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On Saturday, thanks to a heads-up tweet from Al Giordano, I had the joy of attending a Hillary Clinton Organizer Boot Camp in the Bronx. Here is how it was described:
The bootcamp will teach you marketable skills that will bolster any resume and transfer to many professions. These are also the skills needed to be a strong member of a campaign team.
We will start day off with an overview of the campaign, your potential role as an organizer, and the training of some hard skills. You will complete an application survey to see what you’ve learned and will then have the opportunity to apply your newly learned skills during a call contest. Don’t forget your fully charged cell phone!
At the end of of the day you will be able to sign up to be interviewed to be a part of the Democratic campaigns across the country. Don't forget your resumes if you have them. If not, we will have a short application to fill out on site.
It started at 9:30am, in a fairly non-descript auditorium at Bronx Community College. First stop — the check-in desk:
We were then free to take a seat anywhere inside:
An organizer named Konstantin got us started with a game called “Organizer Bingo” — a fun ice-breaker and opportunity to meet other attendees. I did not win:
Konstantin then basically began teaching the best one-day college lecture you’ve ever been to. Maybe called Progressive Organizing 101 — the Obama/Clinton Secret Sauce. Heh, I just made that up. But we got an overview of how to build teams, engage volunteers, and maximize voter participation. And we watched clips from the 2016 DNC that got us super fired up.
It was also exciting to have Konstantin tell us “You guys are going to be on the front lines of all this!”
After a pizza lunch (provided by them for free), we heard from an organizer named Meghan, who taught us how to make “the hard ask”. She was very funny and inspiring, which is kind of crucial for any after-lunch class. 😀
We then spent a half an hour making actual calls to voters in Pennsylvania. I was slightly nervous, but part of the script was to invite people to Hillary and Joe Biden’s event in Scranton yesterday, so folks were happy to be contacted.
We had broken into teams, and the call statistics at the end of the day got turned into a friendly competition.
Once it was all over, we could decide if we just wanted to volunteer in New York City, or apply to be an actual paid Organizer for Hillary in either Pennsylvania, Ohio or Florida. I chose to apply for Pennsylvania, and set up a half-hour phone interview for the next day (Sunday). It went okay, but I flubbed one of the questions — my brain froze and failed to recall a time in which I worked on a complicated and/or important project with many moving parts. Derp.
I’m nevertheless very happy I got to attend Hillary Clinton’s Organizer Boot Camp. It was a real behind-the-scenes look at the engine of Hillary’s brilliant campaign. It was easily the coolest political event I’ve ever been to.
My favorite take-away from the day: “Call time is sacred."
How about you? What’s the coolest political event you’ve ever been to?
As Always, This is an Open Thread!
LET'S BUILD IN-REAL-LIFE COMMUNITIES!
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Let us know if you’ve got any events that would be of interest to other readers of Daily Kos IN-YOUR-REAL-LIFE space.
WOW. Just WOW. See peregrine kate’s diary about connecting Kossacks at the DNC convention. Great job, Kate!
Her commentary is excellent and there’s terrific food pr0n! If you didn’t notice her coverage in her previous diaries while she was there you should look at her diary history. Stellar reporting! Thanks, Kate for hosting this group on behalf of Daily Kos.
The Readers of Daily Kos making a difference!
Houston Area Kos had an last minute meet-up and still had a very decent turnout. Great when local readers of Daily Kos can rally for critical camaraderie. Go Houston Kos!
DKos Asheville gathered on July, 23rd with Gordon20024 driving from Roanoke to provide the catering for the event. People drove from Charlotte and South Carolina! Special guest Tom Sullivan, 1st Vice Chair: (Precinct Organization & Get-Out-The-Vote) of the Buncombe County Democratic Party. More commentary here and more photos here.
Mini-meetup in Nashville, party of two, ZenTrainer and Ladybug53.
Ladybug53 drove over 2 hours to Nashville today to get voter registration supplies (courtesy of Gordon20024) and to talk voter registration with ZenTrainer. About a 5 hour drive round trip. This was according to ZenTrainer’s diary about it. Ladybug53 was in town to see Liberal Redneck live at a comedy club. She left Nashville with T-shirts, pens, registration forms and a clipboard, ready to go. This is what all readers need to do. Register people to vote, get off your duff!
The Houston Area Kossacks met on June 28, 2016 to dine and listen to some political guests that scott5js, who has really been bringing the local Democratic star-power to their meetups. First Eric William Carter (who won his Justice of the Peace primary!), and now Judge Steven Kirkland, who is running for 334th Civil District Court. Our Houston Kos group had a great conversation with Kirkland about his campaign and Democratic politics. More photos and food pr0n can be seen here: www.dailykos.com/...
navajo maintains the above event list. Kosmail her if you have any diaries about your event or if you have changes or additions.