I also do not really know if the
other costs are realistic, and if there may be creative ways to save
some money (allowing online returns, sending/returning some forms
through locals and county conventions rather than US mail). I am hoping
to get your input on the true costs and whether the alternate
distribution strategies are worth it or we just need to go find the
money somewhere.

Don't you just love unfunded mandates?

                             Gil Obler
                             Fundraising Director, Mystic River Greens
                             Massachusetts Delegate, US Green Party

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email                                               greengil at attbi.com
home                                                     (617)623-0582
cell                                                     (617)388-5445
----------------------------------------------------------------------